A Rocha - Taking Flight in South Africa

In the closing weeks of my 3 year stay in Canada, in 2001, I had the joy of meeting Peter and Miranda Harris, International Team Leaders of A Rocha International (ARI). Joyann and I returned from Regent College, Vancouver, in May that year to Pietermaritzburg, and a ministry with the Students’ Christian Organization, training staff interns for student ministry in the Short Term Experience in Ministry (STEM) Programme. I invited Kelly Brown, a Masters student in Zoology at UNP, Geoff Gould, an outdoor educationist and John Roff, director of nature interpretation for the National Botanical Institute to help me put together a Creation Stewardship and Outdoor Leadership Course for part of the STEM training. When I mentioned the course to Peter and Miranda Harris they offered STEM initial funding for it, and encouraged me to use the experience to initiate an A Rocha network in South Africa. Two years later I find myself chairing the South African A Rocha Initiative with provincial committees in KZN and the Western Cape. A dedicated group of conservationists and scientists have joined hands with me and local community leaders in Sobantu township in a re-greening project which is about to be registered officially with ARI in Portugal this July.

The A Rocha Trust was first set up by a group of friends in the U.K. in 1983. The result of their prayers and work was the establishment of a research and education centre at Cruzinha on the ecologically sensitive Alvor Estuary in Southern Portugal in 1986. By 1995, A Rocha Portugal had been established as a national NGO, with a diverse mission statement including research, education and community development. Peter and Miranda Harris then answered requests from Christian groups in Lebanon, France, Kenya, Canada and the U.K. to assist them to establish A Rocha projects. Since 2000 the number of National A Rocha movements has risen to 12 countries. ARI has established its international office in Cambridge with David Payne as Managing Director. John Stott, Vinoth Ramachandra and Martin Goldsmith are among its international referees and trustees. And right now Ghana, South Africa, Peru and Romania are applying to ARI for recognition of their conservation projects, with a view to becoming fully fledged NGOs in the near future. A Rocha is the Portuguese word for “The Rock”. ARI encourages national projects to foster partnerships between scientists, lay people, and community and conservation organisations to make the conservation of local biospheres become a reality to ordinary communities and local churches. The aim of encounter with Jesus Christ as sustainer and redeemer of Creation, in the challenges of real conservation projects, is the heart of the A Rocha vision.

A Rocha South Africa is a fledgling group of Christians from many backgrounds with a vision for involving the churches and local communities in creation care, sustainable development and environmental education. The Sobantu project will re-establish indigenous vegetation after 5 years of exotic tree felling, in response to health hazards caused by nesting egrets and herons. STEM’s Creation Stewardship course has trained three young men and four young women to initiate outdoor learning activities and plan creation interpretation events for young people, mostly in township contexts. In the process these STEM interns have spoken about their own personal transformation and healing as they have spent time alone and together in the mist-belt grasslands and forests of the KZN Midlands. This kind of formative encounter with the Creator in creation is what the initiative committee hopes A Rocha South Africa will facilitate more widely in future, in addition to community development work, research, and real conservation of South Africa’s shrinking yet, globally significant biomes.

A Rocha South Africa’s first three national trustees are Rt. Rev. Philip Le Feuvre of Limpopo, Mrs. Joan Houston of U.N.P. and Prof. Les Underhill of the Avian Demography Unit at U.C.T. And then, Mark Brown, of the School of Botany and Zoology at UNP, and Chairman of Birdlife KZN Midlands, Mr. Cain Mbense, Ward Committee member for Sobantu Township, Christian Tham, Environmental Officer in the KZN Department of Environment and Agriculture, Brent Corcoran, Conservation Planner for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the provincial conservation agency in KwaZulu-Natal, Dalton Gibbs of Rondevlei Nature Reserve, and Barry Wiesner, an environmental consultant in Cape Town, are the committee members who are leading the A Rocha South Africa process.

For more news of South Africa’s progress in the registration process watch this space in TBP or visit ARI’s website at www.arocha.org

To get involved locally contact me in KZN at halleljoy@futurenet.co.za or Barry Wiesner in Cape Town at barrywiesner@mweb.co.za

Allen Goddard

Excerpt from NECCSA Update November 2003

A Rocha South Africa has recently been formally accepted as part of the A Rocha International by the International Trustees.  

In the August NECCSA Update we mentioned the start beginnings of A Rocha in South Africa:  “A Rocha is the Portuguese word for “The Rock”. ARI encourages national projects to foster partnerships between scientists, lay people, and community and conservation organisations to make the conservation of local biospheres become a reality to ordinary communities and local churches. The aim of encounter with Jesus Christ as sustainer and redeemer of Creation, in the challenges of real conservation projects, is the heart of the A Rocha vision.

A Rocha South Africa is a fledgling group of Christians from many backgrounds with a vision for involving the churches and local communities in creation care, sustainable development and environmental education.”

If you would like to know anything further about A Rocha’s work in South Africa please contact Allen Goddard, based in Pietermaritzburg, on halleljoy@sco.za.org. The A Rocha International website is: www.arocha.org.