Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation (OGRC) and WWF South Africa’s Conservation Champions initiative have teamed up to showcase how the wine industry can advance conservation objectives, bringing five Conservation Champion wine farms and conservation-led producer Painted Wolf Wines to the 15th Oppenheimer Research Conference (ORC) for an evening titled “A Taste of Africa – Cheers to Conservation!” The collaboration marked a significant milestone, with WWF celebrating 20 years since the Conservation Champions initiative was launched.
The tasting took place on the opening evening of the ORC, ahead of the evening’s special screening of Pride of Samburu and featured five WWF Conservation Champion wine farms: Bouchard Finlayson, Creation Wines, De Wetshof Estate, Klein Constantia and Paul Clüver. The farms are geographically spread across the Cape winelands, and as Conservation Champions, they all share a focus on mitigating biodiversity loss, maximising intact conservation-worthy landscapes and strengthening sustainability across their estates. The farms were joined by Painted Wolf Wines, a conservation-led wine producer that directs funding and advocacy toward protecting the endangered African wild dog, adding a wildlife conservation perspective to the evening.
Delegates were given the opportunity to hear more about the positive impact of each farm since the tasting was framed as a conservation story first and a wine experience second. Delegates were encouraged to look ‘beyond the glass’, at the landscapes each farm protects, the land they have kept out of production and the biodiversity outcomes this stewardship has supported. The event also shone a spotlight on the Conservation Champions initiative which was launched in 2004 in response to the rapid vineyard expansion into the intact areas of threatened Cape Floral Kingdom and was refocused in 2016 on WWF’s most committed farms as the environmental leaders in the industry. Twenty years on, it spans more than 60 dedicated wine farms collectively conserving over 23,500 hectares of natural habitat across the Cape winelands, showing that farms can protect biodiversity while supporting livelihoods and local economies.
The partnership is a natural alignment for both WWF and OGRC, as they work toward a shared goal of protecting the landscapes that sustains both people and biodiversity. The event also fits under this year’s ORC conference theme, ‘Connecting People, Places and Planet’ since every bottle produced begins in a landscape. In other words, the health of the soil, water, indigenous vegetation and wildlife is inseparable from the resilience of the farm and the wine it produces.
Commenting at the event, Duncan MacFadyen, Head of Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation, said:
“This year’s theme, Connecting People, Places and Planet, is exactly why this partnership made sense for the conference programme. WWF’s Conservation Champions are an embodiment of this theme and proof that a protected landscape can be productive. The Oppenheimer Research Conference creates space for research, conservation and lived examples of stewardship, and this evening our delegates heard directly from the producers putting that into practice. Wine farms can contribute to biodiversity protection while supporting livelihoods and productive local economies, and that is a story we are proud to share with the people, places and partners that make up this conference.”
Dwayne Brecht, Senior Extension Officer, WWF, concluded:
“Conservation Champions was built on a simple idea: that farming and biodiversity can reinforce and benefit each other. Twenty years and more than 60 farms later, that idea has become a powerful stewardship movement across the Cape winelands. Working alongside these producers, I see how much they quietly protect: pockets of critical natural habitat and the plants, pollinators and animals that call them home. Sharing their stories with this audience shows what stewardship looks like on a working farm.”