Well done Kelvin!

Eco warrior Kelvin Cochrane with his award, and Bridget Pitt from the Princess Vlei Forum with the finalist's certificate.

The Princess Vlei Forum would like to congratulate Kelvin Cochrane for his very well deserved achievement in winning the Enviropaedia Ecologic Ecowarrior award. The awards were announced at Maropeng on 17 September.

Kelvin is a passionate community conservationist, and founding member of the Princess Vlei Forum. The award was given in recognition of his work on Bottom Road Sanctuary,  Dressing the Princess, and other community led fynbos rehabilitation projects on the Cape Flats.

Kelvin runs a bakery in Grassy Park, but devotes much of his time to conservation projects. He instigated  the campaign to save Princess Vlei from the shopping mall, and was the original inspiration of the "people's plan" for Princess Vlei. He sees this work as critical in healing his community. "Our intention is to dignify the Princess and in so doing restore dignity to the people of this area who have historically been marginalised.”

Kelvin also laid charges of fraud against the developers of the proposed mall in a bid to stop the development.

The Princess Vlei Forum was itself one of four projects shortlisted for the Community Project category. This is a huge achievement, as it was one of the very few projects featured in the awards which is entirely run by volunteers and financed by personal donations.  We would like to thank our supporters and volunteers for enabling us to achieve this.  Find out more about the awards here.