SOUTH African National Parks (SANParks) has heeded the request from South Africans who aren’t able to visit national parks during the week, to include weekends, during the 14th annual SA National Parks Week.
It takes place from Sunday, September 8 to September 15 – once again in conjunction with partners Total South Africa and FNB.
National Parks Focus Week is a worldwide campaign which gives people free day-access to national parks.
This annual event gives all South African citizens the opportunity to visit one of the 21 national parks for free.
In what is known as the frontier region of SANParks, this applies to Addo Elephant National Park (outside Port Elizabeth), Camdeboo National Park (on the borders of Graaff-Reinet), Garden Route National Park (with its Tsitsikamma, Knysna and Wilderness sections), Karoo National Park (outside Beaufort West) and Mountain Zebra National Park (near Cradock).
Owing to the popularity of Addo Elephant National Park and its proximity to Port Elizabeth, gate quotas of 700 people per day per gate over weekends will apply – so it is advisable to get there early to avoid disappointment.
Each year SANParks aims at increasing the number of citizens that are granted free access to national parks during this time. Since starting the programme in 2006, a total of 438 361 South Africans have been afforded the opportunity to enter national parks and SANParks want to see this number grow.
“It’s important for South Africans to visit and know the importance of national parks. They act as spaces to practise sustainable conservation, as spaces that preserve and celebrate our culture and heritage, and we now see national parks playing the critical role of empowering communities living adjacent to parks through job creation and we continue to explore ways of creating business opportunities particularly for small business owners,” said SANParks CEO Fundisile Mketeni.
Mketeni highlighted the growing need for national parks to be relevant, particularly to young people and communities living adjacent to parks.
“Through our socio-economic transformation programmes and our Expanded Public Works Programme, we work closely with communities living adjacent to national parks with the aim of strengthening our relationships with them, in order to be more inclusive so we can tackle issues of wildlife crime with their help, afford them more access to parks for cultural use, inform young people about the different career options that parks have to offer and create job opportunities.
“SANParks hopes to strengthen and enable those communities to reap the benefits of the national parks.”
For more info visit www.sanparks.org/about/events/parks_week.
