Conversations with women leading conservation in South Africa - protecting our natural heritage and refusing to give up on nature.
The third conversation in the Women Who Keep the Wild Alive series takes us into the extraordinary botanical diversity of the Southern Cape. Dr Christina Mars shows how curiosity, practical observation and years spent in the field can grow into a major contribution to local botanical knowledge. Her work also highlights a less visible side of conservation: the painstaking documentation of the plants that make each landscape unique, including species that may disappear before most people ever notice them.
Dr Christina Mars - Still Bay Herbarium - ‘Free-range Botanist’
Christina Mars is a preeminent botany expert in the Southern Cape, and a champion of the Still Bay Herbarium - traversing fields and rough terrain in the fynbos region while recording and studying indigenous plant species. An active conservationist, she is well-known for her exceptional knowledge and profound understanding of local flora, her research collaborations focused on native ecosystems and coastal vegetation, and her community-focused botanical walks through local conservation areas like the Pauline Bohnen Nature Reserve and the Werner Frehse Nature Reserve. She is affiliated as a research associate investigating coastal palaeoenvironments and indigenous ‘veld’ foods with the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, and regularly contributes to regional conservation initiatives, including biodiversity education alongside the Gouritz Cluster Biosphere Reserve.
An immigrant to South Africa, Christina grew up in the Swiss Alps wandering the mountains, enthralled by the area’s natural beauty and floral variety. In a life journey that embodies polymathic diversity, while in France she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in French Language and Literature, followed by a PhD in Political Science and Mandarin, and then a curious segue into investment banking in England. Having decided that the world of academia and the formal setting of teaching in a university auditorium was not for her, she made her way to South Africa with her husband, who had spent his childhood revelling in the surf around Still Bay. Based in Stellenbosch at first, they ultimately settled on the south coast due to their love of the outdoors, and the feeling of safety and freedom in the area.
It was then that her fascination with botany took root. “I first started studying plants 26 years ago when we moved to Still Bay, and I needed to do some home gardening. I didn’t have much expertise at the time, but I knew I wanted to have an indigenous garden as our place was near the Skulpiesbaai nature reserve. It was then that I started volunteering at a local indigenous nursery to gain experience - run by Dr Uys de Villiers ‘Tol’ Pienaar, a prominent South African conservationist, biologist, and former Chief Director of SANParks - along with his wife Annette, who had retired to Still Bay.” In 2017 Christina was introduced to an established Still Bay botanist, Naomi van Schalkwyk, during a paleoscience excursion, and in short order they decided to start a herbarium together - to keep a thorough record of locally-occurring plant species. “Our herbarium really began to take shape around 2018 with all the plant samples that we had collected and in gaining permission to survey nearby farms,” Christina said. “These days things have gotten a little easier with the use of artificial intelligence in helping identify known plant species,” she quipped.
A regional proponent of the Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers [CREW], Christina has kept up efforts to count species numbers and locations year after year, from fields to mountains in the Western Cape, including the tallying of endangered plants. Her hard work at the herbarium has contributed vastly to their 5,000 samples of plant species that have been collected, identified, pressed and dried for preservation.
Christina urged people to scrutinise their own backyards, “Almost half of all alien plant species are escapees out of home gardens. One should avoid planting something just because it looks pretty. Instead, you should check the lay of the land concerning endemic species and take care to plant indigenous gardens, which would also be better adapted to local climes and soils. Some of the most troubling invasive species found in the wild today came out of residential areas.”
Musing on challenges in our national conservation, Christina said, “I don’t think all of our agencies are functioning that well together. Nonprofits make offers to do the required work and some municipalities say that they will do it themselves instead, but then nothing much transpires. We need more collaboration across the board, and to stem the loss of experts from our institutions who really know what they are doing.”
“We need to closely monitor that proclamations for our nature reserves, such as Pauline Bohnen, are enacted and enforced - and endeavour to have fractured plots of land near reserves with indigenous plants consolidated into one custodianship or stewardship, to ensure that these are kept safe from illegal logging and plant theft. Additionally, the problem with some of our educational programmes is that we are largely preaching to the converted who already have an appreciation for nature, when we actually need to target those audiences who haven’t yet bought into the necessity of biodiversity conservation,” she continued.
On the topic of empowering women to enter the botanical sciences, Christina remarked, “Making observations is the most important thing, and for that you need to get in the field yourself and have a look around, building up your knowledge through practical experience rather than just researching on the internet.” “Independence is crucial, and women should stand on their own two feet without needing the traditional arrangement of having a partner to pay for everything. The freedom to choose to leave an undesirable situation is only earned by taking care of your own finances,” she added as advice.
Christina’s work reminds us that conservation begins with noticing. Before we can protect a species, we need to know that it is there, understand where it occurs and recognise what makes its habitat special. Her dedication to fieldwork and botanical recording shows how much can be achieved when scientific curiosity becomes a sustained commitment - and how important it is to make that knowledge accessible beyond the scientific community.
