Professor Donovan Kirkwood, curator of the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, died after a fall during a conservation field trip in the Jonkershoek Nature Reserve on Tuesday, 26 August.
Rescue teams from Stellenbosch continued recovery work on the mountain on Wednesday (Eikestadnuus).
Kirkwood was with colleagues and international visitors from the Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Amazon Horticulture when the group was surveying and collecting specimens of Penaea formosa, a critically endangered plant.
Stellenbosch University confirmed the outing and said staff from CapeNature accompanied the team.
Colleagues remembered Kirkwood as a committed conservationist and an energetic leader who championed the protection and restoration of rare Cape flora.
Hein Swanepoel, Kirkwood’s line manager, described him as passionate about conservation and education.
Anita Nel, Head of Innovation and Commercialisation, said his work set a benchmark for academic botanic gardens in South Africa. (Eikestadnuus)
Kirkwood became curator in 2018 and led efforts to strengthen the garden’s conservation collections and to restore its historic layout.
He helped initiate the James and Shirley Sherwood Botanical Art Collection to document and raise awareness about threatened plant species. The project aims to support conservation through art and public engagement.
Friends and partners in the botanical and art communities paid tribute on social platforms and through institutional statements, highlighting Kirkwood’s role in projects that paired scientific work with public outreach.
The rescue operation to recover his remains was ongoing at the time of reporting.
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Picture: Stellenbosch Visio / Facebook
