A Slow Remembering
HELEN WALNE
There is a silence growing between us and Mother Earth. It is a slow forgetting. Moss, blossom, river – once words from our childhood – are vanishing from books. We are drifting, untethered from the very place that sustains us, turning instead to the generated aquarium light of screens and devices. We have swapped wonder and wildness for passivity and separation. Yet, deep in our being, we long for connection. We long for repair instead of rupture.
In South Africa, a land of incredible biodiversity, we spend nearly 10 hours a day online – more than any other nation. The glow of devices has replaced the sparks of sun on sea, the quiet of forests, the call of birds. This disconnection is further fuelled by the legacy of spatial violence – tree-less townships, green-less cities, and generations raised without access to the natural world.
Professor Miles Richardson calls this ‘the end of experience’, a phrase coined by naturalist Robert Michael Pyle, who feared a generation growing up with ‘nature deficit disorder’. But Richardson offers a remedy: not just being in nature but noticing it. Touching, smelling, listening. Becoming immersed.
This is where tracking comes in. By drawing us nearer to Earth to observe tiny details and piece together clues, we come to recognise ourselves as part of this living system that sustains us. We start to heal the rupture.
Tracking – the practice of observing physical signs, using heightened senses, following trails, and learning behaviours – is not reserved for deserts or jungles. It’s not only for the expert or the elder. It is a way of seeing – a way of remembering. It can be practised anywhere – even in the middle of New York (read Craig’s story here). However, we are fortunate to live in a city of great biodiversity, both on land and in water – something two groups of young people are discovering.
At Windmill Beach, once one of the few Apartheid-era beaches open to Black South Africans, learners from Lawhill Maritime Centre and Grade 11 students from Simon’s Town School are rediscovering the ocean. Through our 1001 Seaforest Species project, they are tracking the hidden lives of intertidal creatures and becoming intimately knowledgeable about them. They are filling the silence between Mother Nature and humans by using Earth’s oldest language. And they are doing what Prof Richardson recommends: becoming truly immersed in what they see and experience.
Split into two groups led by members of the Sea Change team – one by Craig Foster and Swati Thiyagarajan, the other by Pippa Ehrlich and Kireon McShane – the students pair up to find a species they want to study. Over the next few months, they will write stories about it, do biological drawings and carry out research. They will get to know their chosen animal inside and out.
On our first foray, the students came prepared: water shoes, notebooks, pens, sunhats, phones for taking pictures. One of them wore the sunniest yellow Crocs. They were then introduced to some of the intertidal inhabitants, crowding around small pools to learn about the lives of species such as Red spotted ascidians, Broad chitons, Tuberculate cuttlefish and Bearded limpets. Even one of the tiniest creatures caused a stir – a Big-eyed amphipod creeping over clumps of algae.
For many students, the exploration seamlessly complemented their maritime studies. One student, who told of how she had been afraid of the ocean as a child after being knocked over by a wave and dragged into the sea, was fascinated by starfish – particularly the familiar Orange starfish. So, she was thrilled to find a purple-tinged Spiny starfish – and promptly chose it as her study species.
Over time, the students will be introduced to the 1001 Seaforest Species app, which is still in development and will be released in 2026. Guided by this vast bank of knowledge and the accompanying stories of discovery and behaviour, they will explore the rock pools themselves, opening up even more conversations with the land and sea. The long-term idea is for the students to create their own nature-connected stories – and, with access to the software, perhaps they will start their own 1001 biodiversity initiative.
Far north of Cape Town, on the Renosterveld-rich hills of !Khwa ttu, another group of young people are conversing with the land. Interns from San communities across Southern Africa come here every six months to reconnect with the coastal world their ancestors knew intimately. They track not only animals, but wind, rock and memory.
The modern on-site museum at !Khwa ttu chronicles the San people’s journey – from their deep harmony with nature to the brutal oppression under colonial rule. A haunting exhibit features photos of a German artist forcibly casting their faces in South West Africa for an ‘archive of vanishing races’. Treated as objects, the San were measured and molded without consent. One striking image shows a defiant young boy who refused, his eyes blazing with resistance.
During their six-month internship, the young people spend a weekend at Cape Point Nature Reserve, a vast wilderness of cliffs, ocean and fynbos that was home to their – and our – ancestors 200,000 years ago. Guided by the Sea Change tracking team and !Khwa ttu senior tracker Roman Ndeja and tracking guide Matios Sibongo, they learn how to read the shoreline. Amphipod tracks that, mysteriously, are high up on the beach near the car park. What had they been doing there? Trying to determine the age of eland tracks, and discovering signs of rain in them, which would place the large antelope pre-rain. Otter prints, identified by a ‘tail drag’ – a brushstroke left in the sand by their flattened tails. A pile of organs – probably of a small rodent – that had been killed. But by what? Faint marks in the sand showed it had been a Jackal buzzard, which had swooped down and discarded the intestines.
After the tracking weekend, the interns return to !Khwa ttu to shape their reflections, guided by Roman and Sea Change member Kireon McShane. They work with dedication – writing, revising and refining their drafts. The result is a beautiful book containing their stories, which they take back home to share with their communities. The book is a living artefact of connection. In their stories, the San are not vanishing. They are speaking. And they are listening to the voices of their ancestors carried in the wind.
In the book, one intern, Marshall Coetzee, writes: ‘As I was standing on the cliff at Gifkommetjie, I could feel the connection moving through the air. I sensed the presence of my people, as if their footprints were still fresh, moving through the rocks.’
For centuries, much has been written about the San. But through uplifting these young voices, we witness a shift – the stories of the San told by those who carry this identity forward.
Moss, blossom, river. Fynbos, eland, cuttlefish. Amphipod, otter, limpet. These words are being carried by a new generation that can heal the rupture that has left us untethered from nature. They can tell stories that remind us that Earth speaks to us every day, all of the time. All we have to do is listen. And start a conversation.
Photos by Pippa Ehrlich and Diogo Domingues.