Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife is the governmental conservation authority responsible for conserving biodiversity and managing protected areas, including two World Heritage Sites, across KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The entity actively promotes ecotourism within KZN and has formed various partnerships in the conservation sector to promote biodiversity conservation.

To support their five-year strategic plan, SUSCO was bought on board as the communication partner to support their work through media. To do this, a revised communication strategy was developed to identify key opportunities to profile different conservation projects within traditional media, while guiding communication activities within other channels.

Since the start of the engagement, we have been able to build a consistent media presence profiling important conservation work. We have built key relationships with journalists covering the conservation, ecotourism and the biodiversity economy.

Crucially we have been able to leverage community media channels to help Ezemvelo communicate with local communities adjacent to their parks. This plays a vital role in building relationships with communities and traditional councils.

Our work has helped to bring attention to critical conservation issues including wildlife crime, human-wildlife conflict, translocation operations, invasive species, and promulgating new protected areas.

Through media monitoring we keep a close eye on media coverage and guide their team on different opportunities to engage with media.

We have been working with Ezemvelo since March 2025.