Flutterby wrote:krugerpark.com
March 14th, 2012 | Author: Megan Dutriou
A declaration has been gazetted that proposes sections of adjoining land will be incorporated into the territory of five of South Africa’s National Parks. Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa gazetted the declaration, which would effectively enlarge the parks, last week. The parks to be enlarged will be Addo Elephant, Agulhas, Mokala, Namaqua and Tankwa Karoo National Parks.
If the plan goes ahead, the parks will be enlarged as follows:
• 278.16 ha will be added to the Agulhas National Park
• 5 763.40 ha will be added to Namaqua National Park
• 791.72 ha will be added to Addo Elephant National Park
• 2 894.31 ha added to the Mokala National Park
• 22 501.40 ha of additional land for the Tankwa Karoo National Park
The process requires this proposal to be gazetted for both public comment and the agreement of Ministers of Public Works, Rural Development and Land Reform and Mineral Resources.
Previously, South African National Parks was mandated by the government to expand the protected areas of South Africa by 2010. The proposed expansion would extend the areas of our national parks from the then 6% to 8% of the country’s surface area, as well as extending the protected coastline from 2% to up to 20%. Projects such as the Addo Elephant National Park project (GAENP) took up this massive task and, today, Addo Elephant National Park has successfully expanded to include about 180 000 hectares of Easter Cape terrain, and there are plans to expand it further into a 264 000 ha mega-park.
Finding a balance
All this expansion is great news for the wildlife, as well as for the tourism industry it supports. It is, however, important to keep socio-economics in mind and consider examples from conservation and development in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where an estimated 4 million rural poor suffer from food shortages and various people-park conflicts have arisen as a result of direct competition for resources. A balance between conservation and capacity building must be ensured, to avoid incidents like the ongoing land invasion crisis in the Chiredzi River Conservancy, where people continue to clash with elephants over land and water sources.
Job creation
However, the expansion of the parks could have indelibly positive effects for surrounding communities. SANParks’ findings suggest that the creation of job opportunities through ecotourism is as much as four times that of agriculture, so it’s clear that conservation has a major role to play in economic development if managed correctly.
