While apple farming is a big part of the renown of the Langkloof, numerous other endeavours feature among the activities that sustain the people of the Kloof. The harder they all work, the bigger the impact on nature in their beautiful valley, unless it is done smartly.
Impact on nature is so easy to see in cities. It also happens in places like this and some of it has to for sustaining the people. Slow, insidious deterioration can be overlooked or underestimated. Alarming feedback about escalating climatic risk is global, making locals often feel helpless.
Will this valley look better or worse in a hundred years? What drives the change here? Can anything be done by the locals? Those that love the place, or any place for that matter, can take hands in sustaining their asset, particularly because their skills, powers and opportunities are different and complementary.
The Kloof can’t solve the world’s problems, but all parts of the earth share in its fate and the little things done right locally, everywhere, are real and vital, contributing to the whole that is worth striving for.
Pretoria can’t save the Kloof’s problems, but using knowledge and resources from everywhere does strengthen local capacity for sustaining the environment.
The invitation lies in the beauty, the value that can be lost.