JO-ANN BEKKER attended the momentous breakfast affair during which the Garden Route was proclaimed a national park without boundaries or fences
WHILE many Garden Route residents were sitting down at their breakfast tables or work desks last Friday (March 6), Environmental Affairs & Tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk unveiled a plaque that turned the towns we live in into the Garden Route National Park (GRNP).
"We are laying the foundations for something remarkable. We need stakeholders to work with us," he said.
There will be no additional fences or entrance gates in the 120 000ha GRNP which spans the Eastern and Western Cape provinces, Eden and Cacadu district municipalities, and George, Knysna, Bitou and Koukamma local municipalities.
"It represents a new era in bio-regional conservation management," said SANParks COO Sydney Soundy - "the launch of a park whose focus is conservation without traditional park system boundaries and fences."
Van Schalkwyk said that the GRNP was part of a national strategy to expand protected areas under formal protection from 6% currently to 8% (four million hectares). "The diverse biomes of the Garden Route that include the indigenous forests, Knysna estuary and Wilderness lake areas, lowland fynbos, marine protected areas and mountain catchment areas are of national importance.
"As the South African government, we have to ensure sustainable management with conservation as a key priority."
Soundy said in the next months SANParks would invite public participation and input into the GRNP's Draft Management Plan, which would include a strategy for land consolidation and inclusion, integrated fire management, alien control, and tourism development plans.
He said conservation agencies did not need to buy all land identified as having high priority habitat or threatened eco-systems. Land could effectively be included into protected areas through "co-operative governance" with private landowners.
"We fully understand that it is impossible to effectively manage biodiversity conservation in the Garden Route National Park without the linkage corridors on private land."
These biodiversity corridors called for a "balancing of bio-diversity objectives with the different land uses aimed at socio-economic development," Soundy said. The Garden Route's natural attractions made it the third most preferred tourism destination in the country, and one of the country's biggest development nodes.
The GRNP will consist of approximately 51,500ha of newly proclaimed land, as well as 68,500ha of the previously proclaimed Wilderness and Tsitsikamma National Parks. The former Wilderness and Tsitsikamma National Parks will retain their identifies, but become camps in the greater GRNP.
Van Schalkwyk said the establishment of the GRNP was only possible because of people such as Dr Robbie Robinson, former SANParks CEO and "a legend in South African conservation". Robinson began his career in state conservation with the proclamation of Tsitsikamma National Park in 1964 and was instrumental in the removal of fences in the Kruger National Park.
"Today we are making history," GRNP regional manager Nomvuselelo Songelwa said, while the Percy Mdala choir and SAPS W-Cape Jazz band - with media liaison officer Captain Malcolm Pojie on the guitar - entertained invited guests.
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