Estate Living Magazine Invest SA - Issue 45 September 2019 | Page 24

P R O P E E S R T T A Y T E & R I E N V V I E E S W T S M E N T
on the savanna, and bushveld in between. Herbert tells us that
the land was fairly untouched, except for the 10% of savanna that
was probably agricultural farmland at some point. One of their
first priorities was to develop an environmental management plan
for the estate specifying a conservative maximum game carrying
capacity – particularly useful in years of drought.
‘We brought wildlife back in, changing things back to nature. By
bringing back all the major nature components and having people
share in it in a limited and responsible way, we have seen how nature
responds by bringing back all the other little things. We brought in
giraffe, kudu and waterbuck, red hartebeest, impala and everything
that occurred here naturally except for the dangerous animals like
buffalo and rhino.’
It is amazing to realise that once all the houses on Boschhoek
are built, only around 0.25% of the estate will be under roof. The
rest belongs to nature.
Camera traps now show evidence of civets, aardvark, porcupine,
genets and other small game, and there are small existing brown hyena
and leopard populations on the farm. The estate manager, Jandre
Higgo, grew up on a farm and is a qualified FGASA nature guide, so he
is well suited to managing an estate of this nature. His can-do attitude