The emblem of this year’s Green Trust Awards is a South African species of seahorse, called the Knysna seahorse (Hippocampus capensis). It is the world’s most threatened seahorse and occurs only in the Knysna and Swartvlei estuaries.
The Knysna seahorse was chosen as the emblem because it is so vulnerable and in recognition of ground-breaking efforts to save it from extinction. It is endangered chiefly because of the limited range of its distribution and because of the destruction of its habitat.
The Green Trust, with assistance from the Addinall Family Trust, recently launched a project to monitor the status of the seahorse populations in the estuaries, and to identify existing and potential threats to their survival.