Rim of Africa - Mountain Passage: About the Trail

The Rim of Africa follows a natural line along the mountain ridges of the Western Cape. It is Africa's first long-distance hiking initiative based on the likes of the Appalachian and Continental Divide Trails in the USA, the Camino de Santiago in Spain and the more recent Sendero de Chile in South America.

The vision of the Rim of Africa is to create, maintain and secure a walkable and contiguous passage of protected mountain land as an icon for personal and cultural transformation for generations to come.

The Rim of Africa stretches from the greater Cederberg wilderness area on the Cape's West Coast to the Outeniqua Mountains in the Garden Route, traversing more than 650km of mountain paths. The route takes in the Cederberg, Skurweberg, Hexrivier, Keeromberg, Langeberg and the Outeniqua representing a flagship hiking product of international significance, attracting hikers from around the world.

There is potential to link the Rim of Africa to the Outeniqua Trail and on to the Eden to Addo Hike for Biodiversity creating an extended trail of 1200km ending at Addo Elephant National Park in the Eastern Cape.

One of the most powerful aspects in the development of such a trail from a conservation perspective, is the extent to which it is used as a tool for bringing a broad range of stakeholders together in a bid to negotiate access across the landscape and encourage biodiversity friendly stewardship of land. This interaction offers further negotiation opportunities around stewardship, conservation servitudes and creates scope for the meaningful development of community-based ecotourism ventures.

The primary value of the Rim of Africa is to create a platform for transformative experiences in nature that directly link cultural practices to conservation. At the end of the day if society does not experience value in conserving nature, then there is no meaningful way of conserving it. Large scale landscape hiking and direct exposure to nature on a mega scale is one way of achieving this.

We trust that the Rim of Africa will become a trail where participants are drawn to celebrate moments in their lives that hold the quality of a "Rite of Passage". Imagine the power of a national trail that encourages the youth to walk as a rite of passage into adulthood, that celebrates coming into elderhood, or is a meaningful statement for any significant change in one's life - a trail that renews awareness of the interconnectedness of nature and humankind.

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· The Rim of Africa has been likened to an "African necklace", where the trail itself is the thread that literally strings together existing "beads", where the beads are the region's biodiversity treasures, made up of conservancies, existing nature reserves and protected areas, tourism destinations, communities and important conservation corridors.

· Rim of Africa Biophile Article

· Rim of Africa Invitation to Walk