The Mountain Zebra Camdeboo Protected Environment (MZCPE), now known as the Great Karoo Wilderness, a Gazetted National Protected Area, was established in 2012 to protect and enhance biodiversity between two iconic national parks: Camdeboo National Park (Graaff-Reinet) and Mountain Zebra National Park (Cradock).

This protected environment is located between eight (8) towns namely; Aberdeen, Cradock, Graaff-Reinet, Jansenville, Murraysburg, Nieu-Bethesda, Pearston and Somerset East. It was originally declared in 2016 for the purpose of maintaining the landscape in terms of its scenic, biodiversity and landscape value through collective action by the private landowners and to protect the area from detrimental developments.

The MZCPE is has become a wonderful model that allows for a softer approach to securing conservation priority areas and is greatly enabled by its natural landscape driven by natural rangeland management. It strives to recognize landowner efforts and be guided by the needs of these landowners to identify what is needed and to unlock opportunities to assist. This Protected Environment is constantly evolving and the future potential collaborations that could be unlocked have no bounds.