The Nuwejaars Wetland Special Management Area (SMA) has made good strides towards a biodiversity economy. What’s more, the SMA is showing how collective landholder action can transform land use practices, creating approaches that are more dependent on sustaining biodiversity, eco-tourism and carbon- and energy neutral production. The SMA received funding from GEF under the Agulhas Biodiversity Initiative (ABI). Phase one of ABI ran from 2003 to 2010. The SMA was partly responsible for implementing the first output under ABI: to establish a landscape-level conservation management and planning system through public-private partnerships.