South Africa edged closer to the government’s declared target of placing at least 8% of the country’s land under ”people’s conservation” this week, with the announcement of the largest single proclamation of protected areas since the 1930s.
The addition of an extra 121 000ha of land to national parks around the country has been approved by Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa and was due to be gazetted by the end of the week.
South African National Parks (SANParks), which will manage the land, says it will become part of its ”people and parks” drive to expand the benefits of protected areas into economic development and job creation.
The announcement followed the approval by Cabinet on Wednesday of the appointment of David Mabunda as the new CEO of SANParks. As reported in the Mail & Guardian last week, Mabunda, who has been the director of the Kruger National Park since 1998, is taking over stewardship of the country’s 21 national parks from Mavuso Msimang. Msimang has moved on to head the State Information Technology Agency.
Mabunda was not able to comment on the new SANParks land acquisitions this week. The Director General of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Dr Chrispian Olver, said Mabunda was the right person to make sure the expanded national parks benefit both the environment and communities.
”Our philosophy is that the benefits of parks must extend to communities beyond their borders,” Olver said. ”Mabunda, as new CEO of SANParks, will bring an added emphasis to implementing this programme.”
Olver said some of the extra 121 000ha was donated to SANParks and some was bought with funding from the state budget. The new land consists of expansions to seven existing national parks spread throughout the country.
”To give an indication of the scale of this announcement, the last time so much land was incorporated for state protection was when the Kalahari National Park was proclaimed in 1931,” he added.
In keeping with the international Convention on Biodiversity, which South Africa has signed, the government has committed itself to expanding land for protected areas from the present 6% to 8% by 2010. It aims to increase marine protected areas from the current 17% to 30%. The international target is to set aside at least 10% of a country for protection.
Since 1995, the government has added more than 300 000ha to national parks — excluding the 121 000ha announced this week.
The expansion programme has cost R193-million so far, with 20% provided by the state, 25% from donors and 55% from SANParks’s conservation efforts and loans. About R76-million has been budgeted for the current expansion.
Moosa said on Thursday the expansion programme would continue from 2004 to 2006, with the focus on under-conserved areas of ecological importance like grasslands. Several possible new national parks are on the cards, including a Pondoland park in the Eastern Cape.
The department insists that, as land under conservation management expands, so the strict preservationist approach of the past must shift towards a programme where nature and people mutually benefit each other.
Moosa said that, over the past three years, poverty relief programmes linked to the expansion of national parks across the country have created 1,1-million extra work days, 3 000 temporary workers, 100 permanent jobs and 100 000 training days.
”Ecotourism has proved to offer greater economic returns, employing about 30% more employees than pastoral agriculture and at twice the average salary,” he said. ”Tourism is the fastest growing industry, contributing to about 11% of gross domestic product, and our national parks are a principal attraction.”