Beyers Memorial

We relocated 30 elephants from the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal as they had been earmarked for euthanasia. These elephants became the cornerstone of a dream to build a massive eco-reserve by purchasing redundant small agricultural farms that were no longer viable. At the cornerstone of this idea was the rewilding of African land. It was our belief that by reintroducing indigenous wild animals to wild land, that they would be the best custodians and restorers of that land buy revitalising the macro and micro ecosystems.

Beyers Coetzee, one of our founding partners in the Loziba project had the responsibility of insuring that the elephants remained out of community land, land historically occupied by the indigenous peoples of KwaZulu-Natal where their homesteads and livelihoods were established. On one such occasions, of moving elephants away from these “red zones”, of community land, Beyers was trampled and killed. I decided that one of the most important things to do was to honor his life and thus built this memorial on exactly the spot where he was killed.