Golden Protea

“The rarest and most charismatic of all proteas” is how the man who discovered the ‘golden protea’ described it. The singular and exquisite fynbos plant has an amazing story of discovery, disappearance and survival.
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“The rarest and most charismatic of all proteas” is how the man who discovered the ‘golden protea’ described it. The singular and exquisite fynbos plant has an amazing story of discovery, disappearance and survival. On more than one occasion in the last century this elusive species has been pronounced extinct, only to be discovered again after intense fire.
Found only in a very small area on the Kogelberg Mountains, the ‘golden protea’ owes its survival to ants who take its fleshy covered seeds down into their underground nests where the outer skin is devoured, leaving the hard smooth nuts which cannot be gripped by the ants tiny mandibles. The ants secrete anti-bacterial substances which protect the seeds until optimum heat from fire causes germination – an adventitious way of staying alive. Seeds can remain dormant for 100 years or more.
The wild beauty and rarity of the ‘golden protea’ we think is worth the ‘kiss of extended life’ and serves as inspiration for young artistic talent creating the Living Endangered range of fine lifestyle merchandise.
SAVE THE WILD

“In the last 50 years our population has doubled but we have lost 25% of our land species and almost 30% of marine and freshwater species. This is the fastest and greatest rate of biodiversity loss since the extinction of the dinosaurs.”
Andrew Muir
Executive Director of the Wilderness Foundation
SAVE THE WILD

“In the last 50 years our population has doubled but we have lost 25% of our land species and almost 30% of marine and freshwater species. This is the fastest and greatest rate of biodiversity loss since the extinction of the dinosaurs.”
Andrew Muir
Executive Director of the Wilderness Foundation
It is now very clear that to save the world we have to save the wild. But of the seven billion people covering the earth how many really care if a shy little frog living on the slopes of iconic Table Mountain, is almost extinct? About as many as know it even exists and that is a mere handful.
In essence this concedes the mammoth task of preserving our biodiversity. When we understand just how many species are going the way of the Dodo, unassumingly quietly, without even a whimper, it is perhaps time to give that little frog and others a voice from the wilderness.
Man is responsible for the theft of the wild both from nature and future generations. So those unknown and unnoticed in the wild need to join the Rhino in a call for humans to understand the critical dilemma facing the survival of all species.
Living Endangered has given a few near extinct species a voice in the form fine pieces of adornment, statements that will be carried by people who care. We give to the Wilderness Foundation five percent of the sale of every accessory to continue their fight to preserve wild lands and wild oceans. These are professionals who promote the importance of leadership and knowledge in dealing with the nature.
Biospheres will only survive if people, especially those who live near wild spaces, derive a greater benefit from preserving them than destroying them.
Beautiful people and beautiful things will not let them go.