SANPARKS Feedback Facebook

[RogerFraser]

Lesley Nyawo
Yesterday at 8:38pm
KNP MANAGEMENT PLAN FEEDBACK
The Kruger National Park (KNP) commenced with the process to review the Management Plan, which is a requirement of the National Environmental Protected Area Act No 57 of 2003 (NEM: PAA).
The Management Plan will provide the strategic and operational framework for the management, the protection of the values and achieving the goals and objectives of the KNP in relation to the broader land use for the next 10 years.
KNP has completed 15 Public meetings, of which 10 were in the adjacent KNP footprint, another 5 in major cities such Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Whiteriver and in Durban.
The purpose of these meetings was to get stakeholders views on the special features of the KNP, the new emerging issues within and outside KNP, to gain a better understanding of the challenges, determinants and opportunities that will guide the KNP Management Plan review.
Several key themes emerged from these discussions, KNP will now start developing lower level plans to address key implementation priorities within the mandate of SANParks and the Policy framework. KNP will also continue to engage with sectors and specific focus groups to further inform the development of the Management Plan. Central to this approach; will be to engage with other sectors, whose core mandate is to address many of the issues that were raised during the Public meetings that negatively impact on the KNP’s core mandate.
Emerging themes directly relevant to KNP’s core business (reports will be finalised during June 2017):
• Biodiversity: the Big 5, rhino and elephant management and security, the importance of rivers, special trees and wetlands.
• Environmental management and protection: dealing with global drivers such as droughts and floods. Addressing pollution and degradation outside KNP, which impacts on river and ecosystem integrity.
• KNP Wilderness uniqueness: the large size of the landscape, unique features, sense of place, different landscapes, geology and history.
• Sustainable resource use: medicinal plants and Mopani worms.
• Tourism and Hospitality: diversification of tourism products, regional linkages to broader tourism markets, a range of issues relevant to hospitality services, commercialisation and development issues and impact.
• Socio-economic: local procurement and business development opportunities; supporting wildlife economy initiatives and local employments.
• Cultural and heritage: enhance cultural diversity, cultural tourism products/services and protect heritage sites.
• Safety and security: rhino and wildlife protection; intelligence services, resourcing to support anti-poaching, the participation of local communities to understand rhino and poaching impacts, to assist with the protection of wildlife through a range of interventions and access control.
• Environmental education awareness and skills development: to support youth development programmes, bursaries and volunteerism.
• Human capital: Job employment opportunities, local procurement, advertising in communities, the appointment of rangers and training interventions.
• Trans-boundary issues: trans-boundary access, border control, security; unlocking regional opportunities e.g. tourism, environmental protection and conservation.
• Human-wildlife conflict: impact of damage causing animals, protocols, compensation, reporting.
• Land inclusion buffers: the process to include new land into KNP and cooperative agreements.
Themes and challenges raised by stakeholders that impact on KNP’s core business, which needs to be addressed through liaison with mandated sectors:
• Social Well-being: concerns about human health and the lack of basic services.
• Poor infrastructure and access to the KNP.
• Lack of education, training and skills development opportunities and facilities.
• Safety and security: Crime within communities and poaching of wildlife within the KNP.
• Socio-economic environment: unemployment and poverty, lack of local business development and linkages to broader regional initiatives. The slow transformation of the conservation sector, lack of meaningful beneficiation, finances and capacity to support community initiatives and shareholders.
• Policy environment and Cooperative Governance: poor integrated development planning and conflicting sectoral interest and policy environments. Poor cooperative governance concerns, conflicting and non-standardised policy frameworks, management and regulation of conservation areas open to KNP (state, community and private).
• Tourism opportunities not enhanced at a regional scale.
• Service delivery strikes and poor integration within the local government planning processes; Global drivers such as climate change, droughts, floods, global economic drivers etc. impacting on the KNP SANParks business.
Stakeholders will be kept informed through the website on further progress, such as the high-level objectives that will be formulated as result of the consultation processes. The draft Management Plan will be presented in early 2018 to stakeholders during further public meetings for final inputs.

[Lisbeth]

Thank you, Roger

[Flutterby]