ground to help the natural world around us.
It can never be said that the EWT is merely
a poster organisation tasked with raising
funds and never really being seen using
them for the purposes they are intended for.
Instead it can be said that this is a team who
aren't just raising funds, but that are also
looking for ways in which to spend them
to the benefit of the communities and the
wildlife it aims to protect.
need to do our work, as well as what it terms
a rapidly escalating environmental crisis.
It believes that the loss and degradation
of South Africa's biodiversity has serious
implications for our society as well as our
economy and they want to make a difference
in changing this.
essential services such as the provision of
clean water and air, prevention of soil erosion,
pollination of crops, provision of medicinal
plants, nutrient cycling, provision of food
and shelter and the meeting of spiritual,
cultural, aesthetic and recreational needs.
This coupled with the fact that our economy
depends heavily on biodiversity including the
fishing industry, game and livestock ranching,
horticulture, ecotourism, agriculture, trade
and the commercial and subsistence use of
medicinal plants, all has a major impact on our
total value added to the economy by
all ecosystem services in South Africa,
excluding the marine environment and the
value generated by the extraction of water
resources, is around R73 billion per annum,
which is approximately 7% of the country's
annual Gross Domestic Product.
the ecosystems around us in tact as they
play a role in providing cost-effective
resilience to the impacts of climate change
as well as extreme climatic events.
According to its mission statement: "The
overall socio-economic well-being of the
people of South Africa therefore depends
on balancing development and conservation
through sustainable biodiversity use, and
are essential to the future wellbeing of all of
our people."
tirelessly to create awareness and put
people into action around integrating the
conservation of species, habitats and
ecosystem processes. It does this by placing
an emphasis on protecting both threatened
species as well as habitats. Every one of
these cannot be mutually exclusive as the
habitats it hopes to protect are often the
homes of the ecosystems, which it is aiming to
preserve, and vice versa.
means protecting the habitats that support
species and human beings and in this
way entire ecosystems, communities and
socio-economic structures reap the benefits
of our work."
it is that of custodian of our wildlife, our
natural resources and habitats as well as
our biodiversity as a whole. It works with
people, business and government to foster
an understanding of the importance of
these and plays a role in our day-to-day
understanding of these key elements.
of our environment visit ewt.org.za.
support the EWT and
other charities by simply nominating them
as beneficiaries when they register, it costs
members nothing and in turn the nominated
charity will earn 5% of all the rewards earned
by members