Grootbos

Grootbos Private Nature Reserve is a two-lodge fynbos reserve on the hills above Walker Bay, near Hermanus in South Africa's Western Cape. Grootbos protects 3,500 hectares of the Cape Floral Kingdom, one of the richest concentrations of plant life anywhere on Earth, with more than 900 recorded species and a milkwood forest containing trees dated at 1,000 years old. Walker Bay below the reserve is one of the few places on the planet where the so-called Marine Big Five can all be seen from shore. Southern right whales come within 30 metres of the beach between July and December, alongside great white sharks, penguins, seals and dolphins.

The Lutzeyer family, who bought the original farm in 1991 and opened it as a small B&B in 1995, established the non-profit Grootbos Foundation in 2003 to run conservation and community work alongside the lodge. Green Futures College has trained locals in horticulture and hospitality for over two decades, some going on to placements at the Eden Project in the UK, while the Siyakhula organic farm is run entirely by women from the nearby township. A solar plant and rainwater harvesting system cut the reserve's own footprint. In 2022, eight neighbouring landowners formally protected another 5,000 hectares alongside Grootbos, extending the wider Walker Bay Fynbos Conservancy to more than 12,000 hectares of protected land.