On Friday 17th February Guy Preston of Working for Water received the 2005 Audi Terra Nova Award for Environmentally Sustainable Community Upliftment; and I (Nora) received the 2005 Audi Terra Nova Award for Conservation and Preservation of the Environment. This award really belongs to everyone who has put so much work into The Bateleurs - all our pilots, and our Committee.  I share this award with you all, for it is you who have made it possible.  I am extremely proud that we have been honoured in this manner and to have been enabled to share the platform with Guy and with all the previous winners, such as Sue Hart, Sheila Siddle, Credo Mutwa, Ulf Doerner, Paul Dutton, Danie van der Walt and - there are actually too many to name. The Audi Terra Nova Award has grown in stature and if you are interested to know more, please go to their web site www.audi.co.za .   

You will see from this newsletter that for the first time since our inception we have committed ourselves to undertake long-term on-going monitoring missions. We will be flying the Wild Coast for and with the Department of Economic Affairs, Environment & Tourism (DEAET), in the Eastern Cape,  once a month this year, and nine of our pilots who know the area well have volunteered to make up this roster. Similarly, three of our pilots from Gauteng will fly over the granite mining areas near Brits, keeping a photographic record of the exact GPS points each time. The pictures we already have of these mines, sent to us by pilots Abrie Kruger (who flew the area between Brits and Rustenburg) and Thys Basson (who flew the area between Brits and Pretoria), are absolutely shocking!! I urge you to go to our picture gallery to look at the few we have put there. Just look at the destruction and debris in the wake of this granite mining - those beautiful koppies plundered and smashed! How do you excuse the human race for this disgrace? I am told there is only 2% of those natural outcrops left - and now another three new mines starting up ...

Irish philosopher Edmund Burke (living in the 1700's) wrote: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Amongst The Bateleurs we have so many good people doing great flying to help the men and women who work in and protect our environment - and Andrie Loubser who heads the Bankeveld Bewaarings Forum is no less wonderful. He is fighting a valiant battle to ensure that the remaining two percent of those beautiful granite koppies are saved and that the hideous mess left behind by the mines - not all the mines, but certainly most of them - is rehabilitated as best as possible. Bateleur pilot Craig McKenzie flew the 50/50 team to Brits, and David Levy - also a Bateleur microlight pilot - flew with him, in order to meet with Andrie, Abrie and Thys at the Brits airfield where they all peered at maps and strategised around future missions ... Illegal Granite Miners - we'll be watching you!

We are also doing on-going monitoring for the Cape Leopard Trust, with our Leopard Monitoring Group of Bateleur pilots (Giel de Kock, Jock Kannemeyer, and Johan Ferreira).

Read more from Quinton Martins, below. 

Our new 'home' is going to be at the Johannesburg Zoo. Having proper offices has become a priority for our growth and although we have been allocated a patch of earth, we now need to do some serious fund raising so that we can design and build our offices in the very near future. We would be happy for any suggestions in this regard, including maybe contacts for assistance "in kind".