Phandulwazi School Grade 10’s.

Art students in Grade 11 from Queen’s College and Girls’ High School in Queenstown visited.

• There are three new paintings by Diana on display in the Eco-shrine: Interbeing, Lourie Fountain, and Gateway to the New Cosmology. (Click to see the images.)
   
• Increasing numbers of people from near and far are visiting the Eco-shrine. Diana attributes this firstly to the fact that people are awakening to the grim implications of the devastation of Earth’s eco-systems by humans. Secondly, she thinks that the economic down-turn has caused people to go to places of natural beauty for simpler holidays, particularly where they get good value for their money.
   
• Educational visits from schools and colleges to the Eco-shrine are ongoing. These include an eco-literacy tour of the Eco-shrine and a walk into the adjoining afro-montane forest. Some of the schools that have visited this year are Clarendon Girls High, GHS, Queen's College, Parklands College, Buffalo City FET College.
   
• Visit from the Amathole Foundation from Denmark.
   
• The Eco-shrine featured in a National Geographic book on South Africa, published by Delius.
   
• A group of school principals from Eastern Cape schools and their spouses, guided by Rob Prentiss, visited the Eco-shrine.
   
• TV Documentaries featuring the Eco-shrine include Going Nowhere Slowly and on the youth programme Which Way.
   
• Diana is the chairperson of the Participatory Forest Management Forum in Hogsback. The Forum, working with the directorate of DAFF, is responsible for the sustainable use and protection of the indigenous forests in the Hogsback area.
  
  Activities of the Forum during 2009 included the following:
  
• In May 2009 the PFM Forum held a successful Forest Awareness and Protection Day for teachers, community leaders and the general public of Hogsback and the Tyume Valley.
   
• The Forum has also started on their programme for the rehabilitation of the forest above Madonna and Child Waterfall.
   
• The Forum has directed the focus of Working for Water to clear the wattle-infested what-used-to-be-grassland in the middle of the Auckland Forest Reserve.
   
• The Forum has been instrumental in guiding a scientist to focus his research on the wellbeing of the Hogsback forests.
   
• It has also facilitated the work of two more scientists in their study of the Cape Parrots and Samango Monkeys in the forests.
   
• The Forum has facilitated the maintenance of the hiking trails.
   
• At every opportunity the Forum has promoted the idea and disseminated information about the proposed Amathole Biosphere Reserve.
   

Green Fire Exhibition

An exhibition of 17 paintings by Diana Graham opened on Saturday 30th September 2006 in the Green Fire Gallery adjacent to the Eco-Shrine.

The exhibition celebrated the 10 years of the Eco-shrine and coincided with the flowers of the Spring season in Hogsback.

Click here to view Diana's Green Fire Exhibition.

To view Diana's other recent paintings, click here.

Awards and Recognition

• Ford Foundation Scholarship for study at Schumacher College in May/June 2003.
• East Cape Premier's Award for Sculpture.
• The Lonely Planet includes a description of the Eco-shrine.
• Eco-shrine featured in the book entitled "Secrets of Sacred Space" by Chuck Pettis. Now available from Amazon.
• Mail & Guardian WWF Green Trust award (Individual category).
• The Eco-shrine often features on national television and in the print media.
• Article on the Eco-shrine appears in a new National Geographic book about South Africa. Published by Delius 2009.