22/09/2026
Cont… THE RESERVOIR DETOUR - WHY ACCESS MATTERS
These photographs tell an important story.
What looks like a simple trail around the reservoir is actually conservation in action.
A trail doesn’t maintain itself. It needs people to build it, clear it, repair it, manage drainage, regulate access and continually guide visitors onto a defined route. Less concentration and more space.
And that is where sustainable tourism can play an important role in conservation.
When an area is actively managed, visitors have a safe and defined way to experience it. Traffic is directed onto a durable trail rather than spreading across the landscape. Indigenous vegetation can recover around it, erosion can be managed, and invasive or alien vegetation can be identified and dealt with.
Without that investment and management, trails disappear.
Then people create their own routes.
Those routes multiply.
Vegetation gets trampled.
Erosion increases.
Alien vegetation takes hold.
And, eventually, the very landscape people came to experience can slowly disappear.
The Reservoir Detour is a great example of the principle:
Tourism → Revenue → Management → Access → Conservation.
It isn’t about building more for the sake of building more.
It is about creating a sustainable reason and the financial ability to care for what already exists.
At ARC, ARC of Franschhoek our aim is to demonstrate that responsible access and conservation don’t have to be opposing ideas.
Sometimes the best way to protect a landscape is to give people a carefully managed way to experience it.
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