1.
An open letter to SANparks and to the HR Organisation.
Dear sirs, with all respect, this is beyond outrageous. The national parks are not your personal property. They belong to us, the citizens of South Africa and you are appointed custodians on our behalf. You have a mandate to manage them within certain constraints defined by legislation.
With regards to the proposed Kgalagadi Riverbed Challenge you appear to be operating outside the limitations of your mandate. I conclude this based on your refusal to provide the information requested by the interested and affected public who you are appointed to serve, and represent.
For a final time, I publicly call on you to publish the results of a proper bone fide Environmental Impact Assessment pertinent and relevant to your proposed Kgalagadi Riverbed Challenge, performed in terms of the legislative framework that requires from you due diligence and proper mindfulness in performance of your mandate. Failure to do so will result in further process, and we, the public, reserve our rights to explore this to the full extent of the law .
I, and many other stakeholders had hoped it would not come to this, but you leave us no choice.
You have responded to legitimate concerns from stakeholders with nothing but obfuscation and condescension. We are not children and we are not idiots. Every formal response from yourself has contained nothing but feeble attempts at Public Relations damage control devoid of any any substance. Mr Lemmer, and MR Phillips, you insult the intelligence of your stakeholders with your responses devoid of content. We can only presume that your refusal to provide the information requested is because, in contravention of the Legislation, and the Acts that govern your stewardship of our national resources, you have NOT applied due diligence or proper process with regard to the environmental impact of your proposed biking event scheduled to take place between September 21~25, 2013, in the Nossob riverbed between Unions End and Nossob.
As a member of the public, as a a citizen of South Africa, as a concerned and affected party, I make one final appeal to you as representatives of the SANparks to respond to this legitimate demand in good faith, and provide proper proof that you have fulfilled, and continue to fill your mandate to properly manage and conserve the ecology and the environment of the Kgalagadi Trans frontier Park.
Failing which, I respectfully give notice of an intention to mobilise all resources at my disposal, both personal and public, to require performance from SANparks and the KGalagadi Trans frontier Park.
POSTSCRIPT>
The sad thing is we really did try very hard to do this amicably. Rather than just level with us and acknowledge that a mistake had beern made, and take the public that supports them into their confidence, SANparks and the HR's appear to have taken an executive decision to ignore these legitimate challenges in the hope that it would all go away. I'm afraid not. It's just too important. This is an issue that MUST be fought to the end. There is an inviolate principle at stake.
SANparks and the managers of Kgalagadi trans frontier park are legally beholden to follow specific processes, and in the case of the proposed cycle debacle, it is becoming clear that they are derelict. I make the statement in the hope that even at this late stage they will prove me wrong by publishing the answers to the questions we have asked, which would be the natural outcomes of the proper EIA that their official responses imply to have been performed.
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response from SANparks; in their opinion no EIA required
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2. My response was;
b]@ Gabrielle[/b]; Thank you for your esteemed official SANparks response, which
confirms what the honorary officers have been saying all along.
Regretfully it does very little to assuage the concerns that arose as a result of what the
honorary officers were 'saying all along'.
In fact it deepens these concerns and hardens stakeholder resolve to oppose the event.
In summary then of the current state of substantive stakeholder concern falling under
these distinct headings;
1. TRANSPARENCY
a. In June 2011 (not 2012 as you state), a recce was undertaken by SAnparks
employees together with HR's who, acting as your agents are the appointed
organisers.
b. PROMOTIONAL VIDEO was produced and posted on facebook sometime in July 2011.
This was done in such a way that the clip was only visible to people who were personally
given the link. Between July 2011 and October 2012 (19 months) the video was so
secretively posted that on FACEBOOK, which is the largest social media platform on the
planet, only 320 views were registered. That is 320 views over approximately 570 days,
or, about 2 views every 3 days. Compare that to this thread, posted in a part of the
forum that is not even open to the general public, but only to registered viewers. It has
collected over 5000 views and over 350 comments in less than 2 weeks. The Riverbed
cycle challenge topic posted on other web based platforms which are not even specific to
national parks or conservation issues, such as ODP (1600+ views and 60 comments in 8
days), or Roxanne Reid's personal blog are evidence that the issue is of vast public
interest and underline the lack of transparency on the part of the event sponsors and
organisers.
c. The public only became aware of the issue when SANparks published a small advert in
the October 2012 issue of RIDE a cycling magazine. By the time the advert was published,
the majority of the 50 available spots had already been subscribed by persons with
'inside' access of one sort or another. The public that you purport to be marketing and
promoting the parks to, seem to all intents and purposes to have been almost entirely
excluded. The honourable HR’s may spin it any way they can, but the facts speak for
themselves.
d. There have been four official communiques from SANparks and their agents, the
Honourary Ranger Organisation on this thread.
On 13/10/2012 (at 1.11am) Mr Louis Lemmer National Executice Committee member
published a post on this forum. It’s tone is both reassuring and enthusiastic, but speaks in
generalities, provides only a minimum of fact and avoids the request for proof of a
thorough environmental or zoological audit of its impacts. It makes no mention of the
Kgalagadi Park management plan, or of the zonation maps that are an integral part of that
plan and in terms of which, the cycle route running parallel to, but off the road impinges
into areas that have been zoned as zero visitor access. The significance of this is that
while the road is zoned as a medium use/impact zone, all the way from Nossob to Union’s
end, the area off the road falls into a no access/ zero tourist impact zone. This is
completely ignored, as if the organisers are not even aware of the management plan and
referent zonation maps, or the inconsistency in creating a precedent for recreational
events in this zone. If there had been any ecological or zoological expertise at the
conceptualisation stage of this event, even a half-baked environmental consultant would
have pointed this out.
As an afterthought almost, around 13/10/2012, some 19 months after the decision to
proceed with the event a small notice appears on the SANparks site, on the Kgalagadi
home page advising of the event.
Between 13~15 October a few short posts are made advising stakeholders that an official
response is on way and the delay is caused because they are checking their facts.
On 15/10/2012 Mr Lemmer rejoins the debate with a post that shoots what little
credibility the HR’s retained in this discussion, not in the foot, but in the head. In
wounded, self-righteous tones for the most part it sings a self-aggrandising praise song
for the HR’s. It then goes on to focus on the fundraising and commercial benefits of the
event, and only in its last stanza does it even attempt to address the environmental
concerns. In this regard it is as devoid as the first HR official response of any substantial
content.
Stakeholders are left with the conclusion that the whole event is based on the opinions of
tourism marketing managers, office administrators and amateur conservation enthusiasts.
@ Gabriella; these perceptions are something that your post confirms.
Later that same day, 15/10/2012 Mr Glenn Phillips, managing Executive - tourism
development & marketing weighs in with an ‘official’ response that, while addressing none
of the legitimate concerns, throws the full weight of SANpark tourism marketing support
behind the event. It adds no perceptible environmental insight or ecological credibility,
but does manage to finesse a little generic insult towards stakeholders that dare pose
questions. It’s a strategy designed to impute the credibility of critics. Unsurprisingly, it
backfires badly.
2. ECOLOGY
The fact of being a SANparks employee, or an HR, is no indication of biological expertise.
The HR's are amateur conservationalists, (as am I and many other stakeholders who may not be
HR's). Who were these SANpark employees? Were they tourism managers and marketers?
Were they administrators? Were they qualified biologists/zoologists/ ecologists? Because
if the conclusions were not based on the broad inputs of arid zone ecologists, they might
just as well have been petrol pump attendants and their "opinion" is after all, just that; an
uninformed opinion. The relevance of this question is based on the precedent given by
yourself, that with regard to raptors, you consulted with the Raptor Assoc of SA, together
with EWT. You involved experts, they gave an opinion and their opinion had a material
effect on consequent planning (you moved the date to avoid a specific potential biological
impact). But why would you consider ornithological issues to be relevant, yet regard all the
other biological communities as not being significant enough to merit an equal application of
mind? You moved the event date to accommodate concerns regarding bataleur nesting,
but how might the event and its new date affect Suricata, or some obscure lepidopterid, or
perhaps Coleoptera, or hemipterid? You simply don’t know, or apparently, care.
@ Gabrielle Venter (Guru); Media & Stakeholder relations. Thank you for confirming on
19/10/2012... some 19 months after the initial recce and conceptualisation, almost 2 years
after your decision to proceed with the event, that there was no EIA (the body entrusted
with stewardship of our national heritage ‘deems’ it to be superfluous... and the
Environmental Management Plan has still to be developed. At this point it still doesn’t
exist??!!! Thank you for expressing clearly the intention of exploiting the natural resource
in the name of creating marketable tourism product ~ and that the environmental
management component can be cobbled together as you go along, to fill the needs of
predetermined commercial priorities. Very clear prioritisation.
In the face of this official responses persist insisting that due diligence has taken care
of all possible impacts.
3. PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY
With eloquence the official SANparks response presents the priorities of a corporate
culture that purports to ride under the slogan “Conserving Nature since 1926".
Abe Lincoln said; “You can fool all the people half the time, and half the people all the
time... but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. He may have been onto something
there
** As a sideshow; an unfortunate consequence of all this is that all the credibility, good
work, altruism and honour of the entire Honorary Ranger movement is put up as the stake
in a bet ~ gambled if you like ~ by their management and leadership, on this single,
untested event.
From Cape Point, to Midmar, to Limpopo, we all know that honorary conservation officers do
sterling work on a thousand unsung fronts. All of that credibility, good will and public
relations edifice is now staked on this long-shot, ill conceived (no proper homework done
w.r.t. to the core environmental issues), elitist event.
The extent to which the Kgalagadi cycle challenge is an unmitigated public relations
debacle can be measured by the tsunami of opposition that continues to thunder ashore.
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SANparks response; silence
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Stakeholders who object have decided to mount a formal campaign against this. It begins with a press and media campaign, starting this weekend. Once we have manged to create some public awareness we will look at gathering a warchest and mounting a formal legal challenge. Watch this space
