The mission of the organization is to place people at the center of conservation solutions, through restoring ecosystems and ecological infrastructure on community-owned land, and establishing circular, inclusive biodiversity-based, diversified, climate smart livelihoods on the land.

The core activity is to form meaningful partnerships with rural communities around alternative use of their land, establishing sustainable climate change resilient business opportunities that will impact them socially, economically and a thriving restored environment.

Rural communities of the Baphiring community based in the Moses Kotane Local Municipality, Bojanala District Municipality in the Northwest province, South Africa, are faced with high levels of unemployment, shortage of cost effective and nutritious food supply, degradation of land use and deteriorating water supply quality. Service provision and education in the villages are poor to non-existent, making normal life a daily struggle.

ESA’s philosophy towards addressing the problems is an all-inclusive approach putting people in the center as part of conservation solutions and decision-making processes. ESA addresses these social problems by adopting a circular regenerative and biodiversity-based model by establishing sustainable, regenerative, rural agri-wildlife value chains and meaningful ownership by communities on their restituted or redistributed land. 

The core deliverables are:

– A review and assessment of the current tourism model and recommendations on improvements

– A review and assessment of the impact of COVID and recommendations around potential new operating basis and tourism models

– An assessment of business in the area and the identification of business opportunities for small businesses or missing linkages

– An assessment of cattle farming in the area, including farming practices, demographics, knowledge base and if/how modernization can be of benefit