World Nature Conservation Day: South Africa’s natural heritage is disappearing quietly

Most conservation losses do not begin with bulldozers, but with indifference – a landscape dismissed as ‘just scrub’, a patch of land assumed to have little value, a decision postponed until the opportunity to protect it has disappeared. As we observe World Nature Conservation Day on 28 July, it is worth asking: how many of South Africa’s most important natural places remain invisible until they are gone?