Minister Edna Molewa’s speech at SA National Parks Week

[Toko]

Minister Edna Molewa’s speech at SA National Parks Week

Mokala National Park, Northern Cape, 09 September 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen

It is indeed a privilege and an honour for me to join you here at Mokala National Park in the Northern Cape at this launch of the 2013 South African National Parks week, which forms part of our annual programme that allows our various communities to access parks, free of charge.

Last year we celebrated this launch at the Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site and this year is the turn of the Northern Cape, Mokala National Park, the youngest national park under SANParks.

Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am told that since inception in 2006, just over 100 000 people in our country accessed our national parks during National Parks Week.

This tells us that through this Programme supported by First National Bank since day one we are able to extend access to our national parks to ordinary South Africans who wouldn’t normally have access to them.

Allow me Dr Mabunda to pay tribute to FNB for contributing to this national call. This demonstrates that both SanParks and FNB are institutions that measure success not only by the growth in profits but also by the contribution they make towards our communities' growth. FNB asked ‘How can we help you?’ - and they delivered access to national treasures for free.

Thank you FNB, Mr Danny Zandamela for your continued support.

Also worth noting is the steady growth of black visitors to the National Parks, which grew by 25% in the last financial year.

Just because S A National Parks week is celebrated this time of the year, does not mean that we should only visit our parks during this time. Through this gesture, we are saying to the people of South Africa, go out and discover the beauty of our country, re-discover the fauna and flora of our country’s most spectacular scenery, the historic landmarks and the cultural treasures that make us proudly South Africans.

Ladies and gentlemen, our national parks are amongst the key draw cards for tourism in South Africa.

During the past year, South African National Parks released its 2022 Responsible Tourism Strategy. This Strategy provides the organization and the public at large with a clear nature-based, responsible tourism strategy that guides its tourism agenda into the future.

The main reason to celebrate National Parks Week is in acknowledging the successes of our parks. It is also a painful reality that the process of establishing parks before the advent of democracy in South Africa was characterized by the alienation of black people from their land and property.

During the colonial and apartheid era, the creation of parks saw thousands of communities forcibly removed from their land and relocated to new areas, or losing their land. Owners were now reduced to labourers and the pride they had in land ownership was taken from them.

These conservation strategies of the past failed to consider the interests of local people and disrupted existing indigenous management systems. It is therefore safe to say that the history of conservation in South Africa is closely tied to our political history and control over access to land and natural resources.

As we approach 20 years of democracy in our country, we must implement programmes like the National Parks Week as one of the strategies which represent a fundamental shift from the colonial approach, and the government is ensuring that we allow our people to visit these parks in order to connect to the very core of our nature.

I challenge all of us involved in the national and provincial parks system to use next year’s Parks Week to lift the profile and the milestones we have achieved as a people and a sector, as part of the country’s 20 Years of Freedom programme. We have noted that our colleagues in Limpopo, the Limpopo Tourism Agency have joined the crusade of allowing locals free access in their reserves.

The past 20 years have seen a significant shift from the preservationist and segregationist approach under apartheid to a focus on sound environmental management, integrating human rights issues with access to resources, equity and sustainability. This has resulted in biodiversity and conservation policy being successfully repositioned within a new democratic dispensation.

We must also ensure that, over and above issues of access, our national parks and other protected areas are relevant to the socio-economic lives and wellbeing of the communities in the vicinity of the parks. The national parks are almost all situated in rural areas and play a critical role as catalysts for local economic development and job creation.

When we were at Mapungubwe last year for the launch of S A National Parks week we indicated that over 10 000 people get up and go to work in the national parks every day. Since then we have created an additional 340 jobs in the national park system in the area of resource security and through the Environmental Monitor programme. Through the ongoing operational procurement programme of SANParks over R600 million is injected into the economy each year, 85% of which is directed at Black owned and Black empowered companies. In addition through the Expanded Public Works Programmes in the national parks in the last financial year 626 SMME’s were supported to the value of R137m.

The World Parks Conference and the Convention on Biological Diversity or CBD remind us that objectives for parks are:

1) Biodiversity conservation;

2) Sustainable development and use of their resources; 3) Access and benefit sharing.

We remain committed, therefore, to ensuring that our national parks continue to play a meaningful role in the lives and wellbeing of the communities they are serving.

I declare the start of 2013 SA National Parks Week and invite all South Africans to go and enjoy their national parks during this Week.

The open access offered by government during Parks Week, must be taken full advantage of. The elderly people who have lived all their lives next to a national park without ever seeing what is on the other side of the fence must be taken in their thousands to go and visit their neighbouring national park.

Ladies and gentlemen, the SA National Parks Week 2013 is officially opened. Enjoy your national parks.

Kea leboga. Thank you.

[Richprins]

This is pretty much a rehash of SP's "new vision"...I don't think the minister makes up her own stuff, but fine!

It is contradictory regarding the dire threat posed by Colonial/Apartheid/Fortress conservation, as the financial/employment benefits regarding communities and the country are abundantly laid out? Which has been stated all along!

In fact, the financial benefits are probably way above that, and impossible to quantify, IMO!