Wildtrak to Renosterveld

Ford, through the Ford Wildlife Foundation (FWF), supports various local environmental protection initiatives with vehicles. The Overberg Renosterveld Conservation Trust near Bredasdorp in the Southern Cape is one of them. We visited their Haarwegskloof c

While World Ranger Day is annually celebrated on 31 July to recognises the important role game rangers play in preserving our wildlife, and for their hard work in and around national parks, protected forests, and wildlife reserves, not all rangers wear khaki.

Through the Ford Wildlife Foundation (FWF), Ford of Southern Africa uses Rangers of a different kind to support environmental education, research, and conservation projects. Since the FWF was launched in 2014, Ford has assisted a large number of FWF partner organisations through the loan of Ranger Double Cab 4×4s for a period of two years, to ensure that they are able to carry out their work in even the most remote and hard-to-reach locations.

A total of 25 Rangers are currently on loan to a wide variety of far-reaching conservation projects: from those focusing on preserving and expanding precious grasslands to those addressing critically endangered animal species. Under the multiple organisations supported by the FWF is the Overberg Renosterveld Conservation Trust (ORCT); a small Nonprofit Organisation founded to preserve the remaining fragments of what used to be the dominant veld type in the Overberg district.

A threatened habitat

Originally, Renosterveld covered the entire clay- and shale-based lowlands of the Overberg. Part of the Fynbos Biome, but distinct, and comprising the most fertile soils of the region, it was first identified as being most suitable for agriculture by early European settlers, and relatively soon thereafter it was radically and almost unrecognisably transformed due to livestock grazing and incessant ploughing.

Nowadays, the unique veld is highly fragmented, with fewer than 50 being over 100 hectares in size. Only about five percent of the original Renosterveld is left within the Overberg and almost all the remnants are on privately-owned land. This creates an additional challenge for conservation and coupled with the large range of threatened endemic plants and animals inhabiting this bio-hotspot, it is one of the most threatened habitats on Earth.

With this in mind, we set off from Cape Town on the N2 towards Swellendam with the latest Ranger double cab Wildtrak. Revised about a year ago, the flagship Ranger is now equipped with the SYNC 3

system with embedded navigation, eightinch touch-screen colour display, and voice control, and by using Waze we set Haarwegskloof as destination via Applink.

Biturbo power

The Wildtrak is now also equipped with the same two-litre four-cylinder biturbo diesel engine and ten-speed transmission doing duty in the Raptor derivative. With 157 kw under foot and 500 Nm of torque the double cab, looking dashing in Saber Orange with titanium-effect accent colours, effortlessly jaunted up Sir Lowry’s Pass. We even tried the additional SST (Select Shift Transmission) function, locking out selected gears while climbing the steep gradient.

The comfortable, more upscale interior, now with Active Noise Control (ANC) and sportier, partial-leather seats with carbonlike weave accents, orange stitching, and Wildtrak graphics, made our journey feel brief and it was not long before, just short of Swellendam, we turned off on a wellmaintained gravel road leading towards De Hoop and Malgas.

Even on 18-inch rubber the ride quality of the Ranger, now with revised front stabiliser and damper settings, was composed on the dirt roads crisscrossing the region and soon the buildings at Haarwegskloof came into view. No less than three Rangers, including an original pre-facelift Super Cab, welcomed us at centre, consisting of the Old Dairy – a beautifully renovated and converted mudwall building – and a research centre.

Passion to conserve

All masked up and with face shields supplied by Ford, we were warmly greeted by Dr Odette Curtis-scott, Director of the Trust, and her team. She quickly explained that the sole purpose of the small NPO is the conservation of the neglected and critically endangered lowland Renosterveld habitats.

Established in 2012, the Trust has partnered with NGOS and farmers to test a new conservation structure called Conservation Easement; attaching a servitude to the title deed of the landowner with a management plan attached to this. The ORCT team then provides support to protect remaining Renosterveld patches. “The blueprint for this model is already in place and we are now rolling out support to landowners,” Dr Curtis-scott said.

We then took the fleet of Rangers up a steep hill near the centre. From here we had a clear view of the beautiful surroundings, with farmland interspaced by “drab” spots of Renosterveld. With over 500 species, the plant life is exceptional, and the ORCT has been instrumental in discovering many new species in the region. It is also home to many birds and mammals that depend on the habitat.

The passion of the team to conserve this threatened ecosystem and ensure its

future, is tangible and with the support from the Ford Wildlife Fund and other partners, their dedication will not go unrewarded. “We often need to access difficult to reach places and travel long distances on dirt roads to visit farmers and landowners, and our Rangers are indispensable for this .... ” said Dr Curtiss-scott.

Besides the efforts of the Trust to conserve the original habitat, this part of the Overberg is spectacular and certainly worth a visit and for those wanting to explore the area close to De Hoop and the Breede River, the Trust offers affordable accommodation at the Haarwegskloof Renosterveld Reserve.