It is intended to plan activities for the reforestation of the areas catalogued as protected, with oak trees and other plants germinated in the community nursery; with the purpose of recovering and conserving the biodiversity of the native species of these areas, and to receive the benefits that this represents.

The building block is built on the principle that a community based initiative to protect cetaceans and their habitats is best done when owned by the local communities itself. It incentivizes, empowers and engages a community and its businesses so that they benefit directly from a healthy and thriving ocean. 

To coordinate and facilitate the development of a WHS initiative, a steering committee is formed by local stakeholders. These are enthusiastic, creative and passionate individuals who steer the process and help launch, maintain, and sustain the application process.

An effective WHS steering committee should be fully diverse and inclusive and representative of the community and include staff, volunteers, and community members. Its purpose is to serve as a mobilizing force, not a bureaucracy. Making the process meaningful and purposeful for everyone involved. Within the process there is guidance on establishing sub-committees or workgroups to focus on specific goals and activities. 

As well as leading and manageing the process of application, the steering committee must show continual improvement across the community with its various initiatives, through annual reporting as a measure of WHS's excellence.

The community nursery is the main element as a means of producing unlimited natural resources, if its management is optimal, to be used in the reforestation of areas with forest loss, deterioration or deforestation. It is essential to avoid buying or waiting for donations of trees or plants, which represent costs in money and time. It can also function as a means to generate income with the commercialization of the resources produced in the nursery, with the purpose of being self-sustainable.

We are constantly working to measure our environmental and social impact in terms of the internationally known Sustainable Development Goals. This has allowed us to find synergies between our project and other organizations which in turn has accelerated our growth.

The work of the Sanghatan is merely to empower the Van Gujjars within the Chaur by propagating techniques of breed conservation but are not directly involved with the day-to-day milk trade and profit. Nonetheless, the Sanghatan keeps a tab on the number of bulls, young calves, pregnant buffaloes, and those which produce milk on a monthly basis. Out of the 1528 buffaloes raised within the Chaur, around 475 buffaloes at present produce milk during this season. On a daily basis, a total of 700-800 litres of milk is collected in this season but this number rises to 1100-1200 litres in winters as it is the season when buffaloes give birth to young calves.

One of the lines we have is the creation of corporate forests. What we do is to link companies to implement their corporate social responsibility strategy through us by planting a forest in the Amazon. Many companies implement it to integrate their different stakeholders (employees, customers, partners, suppliers, etc.) in their strategy, planting a tree on behalf of each of them, which has proven to be very successful.

The Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sanghatan has initiated several initiatives for the youth amongst them to turn towards education, both from schools as well as self—study groups which also initiate them towards traditional knowledge protection, bird watching, nature guiding, outdoor education through trails and games, handicrafts and cultural orientation of the community, to preserve their forest identities. The tribal identity is further promulgated in their sincere efforts to file for individual and community claims through the Forest Rights Act, 2006 as well as initiate community restoration drives, practices of herd mobility by empowering pastoral opportunities, prepare forest fire prevention squads and protect forests from poachers and cattle smugglers. They have currently undertaken a project to document the traditional knowledge and ecosystem benefits of 20 species of flora, which have food, medicinal, household or cultural uses for the community. 

In 2019, Shark Spotters identified the need for more practical interventions to conserve our coastline from human impacts, and therefore started a “Coastal Conservation Team”, working in partnership with the City of Cape Town to conduct proactive and reactive conservation activities that make a significant positive impact on the coastal environment. These include sand dune stabilisation and rehabilitation, removal of ghost fishing gear, vessel waste and other pollution from the coastal zone, management of stormwater outlets at the beach interface to reduce land-based pollution entering the sea, repair and removal of damaged coastal infrastructure after swell/storm damage, ocean water quality testing, responding to stranded animals and more. Their presence ensures our coastal habitat is protected from human degradation as well as the effects of climate change, and that our oceans remain healthy for sharks and other marine creatures.

During the recent pandemic, we found more and more people using the coastal zone as it was often the only "safe" exercise and recreation area. This saw an increase in pollution and other human impacts on the coast and highlighted the need for more awareness around the importance of active citizenship in protecting these areas that provide so much economic and social value to communities.

Education & awareness is key to a successful shark-safety strategy and we work hard to provide factual, non-sensational information about  shark-safety to visitors to our beaches so that they can make informed decisions about risk when entering the water. We also aim to foster a greater understanding of sharks and their important role in the ecosystem in order to change people’s perspective of sharks, from fear to acceptance.

Our Info Centre serves as an interactive space for the public to connect with the program and access information about sharks and marine conservation, seeing thousands of local and international visitors every year. We also perform numerous educational outreach activities in our surrounding communities, reaching +/- 3,000 participants directly and many thousands more through festivals and exhibitions we participate in. We have developed a marine safety and conservation education program for all ages, from pre-primary to University level, with many aspects aligned with the South African CAPS curriculum.

Our unique mobile app provides real time shark-safety information and other beach conditions for all our operating beaches. This is an invaluable tool for visitors to the area to ensure they have the most up to date information about shark risk before visiting the coast.

Open-grazing and over-cutting in dryland areas reduces vegetative cover, making them prone to erosion and causing downstream flooding.

DryDev introduced FMNR as a low-cost community-led approach that build consensus on how to manage and govern open-grazing areas through local by-laws (including fines for non-compliance). FMNR uses selective pruning to assist recovering trees and stumps. In denuded areas where root stocks are not present, enrichment planting was undertaken to maximize vegetative cover in the protected areas.

Physical structures were also used, such as terraces, trenches, half-moons, check-dams and gully reclamation structures. 

Biological and physical structures in open grazing areas (now protected) led to rapid vegetative recovery, recovery of springs and the rise of groundwater. Smallholders improved their water access for household needs, for small crops and fruit trees, and for animals.