Stakeholder Meeting - White River, Saturday 27 May, Ngwenyama Lodge 09h00

[ubhejane]

Thanks RP. One and a half hours of KNP woes? I cant bear it. Sure its mostly stuff we know anyway. What a waste of time. Where will I find Dup's summary?

[H. erectus]

Please can anyone forward me the proposals as suggested
by Sanparks,! and all the spheesshes, Mr Phillips good at, in
marking time!! Me pretty peeved as a IAP, having to accept
Sanparks standards as "love and behold",..

The Shangoni, hardly concluded properly, for Mr. Schraader
had a security problem!! Me still in the throws of Q/A, when
all jumped at the opportunity to vacate!!!

[Richprins]

The minutes will be out soon, promised. In fact, "Concerned Organisations" or something (That's us) were accused of falsely reporting what was said at previous meetings, with video evidence available. But we haven't received the minutes of the Skukuza Buffalo meeting in March, for example, and private video there useless. Official video was taken there...

[Lisbeth]

The official video had a sound that was IMPOSSIBLE to understand/hear. Why use 1 1/2 hours to say/show things that everybody already knows? In order to give less time for questions?

What about everybody sending e-mails with RP's comments/questions attached?

[stefan9]

The official video had crappy sound and haven't seen any written notes of it.

Maybe if Mister Phillips hired a crew who knew how to make a professional video it would work...

Also if he wants more people there maybe he should schedule more on the weekend, only the white river one was on Saturday. Unless you are retired or working for oneself its very hard to get a days leave to go and attend a meeting in an unrelated industry.

I would have liked to attend the Pretoria meeting but as they didn't send the dates in time couldn't get leave and got no response to my email submission.

[dup]

Will post tonight.

[ubhejane]

Will post tonight.

No worries, thanks dup

[dup]

The background everybody know and I will give my opinion of the meeting.I'am going to give my experience , as I was also present at the Skukuza " hotel" meeting and for me there was a similarity but also a difference of some sort. Please draw your own conclusions and if you want to know more please asked.
General
- Important , as an advance point , is to note that this meeting was to get inputs for KNP Management plan. Thus this is part of a planning cycle and from that point the overview from Mr Phillips .I was surprise that they even give time for any type of questions not even related to the subject . This process is available on the internet, So for the final 10 year plan there are two important dates;Jun-Sept 2017{Interest group meetings cooperative partners) and Feb 2018 (Final public meetimgs present draft management plan).

- At this stage it is important to be part of the process to give written In puts and to register as a stake holder. I got the impression that with the Malane and Skukuza hotel's and the happenings presently KNP Management underestimate the importance of public partisipation. I make this point on the fact of the wide consultation that happen already and the invite to participate in this 10 year plan.

- The sincerity and value that is given by KNP Management the inputs is a different story, I think to trust any state organisation in the present South Africa is asking a lot, there are just to much hidden agenda's.

- The agenda and proceeding on Saturday make sense as all present were not on the same page. Further (opinion) ,defuse aggressive attitude's and also limit time spent on Questions.

Other questions/feedback KNP
-The restaurant story will be address presently the fire and hire process must go trough certain steps -law.
- KNP admit that gate control are a problem e.g. the dogs could only work a few hours and are not enough.
- Traffic control will be improve more personnel to be trained and mobile enforcement vehicles.
- Polygraph test is done on personnel and there are investigations.
- KNP vehicles got GPS systems and if road kills are reported this could be investigate.

Conclusion

pse note my opinion out of Saterday's meeting.

- still the big thing for every expansion problem/action is the Budget of SANPARKS ," just 17 % " is coming from central government. To end this argument stakeholders have to use the political tool for more government money as Tourism is a Economic driver and create jobs.
- There are definitely certain clients/users of the KNP that got the attention from management, and they " listen" to them. On the other side KNP try to get the negative perceptions out of the way.

[All-Nature]

Thank you dup

[ubhejane]

Thanks Dup. So not much time for questions - sounds as though it is more of a presentation than a time to ask questions? In which case, maybe its a good thing to be at the meeting but also to put in a submission where questions can be posed?