Project Objectives
LIVING LANDSCAPE
PROJECT
Project Objectives
What we do
Krakadouw Trust
Trustees
Contact
JOB
CREATION PROGRAMME
Training
Guiding
People Involved
Contact
TEACHING PROGRAMME
What we offer
Accommodation
Instructors
How to participate
EVENTS & ACTIVITIES
Events
Archive
CRAFT SHOP &
ROCK ART TRAIL
Crafts
Rock Art Trail
Accommodation
Bookings
Landscape as a learning framework
The objectives of the Living Landscape Project are to use the local landscape as a framework for integrating the learning process and for reconnecting people with a past from which colonialism and apartheid have largely severed them. It is thus a programme that seeks to empower people by establishing an accessible archive of historical, archaeological and environmental information with explicit links to a job creation initiative, a new schools curriculum and new heritage legislation. By creating a sense of local ownership over this heritage landscape, local people will be enabled and encouraged to look after its particular cultural qualities, monitor damage, and participate effectively in creating a tangible sense of custodianship. In this way, future damage or disrepair, or simply neglect to the heritage, can be minimised.
Landscape for environmentally sustainable job creation
Furthermore, the Living Landscape concept provides an opportunity for local people to take an active interest in the evolution of various possible future landscapes for the Clanwilliam area. The current interest in community involvement that is characteristic of environmental management and development programmes in South Africa is a very real issue for the furtherance of this project. It provides a framework to link social and environmental programmes to the process of creating futures that are wealth creating, job widening, and environmentally sustainable.
An orthographic image of the town of Clanwilliam situated alongside the Clanwilliam Dam where the Jan Dissels meets the Olifants River. What perspectives are required to relate to this landscape? How does the local community inhabit this terrain?
This project, therefore, provides an opportunity to relate history to futurity via empowerment, education and the building of training schemes for landscape interpretation and environmental evaluation. These tools are vital for long term land use and natural resource management in South Africa as a whole. They also provide a basis for extending the value added by tourism to the poor rural areas where meaningful interpretative capacities are currently underdeveloped.
Heritage Park in the future landscape
Building on a strong reserve of community support, the next phase of the Living Landscape Project is to develop a Heritage Park at the southern edge of the Clanwilliam municipal area. This involves the rehabilitation of the town rubbish dump, the reclaiming of the wetland area that has been impacted by waste disposal, the eradication of alien vegetation along the Jan Dissels River and the development of archaeological sites along the river banks. This area is close to the town of Clanwilliam and contains a rich complex of geological, botanical, archaeological and historical localities set in a magnificent Cederberg landscape. Establishing and maintaining this Living Landscape Heritage Park will generate sustainable jobs for many Clanwilliam residents and extend the tourist potential of the region.
The Living Landscape craft programme has explicit links to historical, archeological and environmental information.
We believe that by creating a sense of local ownership over the heritage landscape, local people will be enabled and encouraged to look after its particular cultural qualities, monitor damage, and participate effectively in creating a tangible sense of custodianship.
The Living Landscape is working to
provide a framework to link social and
environmental programmes to the process of creating futures that are
wealth creating, job widening, and environmentally sustainable.