Find
Locate degraded catchments, rivers and conservation land where restoration delivers measurable value.
Western Cape · Restoration
Ecological and biodiversity restoration. Full turnkey solutions.
We find the environmental problem, turn it into a fundable project, raise the capital, deliver the restoration and maintain the site for at least five years.
Carbon removal
Taking CO₂ out of the atmosphere — and keeping it there.
Invasive trees pull carbon from the air as they grow. Burn them and it goes straight back. We convert cleared biomass into biochar instead, locking that carbon into the soil for hundreds to thousands of years.
How biochar works →20 000+ haTreated across the Western Cape
2 000+Conservationists trained
5 yr+Aftercare on every site
100%Western Cape focus
The model
Find it. Fund it. Fix it. Prove it.
Most restoration fails at the hand-overs — between the consultant who scopes it, the fundraiser who pays for it and the contractor who does it. We run all four steps as one accountable group.
Fund
Build the business case and financial model, then apply for the capital ourselves.
Fix
Clear, stabilise and re-vegetate with trained local crews against a restoration plan.
Prove
Baselines, satellite review and independent verification — then five years of aftercare.
What we bring
Three businesses, one accountable group
No single party can develop, finance and deliver a restoration project alone. Together we can — and the division of responsibility is contractual.
Green Cape Solutions
Project origination, landowner and authority relationships, stakeholder engagement and coordination. Led by Hugo Slabber, 35+ years in forestry.
Business Plan Hub
Strategy, financial modelling, funding applications and commercial structuring. Led by Charl van Zyl, 35+ years in business development and biochar.
Contour Enviro Group
Environmental compliance, clearing, restoration, accredited training and verification. ISO 9001 certified, Level 1 B-BBEE.
How we are structured
A non-profit company, by design
Cape Eco Group NPC is incorporated as a non-profit company. It has no shareholders and pays no dividends, and its Memorandum of Incorporation prohibits any distribution of income or property to its directors, members or related parties. Every rand it receives goes to the restoration work.
Grant and climate finance
Many climate, biodiversity and conservation funds may only contract with a non-profit entity, or weight their scoring heavily towards one.
Philanthropy and corporate giving
Trusts, foundations and corporate social investment budgets ordinarily require a non-profit recipient before they can disburse.
Public and donor programmes
Organs of state and donor-funded programmes frequently restrict eligibility to non-profit implementers working in the public benefit.
What that means for money on a project. Funding is received into a ring-fenced project vehicle and approved against a budget, so it never runs through an operating account. Payments are processed by an independent auditing firm rather than by any party to the work, and every project budget and material payment requires written approval from all three parties. Approval as a public benefit organisation under section 30 of the Income Tax Act is being pursued; it has not yet been granted, and nothing here should be read as confirming section 18A status.
Genuinely turnkey
Survey, clear, sort, haul, verify, maintain.
Turnkey is an easy word to put on a website. In practice it means one group has to own the survey, the method statement, the crews, the stump treatment, the extraction, the haulage, the evidence chain and five years of follow-up — without subcontracting the parts that are hard.
Cape Eco Group can do that because the delivery partner has been doing it since 2017, in three service modes, for conservation authorities and government departments who audit the results.
Next step
Tell us what you have — land, a mandate or a budget.
We will come back with a Western Cape project concept, an indicative budget and the measurement plan that goes with it.
About
Restoration that is still there in year five.
Cape Eco Group develops, finances, delivers and maintains ecological restoration projects in the Western Cape — as one group, under one agreement.
The difference
Most restoration fails at the hand-overs.
Between the consultant who scopes it, the fundraiser who pays for it and the contractor who does it. We run all four steps as one accountable group.
Our track record →Why we exist
The traditional model breaks at every hand-over.
A landowner has a problem, waits for a budget, appoints a contractor, and the contractor clears what the budget allows. When the budget ends, the follow-up ends. Three years later the seed bank has done its work and the site looks much as it did before.
We run a different sequence: find the problem, develop it into a project, quantify the outcome, structure it financially, secure the capital, implement it, measure what changed — and maintain it long enough for the change to hold.
End to end
One group, from first site visit to verified result.
No hand-offs between a consultant, a fundraiser and a contractor. One accountable party, one chain of evidence, one point of responsibility.
The chain
Eight stages, each one a gate
Identify
Degraded catchments, rivers and conservation land where restoration delivers measurable value.
Assess
Site screening, invasion density, species composition and access constraints.
Business case
Costed intervention, expected outcome and how it will be measured.
Fund
Matched to the funder whose mandate actually fits, and run to a signed agreement.
Structure
Ring-fenced project vehicle, mandated signatories, independent payment administration.
Deliver
Trained local crews working to a restoration plan, not a day rate.
Verify
Baselines, fixed-point photography, satellite review and third-party verification.
Maintain
A minimum five-year aftercare programme, budgeted from day one.
Governance
Funding needs somewhere safe to land
Serious capital does not flow into an operating account. Each project is structured so money, decisions and reporting are visible and auditable.
Dedicated project vehicle
A non-profit vehicle receives the funding, holds the agreements and approves expenditure against the budget.
Approval thresholds
Every project budget and every material payment requires the written approval of all three parties.
Third-party administration
All payments are processed by an independent auditing firm, not by any party directly.
What we do
Ten restoration disciplines, one appointment.
Appoint us for a single discipline or the entire chain. Most funders prefer the entire chain, because it removes the coordination risk that sinks multi-contractor projects.
Contractually required
Clearing alone is not the offer.
Every registered project must include skills transfer, accredited training and full monitoring, reporting and verification. That is in the agreement, not the brochure.
What happens to the material →Restoration
The work itself
Invasive alien vegetation
Pine, wattle, hakea, gum and Port Jackson — initial clearing and follow-up.
Catchment & water source
Clearing targeted at strategic water source areas, with water-yield estimation.
Riverine & riparian
River corridor rehabilitation, bank stabilisation and instream habitat recovery.
Wetlands
Hydrology restored first, then invasion removal and re-vegetation.
Indigenous recovery
Fynbos and renosterveld — passive where the seed bank survives, active where it does not.
Erosion control
Risk mapping, brush packing and gully repair before the first winter rain.
Biodiversity
Species baselines, threatened species protection and habitat connectivity.
Five-year aftercare
Scheduled follow-up passes, condition audits and landowner handover.
Service modes
The terrain chooses the method, not the budget
Ground crews
Chainsaw teams on foot. Flexible and selective, and able to work around features a machine cannot.
Mechanised
Felling, extraction and chipping where slope and access allow. The route to bulk volumes.
High-angle
Rope technicians on cliffs and steep catchment slopes, often reached by helicopter — the only way to reach the invasions at the top of a catchment.
Contractually required
Every project carries training and verification, not just clearing.
Skills transfer and accredited training, plus full monitoring, reporting and verification, on every registered project.
How it works
From standing stand to verified hectare
Skip a step and the stand is back within three seasons, denser and dearer to fix.
- 01
Survey and mapping
Boundaries walked and mapped, species and density recorded, sensitive features flagged.
- 02
Method and safety planning
Terrain decides the method, and each one carries its own risk assessment and rescue plan.
- 03
Felling
Dropped away from watercourses and indigenous vegetation, and cut low enough to treat the stump.
- 04
Stump treatment
Treated at the time of cutting. Cut and left, a coppicing stand returns worse than before.
- 05
Cross-cutting and sorting
Sorted at the landing by end use. This is where the value of a hectare is decided.
- 06
Extraction
To a landing a truck can reach — by tractor, by cable, or by air on the steepest sites.
- 07
Follow-up
Scheduled passes against the seedling flush. This is what makes the first pass worth doing.
Evidence, safety and capability
What stands behind the work
- Treated area, by block and date
- Species and density before and after
- Fixed-point photographic records
- Person-days and crew deployment
- Drone and satellite verification
- Follow-up and regrowth assessment
- Defined competencies, through the group’s own QCTO-accredited academy
- A rescue plan before a rope leaves the vehicle
- No hot work on high fire-danger days
- Sites close when the index says close
- Visitors inducted, in PPE, inside a marked block
- High-angle and rope access
- Protected-area operations
- Drone-enabled assessment
- Accredited training delivered on site
- MRV, geospatial and water-yield modelling
- Biomass beneficiation into biochar
Beneficiation
What happens to the material we cut
Invasive plants could supply an estimated 11.3 million tonnes of solid biomass a year nationally, most of it burned because moving it costs more than it earns. Every load bought instead is a load that leaves the mountain and cannot burn.
Biomass supply
Firewood, chip, round wood and boiler fuel from mandated clearing sites — collected or delivered.
On-site chipping
Mobile chipping on farms, estates and reserves, left on site or hauled away.
Contract supply
Committed monthly tonnage against a named portfolio of sites, for buyers who need certainty.
Survey and mapping
Species, density and estimated tonnage, so a landowner knows what is there before anyone quotes.
Logistics and haulage
Heavy-haul to the customer gate, with paperwork that stands up to an audit.
Compliance support
Control plans, records and reporting for landowners meeting their obligations.
Biochar
Cleared biomass becomes a product, not a bonfire.
Invasive material can be converted into biochar and wood vinegar through pyrolysis — diverting it from burning and opening a verified carbon-removal pathway alongside the ecological outcome.
Alien vegetation removal
Healthier land. More water. Safer communities.
Invasive alien vegetation threatens South Africa’s ecosystems, water security and communities. We remove alien plants, restore natural landscapes and unlock lasting economic, social and environmental benefits.
How it is done
The terrain chooses the method, not the budget.
Ground crews, mechanised felling and rope technicians on high-angle ground — followed by stump treatment, stabilisation and at least five years of scheduled follow-up.
The seven-step sequence →The problem
Trees that were never meant to be here.
Pine, wattle, hakea, gum and Port Jackson were brought to the Cape for timber, tannin, shade and dune stabilisation. They escaped. Nearly every major Western Cape catchment now carries them, and every hectare left standing is water that never reaches a dam, a farm or a tap.
They are not simply extra trees. They draw more water than the vegetation they replaced, they carry far heavier fuel loads into a fire season, and they close a canopy over fynbos and renosterveld that exists nowhere else on earth.
Clearing is also unforgiving of half-measures. Cut a coppicing stand and leave the stumps untreated and it returns within three seasons — denser than before, and more expensive to fix than it was to begin with.
The argument in one line
Every hectare left standing is water that never reaches a dam, a farm or a tap.
Which is why removal is treated here as water infrastructure and fire mitigation, not as landscaping.
Where the water goes
The same rain, two very different outcomes
Rainfall does not change. What changes is how much of it is intercepted and transpired straight back into the air before it ever reaches a stream, a dam or a borehole.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it →
Six outcomes
What removal actually delivers
Water, fire safety, biodiversity, soils, biomass and jobs — the outcomes a properly sequenced clearing programme is measured against.
More water
Alien vegetation uses significantly more water than indigenous plants. Removal increases streamflow, recharges groundwater and improves water security for farms, communities and cities.
Fire risk reduction
Many alien plants are highly flammable and increase the frequency, intensity and spread of wildfires. Clearing reduces fuel loads and protects lives, property and critical infrastructure.
Restored biodiversity
Removing aliens allows fynbos and other native vegetation to return, restoring habitat for birds, mammals, insects and other wildlife.
Healthier soils
Alien plants reduce soil moisture and alter soil chemistry. Removal improves soil health, moisture retention and land productivity for agriculture and grazing.
Valuable biomass
Cleared material becomes biochar, wood chips, firewood and timber — a resource rather than a waste, and the basis of a circular economy.
Stronger economies
Clearing creates jobs, improves ecosystem services and increases the long-term value of land, water and tourism.
What decides whether it lasts. Clearing once and walking away wastes the whole effort. Stumps are treated at the time of cutting, and scheduled follow-up passes run against the seedling flush for at least five years. Any proposal without a follow-up schedule is not a serious proposal.
What comes back
Water moving through a catchment that was closing over.
Cleared catchments return flow within a season or two, and where the soil seed bank has survived, indigenous vegetation frequently recovers without replanting.
The usual suspects
Common invasive alien plants in the Western Cape
These six account for the bulk of what is cleared across the province — and, conveniently, for the bulk of the material worth recovering.
- Black Wattle · Acacia mearnsii
- Blue Gum · Eucalyptus spp.
- Port Jackson · Acacia saligna
- Rooikrans · Acacia cyclops
- Pine · Pinus spp.
- Silky Hakea · Hakea sericea
Cleared on site and chipped where access allows, so the material leaves the slope as a product rather than a burn pile. What cannot be sold as chip, firewood or round wood can go to pyrolysis instead.
The result
Clear water over clean substrate.
Millions of litres returned to rivers and dams, reduced wildfire risk, indigenous ecosystems restored, and work created where the invasion is.
Biochar
Carbon out of the air, locked into the ground.
Invasive biomass cleared from a catchment can be converted into biochar — a stable carbon that stays in the soil for centuries, improves the ground it goes into, and pays for part of the clearing that produced it.
Why it matters
A removal, not an offset.
Growing trees take CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Burning them puts it straight back within hours. Charring them holds a large share of that carbon in the soil for centuries.
What we do →What it is
Charcoal made for soil, not for fire.
Biochar is produced by pyrolysis — heating biomass in a low-oxygen environment so that it chars rather than burns. What comes out is a porous, carbon-rich solid that does not readily decompose, plus wood vinegar as a recoverable co-product.
Burned in the open, a stack of cleared wattle releases its carbon within hours. Left to rot, it releases most of it within a decade. Converted to biochar and worked into soil, a large share of that carbon stays put for hundreds to thousands of years.
Nationally, invasive plants could supply an estimated 11.3 million tonnes of solid biomass a year. Almost all of it is currently stacked and burned, because moving it costs more than it earns.
The carbon argument in one line
Carbon that was in the air last season, held in the ground for centuries.
The tree did the capture. Pyrolysis is what stops it being handed straight back.
CO₂ sequestration
How the carbon is actually removed
Five steps between carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and stable carbon in the soil. The first one is free — the tree has already done it. The rest is a choice about what happens to the wood.
- 01
The tree takes it out of the air
Through photosynthesis, a growing plant draws carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and builds it into wood. Roughly half the dry mass of that wood is carbon, and every atom of it came out of the air.
Capture: atmosphere to biomass, at no cost to anyone - 02
Normally, it goes straight back
Burn the stack on site and the carbon returns to the atmosphere within hours. Leave it to rot and micro-organisms return most of it within a decade. Either way the removal was only ever a loan.
The default outcome on most cleared sites - 03
Pyrolysis instead of combustion
The material is heated in a sealed, low-oxygen chamber, typically between about 400 and 700 °C. Without enough oxygen it cannot burn. The volatile fraction is driven off as gas and wood vinegar, and what remains is char.
Heat without fire — the whole distinction - 04
The carbon is restructured
Pyrolysis rearranges the carbon into dense aromatic structures that soil organisms cannot easily break down. This is why biochar behaves differently to compost or mulch, which return their carbon to the air within a few seasons.
Persistence: hundreds to thousands of years in soil - 05
Into the soil, and onto a register
The biochar is worked into soil, where it also improves structure and water retention. Under a recognised C-sink standard the stable carbon is quantified, monitored and independently verified before any removal is registered or sold.
Measured and verified — before anything is claimed
Removal, not avoidance. Most carbon projects reduce future emissions. This one takes carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere and puts it somewhere durable — which is a different and scarcer category of climate action. The size of the removal depends on the feedstock, the pyrolysis conditions and the stability of the char produced, which is exactly why it has to be measured rather than assumed.
Where the carbon comes from
An invasive stand is a carbon store standing in the wrong place.
The same trees draining a catchment and loading a slope with fuel have spent years pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. Clearing decides whether that carbon goes back into the air or into the ground.
The advantages
What biochar actually does
Six effects, each of them measurable. We have set out the limits underneath, because the case is strong enough without overstating it.
Carbon sequestration
Locks carbon into the soil for hundreds to thousands of years rather than releasing it to the atmosphere within hours of a burn pile being lit.
Improves soils
Enhances fertility, structure and microbial life. Its porous structure gives soil biology somewhere to live, which is why the effect compounds over seasons.
Holds water
Improves water retention in sandy and degraded soils, reducing irrigation demand — a direct benefit in a province with the Western Cape’s rainfall.
Filters water
Used in dams and drainage lines it reduces pollutants and improves water quality, which matters where restoration and agriculture share a catchment.
Removes fire load
Material converted to biochar is material that has left the slope. On a fire-prone Cape mountainside that is the most immediate benefit of the whole exercise.
Funds the clearing
Revenue from the product offsets part of the operation that produced it. The same budget clears more hectares, and hectares are what return water to a catchment.
The limits, stated plainly. Biochar does not offset a company’s emissions on its own, does not restore a catchment by itself, and does not make burning wood carbon-free. Carbon claims depend on the feedstock, the process and independent verification under a recognised standard. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
Two problems, one operation
The catchment gets its water back twice over.
Clearing invasive stands returns flow to the system. Putting the cleared material back as biochar helps the soil hold that water and keeps contaminants out of it.
The carbon pathway
Where the carbon goes, and what decides it
The tree does the capture either way. What happens to the wood afterwards is the only thing that determines whether the removal lasts.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it →
Biochar and water
The same porosity that stores carbon also cleans water
The structure that makes biochar durable — an enormous internal surface area folded into a small volume — is what lets it adsorb contaminants. In a province where restoration and agriculture share a catchment, that second use often matters more locally than the carbon does.
Adsorbs contaminants
The pore structure traps heavy metals, pesticide residues and other organic pollutants, holding them out of the water column instead of passing them downstream.
Captures excess nutrients
Nitrogen and phosphorus running off farmland are what drive algal blooms in farm dams. Biochar intercepts a share of that load before it reaches open water.
Reduces sediment and turbidity
Applied on drainage lines and disturbed ground it slows flow and traps fines, so less soil ends up in the dam and water clears faster after rain.
Keeps water on the land
Worked into sandy or degraded soil it holds moisture in the root zone, which cuts irrigation demand and reduces the runoff that carries nutrients away.
Supports aquatic life
Better oxygen levels and lower contaminant loads make for more resilient river and wetland systems — the same systems the clearing work is meant to restore.
Durable, not consumable
Unlike a dosed treatment, a biochar filter medium is a physical structure. It keeps working across seasons and can be built into constructed wetlands and treatment beds.
Where this is proven, and where it is not. Biochar as a filtration and soil-amendment medium is well established. Performance depends heavily on feedstock, pyrolysis temperature and particle size, so a claim about one biochar is not a claim about all of them. For any water application we would test the specific char against the specific water before designing around it.
Next step
Have biomass, or want the carbon?
Whether you are a landowner sitting on cleared material, a buyer looking for certified removal, or a funder assessing the case — tell us which, and we will come back with numbers.
Environmental credits
Real impact. Measurable value.
We develop integrated ecological restoration projects that generate multiple environmental assets and verified credits — creating lasting value for nature, communities and investors.
One vision
Multiple solutions. A greater impact.
Climate, water security, sustainable agriculture, biodiversity protection, circular economy and community development — from the same hectares.
How funding works →The idea
One hectare, restored once, measured in more than one currency.
A restoration project does several things at the same time. It removes invasive vegetation, which returns water to a catchment. It converts the cleared material into biochar, which removes carbon. It allows indigenous vegetation to recover, which restores habitat. It improves the soil the work leaves behind.
Those outcomes are usually treated as a single environmental story. Structured properly, each of them can be baselined, measured and verified in its own right — and several now have markets attached.
That structuring is deliberate work, done before a crew reaches the site. It is the difference between a clearing contract and an investable restoration project.
The argument in one line
A single restoration project can produce carbon removal, water yield, biodiversity gain and agricultural benefit at the same time.
Measuring each of them separately is what turns one budget into several verifiable outcomes.
How an outcome becomes an asset
Four outcomes, one pipeline
The work produces the outcomes. What makes any of them saleable is the same four-step discipline applied to each one separately — and none of it can be done retrospectively.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it →
The streams
What each one is
Six potential streams from one project. Which of them a given site can actually support depends on the baseline, the methodology and the standard applied.
CO₂ carbon credits
Through biochar production, reforestation and ecosystem restoration, CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere and stored long term in soil, vegetation and biochar. Verified under international standards.
Water credits
Clearing alien vegetation increases water yield, restores catchments and improves water quality. These measurable benefits can generate water credits under recognised frameworks.
Green agri credits
Biochar and organic biomass improve soil health, water retention and nutrient availability, supporting soil carbon and sustainable agriculture programmes.
Biodiversity & nature credits
Restoring indigenous ecosystems such as fynbos creates habitat, improves ecosystem function and can generate verified nature credits.
Biochar credits
Sustainably sourced biomass converted through pyrolysis locks carbon away for hundreds to thousands of years, generating high-integrity carbon removal credits.
Beyond carbon
Fire risk reduction, erosion control, clean energy from biomass, circular economy gains and community development — increasingly recognised through emerging credit schemes.
How we talk about credits. Credit generation depends on the project, the methodology and independent verification under the applicable standard. Named standards are given as examples of the frameworks these outcomes are assessed against, not as confirmed registrations. We do not pre-sell credits, and no outcome is claimed without a pre-project baseline.
Where the value starts
Nature creates the foundation.
Water, habitat, soil and stored carbon are produced by the same restored hectare. The commercial work is measuring them separately and holding each to its own standard.
For funders and buyers
Nature creates the foundation. We unlock the value.
A single restoration project can produce carbon removal, water yield, biodiversity gain and agricultural benefit at the same time. Structuring those outcomes so each can be measured, verified and, where appropriate, monetised is what turns a clearing programme into an investable proposition.
That structuring work — the business case, the financial model, the measurement protocol and the governance — is what Cape Eco Group does before a single crew reaches the site.
- Pre-project baseline
- Measurement protocol
- Independent verification
- Five-year aftercare
- Governance and reporting
Verification
Every claim traces back to a recorded hectare
Field evidence is captured through Grasshopper OS, the group’s environmental operating system: treated area by block and date, species and density before and after, fixed-point photography, person-days, and spatial verification including drone and satellite-assisted review.
Next step
Bring us a site, a mandate or a budget.
We will come back with the outcomes a project could credibly support, the measurement plan behind each of them, and an indicative budget.
Experience
Projects built to be carbon negative.
Every project is designed to take more carbon out of the atmosphere than it puts back. Invasive stands come down, water returns to the catchment, and the cleared material is charred rather than burned so the carbon stays in the soil — each removal measured and independently verified before it is claimed.
Delivery record
What Contour Enviro Group has already delivered
These are Contour’s figures from its 2026 company profile. We publish them as Contour’s record rather than as ours, because that is what they are.
20 000+ haTreated across the Western Cape
136 000+Person-days on supplied dashboards
2 000+Conservationists trained since 2018
400+Jobs supported annually since 2022
Transparency
Contour Enviro Group is the appointed implementing partner.
Environmental, technical, operational, training and verification services are delivered by Contour or one of its divisions. It is set out in the agreement, so a funder always knows who carries responsibility for the work on the ground.
How the group is resourced
Most of what we offer, we supply ourselves
Cape Eco Group is three businesses whose capabilities were assembled to fit together rather than overlap. Between them they cover origination, capital and delivery, so the large majority of services on a project are provided from within the group rather than subcontracted out.
Green Cape Solutions
Finds and scopes the project. Landowner and authority relationships, stakeholder engagement, permissions and site coordination. Led by Hugo Slabber, 35+ years in forestry and restoration.
Business Plan Hub
Makes it fundable. Business case, financial model, governance structure, funding applications and commercial structuring, plus the biochar and carbon-removal pathway. Led by Charl van Zyl.
Contour Enviro Group
Does the work. Clearing, restoration, environmental compliance, accredited training and verification, through its own divisions and crews. ISO 9001 certified, Level 1 B-BBEE.
What this means in practice. One appointment reaches all three. Specialist inputs are brought in only where a project genuinely needs something outside the group — and where that happens, it is named in the proposal rather than hidden behind a single contracting party.
Since 2017
Who the group has worked with
Contour Enviro Group has been in operation since 2017, delivering training, environmental and conservation projects for conservation authorities, government departments, NGOs, foundations and private landowners across the Western Cape. These are the organisations behind the crews you would be appointing.
The Nature ConservancyConservation NGO
WWF South AfricaConservation NGO
SANParksSouth African National Parks
CapeNatureProvincial conservation authority
City of Cape TownMetropolitan municipality
Western Cape GovernmentAgriculture
LandCare South AfricaNational programme
CTEETCape Town Environmental Education Trust
Grootbos FoundationFoundation
Elgin Learning FoundationFoundation
Monteith TrustTrust
Kogelberg Biosphere ReserveUNESCO biosphere reserve
Groenlandberg ConservancyConservancy
WCCETCW. Cape Community Education & Training College
Likhona Lethu ServicesInvasive species specialist
DennegeürPrivate estate
Client list as published on the Contour Enviro Group track record page. Engagements vary by programme and period, and are listed as Contour’s record rather than as Cape Eco Group’s.
In their words
What clients have said
Contour Enviro Group provided a professional service to the department in terms of environmental education. Their content is relevant and remarkable for the children that are taking part. They have been doing excellent work and I will recommend them as a reliable and responsible company that exceeds expectations in rendering their services.
Grant Jepthas — Overberg District Manager, Western Cape Department of Agriculture, LandCare
We have been very fortunate to receive training of high quality. We are particularly impressed by their professionalism, approach to work, and delivery of agreed terms.
SANParks
We contracted some of our work to Contour Enviro Group in 2020 and we never experienced any difficulty. The work was completed within the allocated time, and we were impressed with the quality. They have a great team that can plan properly and communicate effectively.
Thandeka Mayiji-Rafu — Likhona Lethu Services
Their performance has been good and I would recommend them for similar type work.
Mike du Toit — owner, The Valley Farms
Testimonials as published by Contour Enviro Group.
People
Trained crews, recruited in the catchment
Contour Training Academy holds QCTO accreditation and multiple SETA accreditations, and has trained more than 2 000 conservationists since 2018 across conservation, nature-based tourism and project management.
Youth for the Environment, a registered non-profit and public benefit organisation within the group, has reached over 8 000 young learners with environmental education and bursary access. Twenty-four green MSMEs have been supported through partner programmes.
- QCTO accredited
- Multiple SETA accreditations
- Eco Ranger & Field Ranger
- Nature Site Guide
- Project Management NQF 5
- Registered NPO & PBO
The people
Leadership experience
Hugo Slabber
Founder, Green Cape Solutions
35+ years in forestry — plantation management, harvesting, planning and project management in South Africa, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Tanzania and Malaysia.
Senior management roles with Mondi Forests, Miro Forestry and EcoPlanet Bamboo, covering FSC systems, contractor management, community engagement and sustainable resource development. National Diploma in Forestry, Nelson Mandela University.
- Forestry & plantations
- Carbon projects
- Biomass & biochar
- GIS systems
- International development
Charl van Zyl
Founder, Business Plan Hub
Biochar and carbon removal. Founder and former CEO of an international biochar company. Developed pyrolysis equipment endorsed by Carbon Standards International as a System Provider under the Global Artisan C-Sink Standard, and pioneered the world’s first mobile biochar pyrolysis reactor to be accredited by that standard. Has researched biochar operations worldwide.
Exported biochar and technology to Spain, France, Zambia, Namibia, the Middle East and Asia; collaborates with Stellenbosch University. 35+ years of business development across six continents.
- Biochar & pyrolysis
- Carbon certification
- Business plans & models
Sabelo Lindani
Founder, Contour Enviro Group
Delivery and field operations. Founder of Contour Enviro Group, in operation since 2017 and the appointed implementing partner for this initiative. Leads an integrated environmental group across three divisions — restoration and field operations, accredited training, and environmental operating technology.
Under his leadership Contour has treated 20 000+ hectares, trained over 2 000 conservationists and supported 400+ jobs a year, delivering for SANParks, CapeNature, WWF South Africa, the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government.
- Restoration delivery
- Accredited training
- MRV & verification
Delivery partner
Contour Enviro Group
An integrated environmental group with three divisions: Contour Green Solutions for restoration and field operations, Contour Training Academy for accredited learning, and Grasshopper Green Technologies for environmental operating technology.
- ISO 9001:2015 · SABS
- B-BBEE Level 1
- 100% black-owned
- QCTO accredited
- Multiple SETA accreditations
Grasshopper provides the verification backbone: geospatial mapping, satellite-assisted review, water-yield modelling, drone survey and live field telemetry, joined into one evidence chain from baseline through intervention to verified reporting.
Selected delivery and accreditation network: City of Cape Town, CapeNature, SANParks, Western Cape Government, WWF South Africa, Wilderness Foundation Africa, LandCare South Africa, CATHSSETA, QCTO, SABS, DFFE. Relationships vary by programme; this is not a claim of endorsement of Cape Eco Group.
Funding
We make the application ourselves.
Business case, financial model, governance structure and measurement protocol — the package institutional capital needs before it can commit.
Six credit streams
One project, several verified assets.
Carbon removal, water yield, biodiversity gain and agricultural benefit from the same hectares — each measured and independently verified.
Environmental credits →For funders
What funders receive
- Project-level financial models with cost per hectare and per cubic metre of water returned
- Ring-fenced project vehicles, so funding never runs through an operating account
- Monitoring, reporting and verification designed for third-party audit
- Compliance with NEMBA, NEMA, the National Water Act and CARA obligations
- Local employment, accredited training and small-contractor development built into delivery
- A minimum five-year aftercare programme, budgeted from day one
For corporate partners
A nature commitment your auditors can stand behind.
Measured against a baseline, verified independently, and reported in the format your disclosure framework requires.
Capital types
Where restoration funding comes from
We match each project to the mandate it actually fits, rather than sending the same proposal to everyone.
Climate & biodiversity funds
Multilateral and international climate finance with water-security and biodiversity mandates.
Corporate ESG & nature
Companies with water stewardship, nature-positive or disclosure obligations in the region.
Carbon & removal buyers
Durable removal via biomass beneficiation and biochar, under recognised certification.
Development finance
Institutions funding ecological infrastructure and green employment.
Philanthropy & grants
Conservation trusts and foundations active in the Cape Floristic Region.
Domestic public funding
South African programmes supporting catchment restoration and job creation.
We do not publish fund sizes or imply commitments. Nothing here is committed to Cape Eco Group.
Next step
Tell us what you want funded, and we will build the case.
We prepare the application ourselves — against a named site, a costed programme and a measurement plan your auditors can follow.
Contact
Tell us what you have.
Land with a problem, a disclosure obligation to meet, or capital looking for a credible home. We will come back with a project concept and an indicative budget.
Where we work
The Western Cape, and nowhere else.
One province, one set of catchments, one regulatory environment. Depth in a single landscape beats a thin presence across five.
About the group →Get in touch
Start a conversation
The more you can tell us about the site, the catchment or the mandate, the more useful our first reply will be.
Charl van Zyl
+27 82 881 6879
charl@capeecogroup.co.za
WhatsApp us
Office
Somerset West, Western Cape, South Africa