Ashburton Aloe Festival 2020 Goes Virtual!

The Ashburton Aloe Festival 2020 goes virtual! See the Tabs above for the programme of talks, walks and activities aimed at raising funds for the Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy game guard, anti-poaching and conservation activities.

Our Fundraising Goal

We aim to raise R50 000 for Conservation.

As easy as 1-2-3-4!

1. Use the Quicket secure payment platform to make your donation (Any amount! Every coin counts for conservation!)
2. Go to our Ashburton Aloe Festival 2020 Goes Virtual! Website at www.ashburtonaloefestival.co.za
3. Visit any time, scroll down and choose from talks, walks & activities and go to the speaker of your choice and move around the site.
4. Enjoy, go back to the site at your leisure for more talks, walks & activities and share with as many others as you can.

Festival Give Aways

We have over R20 000 in Festival Giveaways to hand over to lucky donors! See our Festival Website at www.ashburtonaloefestival.co.za 'Festival Giveaways for all the details. Your donation automatically qualifies you to enter.

What can I expect?

There are 18 talks, walks & activities to view ranging from a few minutes to an hour per presentation, a wonderful gallery of photo's since the first Aloe Festival in 2007, find out more about the Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy and its projects.

Virtual talks include a conversation with ornithologist and ecologist, David Johnson, a presentation on the pollination of the Paint Brush Lilly by Hannah Butler.  FreeMe Wildlife’s, Kelsey O’Connor presents a talk ‘The early worm catches the bird’ and Pieter Potgieter shares his expert knowledge of snakes in ‘Snakes Matter, Too’. Anne-Louise Evans presents an interesting case study of her dog’s recovery from a puff adder bite. Nick May presents an interesting talk titled 'Conciliation and the Worldwide Web'.

Virtual walks include a tour of aloe expert, Ben Botha’s garden, featuring a collection of over four hundred aloes and succulents, collected over the years. Ian G. Gordon takes us on a birding walk along the Mpushini Riverine Trail and encourages us with his adage ‘One Life – Bird it’. We take a walk with Celeste Rossouw to visit an early Iron age smelting village alongside the Mpushini River and Christina Potgieter shares a tour of her garden favourites and ecology. Peter Poulsen shares a tour of Rocky Wonder Aloe Nursery and Pandora Long and John Roff take you exploring in the Lower Mpushini Valley 'At the feet of Giants'. 

Virtual activities include Patsy Devine’s topic ‘Connected though Apart’ a fascinating look into the world of Patsy’s liberty work with horses and her insights regarding being caught ‘on the other side of the world’ far away from her farm and horses due to COVID-19 lockdown and the insights it has brought her. David Padbury takes his canine companions through some gun dog training manoeuvres and we learn about the valuable anti-poaching work of our Game guard, Hardlife and how he tracks and looks for snares. Shirley Bradshaw shares the art & craft of soap making and shares how the local community banded together to survive the COVID-19 lockdown. Nicole May brings you a photo portfolio 'Creatures I Love' and Andrea Kotze shares her story of the Duzi Disaster, the Willowton Group spill into the Msunduzi River on 13th August 2019.

Where there is a will there's a way!

The ban on gatherings due to COVID-19 has prompted members and supporters of the Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy to present the Ashburton Aloe Festival 2020 using the passion, skills and resources that they have at hand. These are amateur home produced video's and presentations. 

What are the funds for?

Funds raised are for supporting our full time game guard in his anti-poaching and conservation activities. With the advent of COVID-19 there has been an increase in wildlife crime such as poaching and dog hunting and at the same time as a Conservancy we have been unable to bring in an income from eco-tourism and event related activities. This is why the Ashburton Aloe Festival 2020 Goes Virtual!

What is the Ashburton Aloe Festival all about?

The Ashburton Aloe Festival was founded by Pandora Long in 2007 and is now in its fourteenth year! The Festival was conceived to provide opportunities for town folk to visit the conservancy for 'A Day In Nature' and to share in celebrating the wild Aloe Candelabrum (Tree like Aloe of up to 10m) during its flowering time in June/July. Traditionally the Festival is held over a weekend with five to six venues providing access to the valley, with venues offering interesting talks, walks and activities, along with food, fun, stalls and plant sales. We are pleased to be hosting those aspects that we can online this year!

About the Organiser

The Ashburton Aloe Festival is organised by the Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy which is situated in Ashburton East, 10km east of Pietermaritzburg, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. The Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy is part of the Mpushini Protected Environment, a Biodiversity Stewardship Nature Reserve that protects the plants and wildlife of this beautiful valley on behalf of the children of South Africa. Thank you for your support in helping to conserve our natural heritage for generations to come.

The Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy is a member of the KZN Conservancies Association. 

• A conversation with ornithologist and ecologist, David Johnson.
• The pollination of the Paint Brush Lilly by Hannah Butler.   
• ‘The early worm catches the bird’ by Kelsey O’Connor of FreeMe Wildlife.
• ‘Snakes Lives Matter, Too’  by Pieter Potgieter.
• A case study of her dog’s recovery from a puff adder bite by Anne-Louise Evans. 
• A talk 'Conciliation and the Worldwide Web' by Nick May.

• ‘A walk around a collectors garden’ by aloe expert Ben Botha.
• ‘One Life – Bird it’, a birding walk along the Mpushini Riverine Trail with Ian G. Gordon.
• Exploring an early Iron age smelting village site with Celeste Rossouw.
• ‘A tour of my garden favourites and ecology’ by Christina Potgieter.
• ‘A tour of Rocky Wonder Aloe Nursery by Peter Poulsen.
• ‘At the Feet of Giants’ with Pandora Long & John Roff

• ‘Connected though Apart’ a fascinating look at Patsy Devine’s liberty work with horses.
• ‘Gun dog training’ with  David Padbury
• ‘How I track and look for snares’ by the Lower Mpushini Valley Conservancy Game Guard
• The art & craft of soap making' by Shirley Bradshaw
• Photo blog 'Creatures I Love' by Nicole May
• The Duzi Disaster and voluneer programme by Andrea Kotze