Abstract The role of the voluntary sector in geoconservation has a long history. However, its involvement in biodiversity conservation is even longer. A contrast is made between the biodiversity and geodiversity voluntary sectors through time. With the start of the movement arguably by the National Trust in the late nineteenth century, the baton (or hammer) has been taken up by geological societies locally and nationally, by individuals and more recently by the RIGS initiative. The word voluntary in no way diminishes the work undertaken and achieved by these people. It can be argued that without them geoconservation would not exist. This paper explores their contribution using case studies: National Trust and UKRIGS as national organizations, the RIGS movement as a local initiative, the Chester Society of Natural Science as ‘local’ interest and the work of individuals through time. The latest Local Geodiversity Action Plans (LGAPs) development as a recent historical phenomenon is explored and the importance of local as context for geoconservation illustrated.

Abstract Outcrops of the Ordovician System in South Africa are extensive; they cover significant portions of the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape provinces as part of the Cape Fold Belt as well as the KwaZulu-Natal Province as supracrustal cover overlying the Natal sector of the Paleoproterozoic Namaqua-Natal metamorphic province. Within the Cape Fold Belt, Ordovician rocks of the Table Mountain Group (Piekenierskloof, Graafwater, Peninsula, Pakhuis and Cedarberg formations as well as the enigmatic Sardinia Bay Formation) outcrop extensively whilst pre-Cape rocks of the Kansa Group (Vaartwell, Uitvlug, Gezwinds Kraal and Schoongezigt formations) and Schoemanspoort Formation are present within the Kango Inlier encapsulated by the fold belt. The Natal Group (Durban and Mariannhill formations) is entirely located within KwaZulu-Natal. For the most part, these metasiliciclastic rocks are markedly unfossiliferous except for the world class fossil deposits of the Cedarberg Formation and important trace fossil sites in the Graafwater, Peninsula and Pakhuis formations. The lack of palaeontological material and other accurate geochronological proxies in these successions (as well as those of the Kansa and Natal groups and Schoemanspoort Formation) makes estimations of relative age constraints tenuous at best and difficult to correlate with global Ordovician chronostratigraphic frameworks. Regardless of the challenges faced in correlating these rocks within global frameworks, these rocks provide a unique low latitude glimpse into Earth surface processes and the feedback loops that ensued within the biological realm along the southern margin of Gondwana.