A bird's eye view of Mandela Uni's South Campus in Summerstrand, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The South Campus was declared a Private Nature Reserve in 1983. The campus covers 830 ha, and is dominated by the St Francis Dune Thicket vegetation community, which is characterised by clumps of thicket occurring within a matrix of Dune Fynbos.
This fynbos vegetation is highly threatened due to agricultural clearing and coastal development, and the Univeristy's Nature Reserve makes a significant contribution towards its conservation. Many species of buck and other mammals are regulalrly spotted walking around the reserve.