Walking with my ancestors: Together let’s rewild hearts, minds and landscapes in Mpumalanga with Ratanang Colab

My name is Jane Burt. Though born in the UK, I moved to South Africa at two, growing up through the turbulence of apartheid and the dawn of democracy. My life has been dedicated to transformative projects aimed at restoring both lives and landscapes from the damage caused by colonialism and apartheid.

On this journey, I met December Ndholovu of Ratanang Colab in rural Mpumalanga—a province of stunning beauty, yet increasingly degraded with high levels of hunger and poverty. December, a grassroots leader, is working tirelessly to regenerate his surroundings, revitalizing livelihoods, and enhancing food security and health in his community. His remarkable efforts earned him the 2023 Environmental Sustainability Leader Award from the Future Leaders Forum.

Ratanang Colab, led by December, works with partners to tackle the Bushbuckridge community’s biggest challenges: hunger, unemployment and pollution of the natural landscape. It works through a community hub to train people how to grow nutritious chemical-free food, rewild rivers, produce biochar with plans on establishing a mixed-production community farm, a chicken enterprise and a scaled-up training programme for the broader region.

Through my work with December, I felt a deepening connection to my ancestors, my history, and my purpose in the world. Upon returning to the UK, I began tracing my roots, discovering the graves of my great-great-great-grandparents just 10 minutes from my new flat in Bristol, overgrown and waiting for my hands to clear them—a discovery that felt profoundly symbolic.

Inspired by this journey, I’m embarking on an ancestral walk over the next three months, retracing the steps of Samuel Burt, my great-great-grandfather, from Bristol to Liverpool. A friend once told me that while we can’t undo the harm of the past, we can walk through it, striving to bring something better into the world. This walk is not only a personal journey but an attempt to heal the wounds left by colonialism and apartheid in South Africa’s communities and landscapes.

I’ll be walking the 650-kilometer route whenever I can, aiming to reach Liverpool before my father’s 80th birthday on December 31, 2024.

I invite you to support this mission—sponsor a kilometre or more, and every cent will go to Ratanang Colab to further their incredible work regenerating the landscape around Bushbuck Ridge in Mpumalanga. Their efforts are already making a profound difference in this beautiful region.