Women climbing to great heights in nature conservation

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Cape Town - OWNING and operating a business that is focused on nature conservation is no walk in the park and for Thandeka Mayiji-Rafu it means climbing steep mountains.

Born and raised in Joburg, but with her familial roots in Willowvale in the Eastern Cape, today Mayiji-Rafu owns Likhonalethu Projects and works with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) a global environmental group based in the USA.

Mayiji-Rafu leads teams of mostly women who clear alien vegetation in the Western Cape. With experience working as a contractor for SA National Parks (SANParks), CapeNature and the City of Cape Town, Mayiji-Rafu said it wasn’t a straight forward path to conservation management for her.

“I started out working in a hotel and then studied social work via Unisa but never completed because of financial issues. As time went on I started looking for other things to do and I was introduced to SANParks, at Table Mountain. They were looking for contractors so I started working with them as a contractor doing alien vegetation clearing, this was in 2010.”