Wildlife conservationist, Adrian Gardiner, famous for introducing Shamwari Private Game reserve to the outside world, unveiled at My Pond Hotel on Friday, his warts-and-all biography that gives readers an inside look at what makes the businessman tick.
Gardiner sold the reserve to an Arab company in 2007, but included clauses that allowed him to retain his home, Founder’s Lodge, on the land. In 2018, his hospitality company, Mantis Collection, reached a partnership agreement with international hospitality giant, Accor.
Gardiner famous for the saying that “it was while sitting on a hill that I saw potential when all that others saw was desolation,” was accompanied by the author of his biography, The Man who Changed a Landscape – The Adrian Gardiner Story, Dr Dean Allen.
Gardiner who has charm short of a swagger, and who according to Allen, “watches every penny and gets what he wants”, has felt the pain of near-bankruptcy in 1979 ,but his astute business nous saw him bounce back within a decade.
Gardiner, 82, was born in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), and attended the University of Cape Town, where he studied and left without obtaining his degree.
After arriving in Gqeberha (then Port Elizabeth) in 1969 with his wife, he took on jobs at Spar and a bus company before buying and then selling his shares in Penguin Pools and going into business.
Gardiner a former racehorse owner, stepping forward to launch the book, acknowledged Stenden executive dean, Wouter Hensens, thanking him for the institution’s support. The wildlife entrepreneur was one of the founders of the Stenden campus in the early 2000s.
“It’s been a helluva journey (book)” said Gardiner. If you think I’m tough, you just work with him and then you’ll know,” said Gardiner, referring to author, Allen.
“When I started my journey having sold my horse farm, having done lots of other things, Penguin Pools, Castle Crane Hire all the rest … I wanted my patch of Africa.”
The entrepreneur’s story of Shamwari’s humble beginnings, is stuff of legend. He had bought a farm of 1200ha he had heard via the grapevine was up for sale in Alicedale, and soon the one next to it came up for sale and before he knew it, had 3,000ha on his hands.
“My aim was to go and enjoy weekends not to create a whole game experience. I was 50 years old … “I bought this farm (at Alicedale) and the one next to it came up for sale and the next one and soon I had 11000 ha.”
Gardiner said he studied a book that showed the first lions had had their habitat in the region “and it became an absolute ambition of mine to put the big cats back in their indigenous habitat”.
“And it (Shamwari) wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t get the endorsements … I’m a great believer in if you do something you need the publicity and backing. “Everybody said around me at the time , ‘he has more money than brains … he’s mad it (Shamwari) will never work’.”
Gardiner so focused on his plan to have the lions back in their rightful habitat and the Big Five roaming free at a future Shamwari, managed to persuade conservationist Dr Ian Player to visit him and have a look at his plan.
“Dr Ian Player, the person who saved the white rhino from extinction said, ‘Adrian what you are doing is the future of conservation in South Africa … we got to get the private enterprise involved. Let’s make it to happen’,” said Gardiner.
Gardiner is proud as he waxes lyrical about the film stars and celebrities who have visited Shamwari.
“Brad Pitt, John Travolta and Tiger Woods who created such a storm because he got engaged at Shamwari and then blasted me for announcing it, but he actually did me a favour … he broke my website with all the (global) interest in the engagement … so we made mistakes with publicity, but we needed the endorsements,” he added to laughter
He said he often had to answer questions as to “why the heck did you sell Shamwari then?”
“My plan to sell to a Dubai Sheikh who had visited Shamwari previously, was that I believed he would replicate what we were doing there in countries like Rwanda, Senegal, ZimbabweL … and today there are 16 equivalent Shamwaris in existence … why? Because there is value to wildlife.”
Gardiner is hard at work focusing on a rewilding initiative with his Nyosi Wildlife Reserve, situated in Greenbushes just outside Gqeberha. “I am working flat out with the Wildnerness Foundation to create a corridor between Plett, Nyosi and Graaff Reinet, to drop their fences and to create something bigger than Kruger National Park.
“I probably won’t see it in my lifetime but I am confident it will happen.”
The book is available on the Spotify platform https://dr-dean-allen.myshopify.com/ and retails at R450 excluding postage.
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This article was first published in Talk of the Town, May 22, 2025. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
