kruger national park case study

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The real economic value of Greater Kruger National Park

A 2020 study has revealed the considerable economic contributions of the Kruger National Park and the surrounding “contiguous reserves” that together compose the Greater Kruger National Park (GKNP). The study is a joint effort between researchers from the University of Florida and South African National Parks (SANParks).

In considering the public, private, and community-owned components as a whole, the study attributes different values in financial, social, and political domains to each. The researchers suggest that the GKNP should be considered as a whole when working towards management frameworks and policies. The private reserves, while constituting only 12% of the total land area, were responsible for over 60% of the total employment, tax and GDP contributions. Conversely, the Kruger National Park accounts for almost all domestic visits, performing a vital political and social function.

Across the total 22,686km² (2.3 million hectares) of the entire open system, there are close to 8,000 beds and some 700 different camp and lodge sites. As a general rule, the Kruger National Park itself is oriented towards budget self-catering options, while the private reserves tend to cater to more luxury, high-end safari experiences. For the study, anyone living within 50km of the GKNP boundary fence was considered to be “local”, which equated to approximately 2.9 million people, including many in semi-rural and socio-economically disadvantaged communities. The study reveals that from a period between 2016-2017, there were 3.5 million bed nights and day-visits to the GKNP, of which 35% on average were foreign tourists. As would be expected, the highest visitation by far was to the Kruger National Park itself, while the provincial reserves (Manyeleti Nature Reserve, Letaba Ranch Game Reserve and Makuya Nature Reserve) accounted for only 1% of the total visits.

Of the estimated R5.8 billion trip-related spending in South Africa by GKNP photographic tourists, all but R0.9 billion (which went into travel costs) was received in the local area. The total number of people employed in the GKNP equated to around 10,388, with R1.17 billion spent on wages and salaries in one year. In terms of both tourist spending and employment, the surrounding private reserves accounted for the majority. In total, the GKNP contributed R2.6 billion to South Africa’s GDP for 2016/17, including R975 million in tax revenue. When accounting for chain multipliers and induced spending of wage-earners, this contribution could be considered almost tripled to around R6.6 billion to the national economy.

Considered as an overall system, 80% of funding for reserve management of the GKNP is generated by photographic tourism, but this does not apply evenly across the surrounding private reserves. While in the National Park visitor fees go directly into covering conservation costs, the private reserves rely primarily on a levy system charged to commercial operators. The report suggests that resistance to levy hikes has resulted in managers of the private reserves having to seek alternative funds from donors and consumptive tourism. In some of the private reserves, consumptive tourism and trophy hunting account for up to 80% of the management income. In contrast, the provincial reserves are almost entirely reliant on public funds.

The presence of the Kruger National Park served as a powerful catalyst for the growth of a large and vibrant economy in the surrounding area, with substantial conservation, social and economic benefits as a result. The provincial reserves, however, are struggling with several challenges including poor infrastructure, high wage bills and low funding, as well as claims by neighbouring communities on the existing revenue streams.  These issues, combined with weak governance and a lack of accountability at provincial and community-level could undermine the entire system, say the authors.

The system’s most significant capacity for institutional resilience comes through the diverse functions each component offers, something that will be particularly relevant during the current COVID-19 pandemic (which occurred after the compilation of this article). Importantly, the researchers call for an extended approach in assessing the value of each component of the GKNP and, given that their approach has yielded a much larger economy than previously thought, this needs to be taken into account for high-level strategies. Though the private reserves generate the most revenue, their relationship with the national park is symbiotic; it allows them to capitalize on the brand as a whole, creating a public-private mosaic.

The study concludes that the “partnership in the Greater Kruger National Park between private reserves and the national park is key, not only for branding but for stabilizing the system’s high-performing economic engine with political and cultural ballast.”

The full report can be accessed here: “ The Comparative Financial and Economic Performance of Protected Areas in the Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa: Functional Diversity and Resilience in the Socio-Economics of a Landscape-Scale Reserve Network ,” Chidakel, A., Eb, C. and Child, B. (2020) Journal of Sustainable Tourism.

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Challenges of geotourism in south africa: a case study of the kruger national park.

1. Introduction

2. review of the literature, 2.1. geotourism research: global overview, 2.2. geotourism in south africa: history and challenges in the context of the kruger national park, 2.3. tourism impact on the south african economy: in relation to the kruger national park, 3. study area.

• Thulamela (#1), showing a circular sandstone wall reconstruction of the Venda chief’s home and traditional court;
• Shaluka (#5) and Nkovakulu (#11), revealing spectacular vesicular and amygdaloidal basalt packed in circular form indicating ruins of old dwellings of the Venda people;
• Makahane (#9), dinosaur remains;
• A basalt sofa (#13), formed by a volcano millions of years ago;
• Mashikiri (#12), rock art lines inside the concave cave indicating the presence of the ancient hominids;
• Kremetart (#14), presenting ancient graves, portholes and important geological structures such as beddings, joints, faults and ripple marks;
• Malonga Diamond Prospecting Pit (#15), offering gemstones and natural springs as attractions.

Geology of the Study Area

4. materials and methods, 4.1. research design, 4.2. data analysis, 5. results and discussion, 5.1. sub-theme 1: lack of packaging and marketing.

“… Because currently tourists visit the park, drive to Punda Maria. I don’t stop outside the park to buy… in fact I don’t spend any money in the local communities. We need to work on tourists spending more time outside the park, spending money and making local economy grow… But at the moment that is not how it is packaged...”

5.2. Sub-Theme 2: Lack of Infrastructure

5.3. sub-theme 3: security and access to geoheritage sites.

“… people [tourists and local communities] want to go to Thulamela and we (SANParks) sometimes make it difficult because we don’t set up the product so that people can visit easily. So if people come to Punda Maria and say can we do Thulamela and we say ohh let’s see if it is doable and ask someone if he is available and he is actually not available because he is actually doing another job.”

“I think logistically we [SANParks] will need to provide safety. Physical safety where people can get to places where they can fall and get injured as well as safety against animals. But those are things that can be managed… have necessary armed guides who will be guiding the tours...”

5.4. Sub-Theme 4: Access to Finance and Markets

“… we don’t have a budget for specifically geotourism… Government allocation can never be sufficient because the needs are huge. For example, you can make the allocation to look after the sites at KNP but you might find that the allocation is specifically for the conservation of that site but it does not allow for other facets that are related to the conservation of that site… The other thing is if you need to develop access around the site in a controlled manner you don’t have money for basic infrastructure but you actually have money just to protect the site.”

“… Small business fails because they don’t have access to markets and monopoly, resisting people to operate and they don’t share their business with small operations… We don’t just say we like local business. We will say ok let’s go and look and say okay they are responsible, they looked at the requirement of responsible tourism, they pay people, they are registered and everything…”

5.5. Sub-Theme 5: Destruction of Geoheritage Sites

“… the greatest threat to geological sites is mining… So you can have spectacular geological site that gets mined and it’s gone. It’s not like biology where you can put cattle in an area and you can overgraze it for 20 years and take them out and recover it. Geological damage is permanent and it’s gone forever.”

5.6. Sub-Theme 6: Social Challenges

“… is awareness amongst different stakeholders. Among SANParks itself, their focus is on conservation. I think they need awareness of geological assets they have, they may not see it as potential geotourism product. If you create awareness among SANParks management and staff/employee about why there is geotourism, why it is important, why it is important to conserve it, what benefits does it bring within SANParks itself?. Then the same awareness with communities and in the tourism industry to say here is the opportunity that I can be package and sell as a business… I think [geotourism] awareness is a big one [challenge]…”

“… the whole issue when you are dealing with community leaders. You find that you are engaging with the community leaders but down the line you find somebody [new]. There are disputes all the time from the communities on who told you that this is our leader we elected that one, we don’t know him and things like that and you have split up groups. You find in-fighting among the communities. These are some of the challenges that make it difficult to run proper programs. They think somebody is getting the benefits and so and so is not. So you don’t always get communities that are well organised.”

“Often the community is resistant to something for whatever the reasons. Very often it is the lack of information that causes that. Maybe the leadership in that community is old and don’t see the new opportunities, they are stuck in the old way of doing things and we are in charge… I think that is a problem where the youngsters will have a different understanding and see the opportunity while the elders don’t see it. So there is conflict and lack of common understanding. The other challenge is communities are often poor in general, that level of importance they give to something need to talk to their immediate benefits… Then there issues of trust… Sometimes Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) promises the communities things they can’t fulfil and they disappear and then the communities loose trust because this person promised us things and then they disappear…”

“… It is like top bottom approach. They [local residents] are not involved in planning. They are just being told that is what we are going to do. That is why they are not fully involved in tourism. The communities need to be heard on what they want to happen and how they can be involved in tourism…”

“… The capacity of the community to actually embrace opportunities. Sometimes communities are so incapacitated that they actually can’t see the benefits of doing certain things… interventions fail because people [local communities] have been so disempowered over such a long period of time that it becomes difficult for them to grab opportunity and run with it.”

5.7. Sub-Theme 6: Regulatory Challenges

“The NEM: PAA guides everything that we do as SANParks. It specifically establishes national parks. Everything that we do, things that needs environmental authorisation, we follow that Act. But then also in terms of the NHRA, as SANParks we develop the policy on cultural heritage management that stipulates that SANParks needs to adhere to NHRA. The cultural and heritage management policy is based on NHRA…”

“… creating an inventory of natural assets is very important. Because an inventory seeks to have formal register in place of these assets so that these assets are registered officially as part of heritage resources under the NHRA. Under NEM: PAA they will be declared as environmental sites and so on… From the planning point of view it is very important to have this inventory…”

“Normally you will find that the whole issues of accreditation as tour guides, most of these communities have not gone through that process and they don’t know what it takes to be an accredited tour operator…”

5.8. Limitations

6. conclusions and recommendations.

• They should develop and implement geotourism products and marketing strategies.
• It is also vital to make sure that the times for visiting geoheritage sites are pre-determined and linked with the daily operational activities within the KNP to avoid any unnecessary confusions or delays.
• The NDT government and SANParks should provide access to geoheritage sites for tourists and local communities, including physically impaired people, as stipulated in the Tourism Act, 2014.
• The NDT government or SANParks should provide environmentally friendly infrastructure such as roads and toilets to make it easy to access geoheritage sites that are located in mountainous or rugged terrains. It is also important that the access road infrastructure considers physically disabled tourists.
• The NDT government should provide some financial support to SANParks to develop geotourism at the KNP. However, SANParks should also try to generate its funds to develop geotourism at the KNP.
• There is a need for the government or SANParks to improve access to finance and markets, especially for tourism SMMEs in the poor communities in the northern part of the KNP. In this context, SANParks or the government should ensure that all relevant information is made available to all role players in the tourism market, including local SMMEs.
• The NDT government and SANParks should provide education and awareness initiatives on geotourism.
• The NDT government and SANParks should consult and involve local communities in decision-making regarding tourism activities.
• The NDT government and SANParks must build an institutional human capacity to develop and support geotourism.
• The NDT government and SANParks should comply with the existing legislation and introduce new regulations that focus on geotourism and the management of geoheritage sites.

Author Contributions

Data availability statement, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Matshusa, K.; Leonard, L.; Thomas, P. Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park. Resources 2021 , 10 , 108. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources10110108

Matshusa K, Leonard L, Thomas P. Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park. Resources . 2021; 10(11):108. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources10110108

Matshusa, Khodani, Llewellyn Leonard, and Peta Thomas. 2021. "Challenges of Geotourism in South Africa: A Case Study of the Kruger National Park" Resources 10, no. 11: 108. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources10110108

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The relationship between drought and tourist arrivals: A case study of Kruger National Park, South Africa

Affiliations.

• 1 Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, University of Venda, South Africa.
• 2 Department of Tourism Management, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa.
• PMID: 29955349
• PMCID: PMC6014018
• DOI: 10.4102/jamba.v9i1.471

National parks around the world have been recognised as important sources of nature experiences for both local and international visitors. In South Africa, national parks are similarly important recreational and nature tourism attractions. They offer visitors an unparalleled diversity of tourism opportunities, including game viewing, bush walks and exposure to culture and history. South African National Parks (SANParks), established in 1926, is one of the world's leading conservation and scientific research bodies and a leading agent in maintaining the country's indigenous natural environment. The study aims to analyse the correlation between drought and the number of tourist arrivals to the Kruger National Park (KNP). Rainfall data, as well as data on tourist arrivals at KNP for the period from 1963 to 2015 were obtained from the South African Weather Services (SAWS) and SANParks, respectively. Rainfall data were used to determine the drought years at the KNP through computing the Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) for various stations around the park. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used as a statistical measure of the strength of a linear relationship between drought and tourist arrivals. The results showed that KNP experienced both negative and positive tourist arrivals, although the former was the case, tourist arrivals showed an increasing trend. The correlation relationship showed that 19.36% of the drought years corresponded to a negative change in tourist arrivals to the park. The results obtained confirm that the tourism industry is a fragile industry which is prone to environmental, social and economic state of a region.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.

Drought propagation through the hydrological…

Drought propagation through the hydrological cycle.

Kruger National Park.

Visitors to Kruger National Park.

Kruger National Park Standardised Precipitation…

Kruger National Park Standardised Precipitation Index. (a) Skukuza and Shingwedzi Standardised Precipitation Index,…

Correlation of percentage of tourist…

Correlation of percentage of tourist change to the Kruger National Park and the…

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A Review of the Impact of Militarisation

The case of rhino poaching in kruger national park, south africa.

Annecke, Wendy ,# ; Masubelele, Mmoto

South African National Parks, Cape Research Centre, Tokai, South Africa

Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]

Received June , 2015

Accepted April , 2016

This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

This paper is addressed to academics, conservation agencies and governments primarily in developing countries, faced with the need to protect species from poaching by global syndicates or local groups that threaten the survival of species. The argument of this paper is that while military intervention may provide short to medium terms gains, these have to be weighed against the likely medium to long term financial and socio-economic costs of military activity on people, including the military themselves, and conservation. These costs are likely to be significant and may even threaten the sustainability of conservation areas. While the analysis is developed in relation to the military intervention to inhibit rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, the literature review reveals that similar challenges occur internationally and the South African case study may be applicable to a wide range of anti-poaching conservation efforts and military options throughout the developing world. A multi-pronged approach, where all components are strongly implemented, is necessary to combat poaching.

INTRODUCTION

Rhino poaching in South Africa is currently a hot topic attracting attention globally and locally from conservation organisations, governments and civil society. Africa has two species of rhinoceros, the white rhinoceros ( Ceratotherium simum ) and the black rhinoceros ( Diceros bicornis ). Currently South Africa conserves 84% of Africa's White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) and 40% of Africa's Black Rhinoceros ( D. bicornis bicornis and D. bicornis minor ) (Standley and Emslie 2013). South Africa has not always had healthy rhino populations. In the 1890s, in the face of unrelenting hunting, Southern White Rhino were restricted to a single population of about 20-50 individuals between the Black and White Umfolozi Rivers. In 1898 this area was proclaimed as the Umfolozi Game Reserve (now known as the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park) to protect the remaining animals. By late 2012, the white rhino population had grown to about 20,430 animals (Knight 2013) and rhino poaching remained at consistently low levels until 2008. Since then, South Africa has become a victim of its conservation success and has borne the brunt of the spike in rhino poaching in Southern Africa. Fewer than 50 rhinos were poached in 2006 but in 2008 the number rose to 83 in that year and has continued to rise each year reaching 1,215 in 2014 and a slight decline of 1,175 in 2015 (Mathieson 2016). Recent studies in the Kruger National Park suggest that, at this rate, deaths (more than three a day) may supersede births by 2018 in which case the survival of the species may be threatened (Ferreira et al. 2014, 2015). Multiple reasons for this extraordinary increase in demand have been suggested– including the emergence of unscrupulous South African professionals (safari operators and veterinarians), and the rapidly increasing disposable incomes and aspirations in the middle and far East in conjunction with global syndicates (Milliken and Shaw 2012). Most of the poaching occurs in South Africa's iconic Kruger National Park, an area some 20,000 sq.km in extent; the largest of 21national parks administered by a quasi-state organisation, South African National Parks (SANParks) and the case study for this paper.

The Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in the government of South Africa and the managers of the Kruger National Park acted swiftly in response to the surge in poaching, placing a moratorium on legal rhino horn sales, introducing norms and standards for hunting and increasing the number of rangers and patrols (DEA 2009). However, the killing continued, attracting national and international media attention. Reports of rhino deaths were accompanied by gruesome images of de-horned rhino and distressed orphaned rhino calves sparking vociferous public engagement in all forms of social media (Büscher 2016a, b). Much of this public outrage was garnered by non-governmental organisations and activists to organise campaigns, raise funds and exert considerable pressure on the South African government and conservation agencies to act forcefully against rhino poachers (DEA 2010). Powerful international lobby groups in conjunction with media houses across the globe called for a variety of sanctions and actions including declaring war on rhino poachers while individual mercenaries and ex-soldiers offered their services in to kill poachers. A valourised version of the war on poachers was made into a three-part television series, ‘Battleground: Rhino Wars’ (Animal Planet 2014) highlighting the international popular interest in the issue.

The DEA responded to local and international pressure by taking up the same mantle of war-mongering as the public, equating rhino poaching with threats to national security, declaring war on poachers, and noting that poaching threatens ‘the reputation, eco-tourism industry, and the public image of South Africa’ (DEA 2010). The war talk culminated in the appointment of (retired) Major-General Johan Jooste as Commanding Officer, Special Projects to head anti- poaching operations in the Kruger National Park in 2011 and the deployment of 265 men in two companies of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to the Kruger National Park (DEA 2014). The military has since continued to increase its anti-poaching measures and support in and around the park. This includes air support (helicopters, a spotter plane and drones) and highly sophisticated technologies for detecting human movement and sound (Welz 2013).

We noted the militarisation of the Kruger National Park with concern. Both authors are employed as scientists in SANParks Scientific Services division. We are based in the Table Mountain National Park and work in seven national parks in the Cape provinces. That means that we are spatially considerably removed from the frontline of poaching in the Kruger National Park. However, the national and international tirade against SANParks for being unable to stop rhino poaching was felt by many staff. There were several other reasons too for exploring an issue outside of our daily terrain. As SANParks staff, we are guided by the organisation's vision, ‘a sustainable National Park System connecting society’ and directed by the mission statement which is ‘to develop, expand, manage and promote a system of sustainable national parks that represents biodiversity and heritage assets, through innovation and best practice for the just and equitable benefit of current and future generations (SANParks 2014). Our mandate requires that we conserve biodiversity for all the people and that we integrate people with conservation. We are concerned that military intervention will further alienate local people from conservation and the Kruger National Park. Due to the brutal historical legacy of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa, we live in a fractured and fractious society where inequality and poverty scar the landscape and have caused and exacerbated the loss of land and livelihoods to protected areas including the Kruger National Park. We question whether the new military, renamed the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has been able to transform within the new democratic order or whether the old destructive ethos leaches into the new SANDF (Kynoch 1996; Le Roux 2005) and may include participating in illegal wildlife crimes. Recognising that positive relations between conservation areas and people are key to the sustainability of the nation's biodiversity, we are concerned with the response of local people to the military presence–bringing the military into Kruger National Park sixteen years after democracy is fraught with memories of a bitter era in South Africa's history. A significant component of the paper deals with the social impacts that are likely to result from military intervention.

We present examples in and close to protected areas within the region, continent and the other parts of the world to illustrate the international character of military intervention in conservation and question whether the SANDF will be able to break the military mould and act in the interests of SANParks joint biodiversity-protection and people-oriented mandate.

Lastly as South Africans we believe that we should make our concerns known. International academics have taken up the cudgels and developed insightful arguments into green militarisation and securitisation (Kelly and Ybarra 2016; Lunstrum 2014; Massé and Lunstrum 2016; Duffy 2016, 2014; Duffy et al. 2015). The role of the social media in the Kruger National Park has been highlighted by Büscher (2016b). However, of those directly responsible for rhino protection, few in either the DEA or SANParks have questioned the role of the military. Notable exceptions are Ferreira et al. (2014); Ferreira et al. (2015); and Knight (2013) who deal primarily with biological, management and policy issues rather than socio-political issues. Ours is not a popular position in South Africa, however it is gleaned from our experiences in apartheid South Africa which highlighted the shortcomings of military intervention in socio-political conflicts and we wanted to explore the likelihood of the military option succeeding in the multi-dimensional case of rhino poaching. As South African citizens, we experience daily the effect of ratcheting up the tensions between the middle classes living in fortified houses while the ‘have nots’ devise increasingly sophisticated or violent ways of transgressing the fortresses. It would appear that poachers are engaging in a similar ratcheting up of the tensions and an ‘arms race’ against the military in the Kruger National Park and other rhino sanctuaries. The more sophisticated the military intervention, the more sophisticated the response from the poachers (Massé and Lunstrum 2016) and we argue that the concentration of deadly weaponry and the compulsion to kill cannot be good for social ecological systems.

Colleagues challenged us to provide peer-reviewed evidence that the military option has adverse consequences for biodiversity and people. This paper provides evidence from international literature that despite some exceptions, the military generally do have a negative impact on biodiversity conservation, the social impact of the military in conservation areas is generally detrimental to local populations and to some of the military personnel and is unsustainably expensive.

METHODOLOGY

We found the peer-reviewed literature using Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science to do a broad search using the key words green militarisation, green violence, militarisation and conservation, impact of military on conservation, war on rhino and impact of military on personnel . The latter is a vast literature and beyond the scope of our paper, so we used information from the apartheid armies (national and liberation) and field evidence to highlight the impact on different groups of people of fighting the ‘rhino wars'. For contemporary social media and comment we used Google key words war on rhino , local newspapers and SANParks’ official facebook page and Büscher (2016 a, b). Google produced useful references for arsenal of weapons in Kruger National Park to fight poaching , and what are the risks of entrenching the military?

The results of the search on the impact of military activity on conservation and people resolved quite quickly into three categories of impacts: positive impacts of the military with regard to protecting some species and getting rid of others; generally positive impacts of the unintended consequences of bases or no-go zones that provide incidental protection for some species; and substantial evidence of the negative impacts of prolonged military intervention on conservation and people. In the second part of the paper, we compare these findings to conditions in the Kruger National Park in order to draw attention to the potential outcomes of military intervention in rhino poaching. We highlight the blurring of roles of the military and conservation in SANParks that have led to the alienation of the broader community from conservation.

The South African Experience is similar to the International Experience

Militarisation can be defined as the process by which a society organises itself for military conflict and violence. The extent or degree of violence permitted may be debated but the violence itself, being state sanctioned is deemed legitimate (Giddens 1985) albeit neither politically nor ecologically neutral. Violence is exercised in the interests of particular groups: one of the objectives of this paper is to bring to surface some of the impacts of violence applied in the name of anti-poaching. Lunstrum (2014) describes the use of military and paramilitary (military-like) actors, techniques, technologies, and partnerships in the pursuit of conservation, as green militarisation with securitisation and green militarisation developing into fields of study in their own right (Duffy 2016: Lunstrum 2014).

While we identified positive contributions of the military to conservation as a category in the literature, there were not many examples of this (Dudley et al. 2002; Hanson et al. 2009; Lawrence et al. 2015). In Australia, the military working in conjunction with the police and the justice system were able to ensure security in highly complex situations and reduce some of the wildlife trafficking that has been so detrimental to biodiversity (Alacs and Georges 2008). In India, retired generals planted more than 10 million trees between 1985 and 1995 at Kutch in Gujarat, where they also monitor pollution and help protect wildlife in the Greater Himalayas (D'Souza 1995). In Rwanda, government commitment is seen in the security provided to researchers and tourists on a daily basis in the form of military escorts to the gorillas (Glew and Hudson 2007). While this protection is for tourists, it has been argued that it is revenue from tourism to communities that keeps the gorillas from becoming bushmeat (Warchol 2004). Dublin and Wilson (1998) point out that improved intelligence (along with putting most of Africa's rhinos behind fences and in protected areas), had been credited with slowing the pace of rhino deaths in Africa.

On occasion, the unintended consequences of military bases have been positive for conservation since areas that are made inaccessible to the public inadvertently protect the enclosed fauna and flora. An encouraging example has been the linking of US military lands with the US Fish and Wildlife Service that has enabled large landscape conservation and an ecosystem approach in the face of climate change (NatureServe 2008; Lawrence et al. 2015). In the Czech Republic, Cizek et al. (2013) showed that militarised training areas had similar plant species richness to nature reserves’ networks and sometimes had higher butterfly richness and higher representation of endangered species than areas outside military bases: positive for both conservation and the military's public relations. An essay by Thomas (2010) on Korea's Demilitarised Zone provides an articulate report on the unintended but significant wildlife refuge that the stalemate on that peninsula created after 1953. However, in 2011, Lee Jenni argued that conflict over environmental management decisions on military bases is increasing. In practice, species conservation and troop training are in contradiction and the military are quite clear that species protection will not be allowed to interfere with training needs.

Overall, the literature reflects a considerably larger number of negative impacts of the military in socio-ecological systems than positive. Conservationists’ concerns may be divided into two broad categories: the first relate to the physical outcomes of military activities on biodiversity (Beare et al. 2010; Dudley et al. 2002; Hanson et al. 2009; Lawrence et al. 2015; Zentelis and Lindenmayer 2014), the second highlight social issues including human rights abuses as a result of the difference in ethos and ethics between civilian populations, conservation and the national armed forces (Oksanen 2005; Sarkar and Montoya 2011). We look first at the physical and material consequences.

The military arrive with a solid footprint often contrary to conservation principles and the ethos of treading lightly on the earth. They proceed to establish a base which may involve permanent buildings and runways, erecting tents over extensive areas, attaching space for accommodation (Marler and Moore 2011) or forced removal (Ybarra 2012). In Guatemala, the military constructed roads encouraged loggers, ranchers, construction workers and land-seekers to extend agricultural lands into the Maya forests thus depleting the biodiversity (Ybarra 2012). Ybarra argues that the military used counterinsurgency tactics to create a no-man's land through burning people, villages, crops and livestock (Ybarra 2012). She argues ‘that conservationists and the military are complicit in reproducing social inequalities, often through violent exclusions’ (Ybarra 2012) with the consequences of fear and resentment. Having established their base, military personnel require resources (water, energy, food and waste disposal) and develop lines of supply such as those with the local fishing communities in Nepal (Jana 2007). New settlements and industries emerge to service the needs of the military and the development of bars, drug dens, houses of prostitution and speciality shops threaten conservation areas (Darst et al. 2013). Anti–military movements may also appear in reaction to military presence and entrench violent relations in ways that are detrimental to local social life as well as wildlife and conservation areas (Lawrence 2013; Otsuki 2013; Carlson et al. 2015). Plumtre et al. (2001) note how more than a decade of civil war and political instability has impacted the Virungas National Park in Rwanda, at times threatening the lives of field staff and wildlife including the gorillas, and preventing all field operations. The IUCN (2004) highlights the ripple effect of the prolonged conflict in the Great Lakes region that threatens conservation sites which lie on the path of, or are used as bases and food baskets by armies and counter-armies.

Ongoing conflicts have meant that, particularly in Africa, there is a proliferation of weapons among civilian populations which are used against people and animals. According to the IUCN (2004) over thirty years of conflict has had a devastating impact on rhino populations in Angola, CAR, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and Uganda. Refugees from such conflicts may turn to poaching (bushmeat) to feed themselves or to earn a cash income (Plumtree et al. 2001; Jambiya et al. 2007). The commercialisation of bushmeat is one of the most significant and immediate threat to wildlife populations in Africa today (Warchol 2004).

A further problematic consequence of the military using conservation areas as a base is that the military or counter army personnel enter the poaching fray with sophisticated weapons and insider knowledge (Carlson et al. 2015). UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon (UN 2013) highlighted the rise in poaching in the conflict zones of Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Gabon, when Garamba National Park was used as a military base to the detriment of the wildlife and local populations (Duffy and St John 2013). Armies and counter-armies have used ivory and rhino horn to finance their operations in Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s (Norgrove and Hulme 2006; Lawrence 2013), Angola and Mozambique in the 1980s (Ellis 1994; Reeve and Ellis 1995; Duffy 1999; Cochrane 2008), and the Great Lakes region since 1996 (IUCN 2004), while there has also been poaching by rebel groups in the Zakouma National Park in Chad to fund cross border wars (Duffy and St John 2013). National parks have been used in the past to train militia and rebel movements including the use of Kruger National Park by the South African Defence Force to train Renamo rebels in the 1980s (Cock and Fig 2000; Ellis 1994).

Apart from direct material impact of military or contra military on conservation, the presence of the military may obstruct the ability to manage the conservation sites. Salafsky et al. (2002) include off-road vehicles, military activity and war in their list of direct threats to biodiversity tourism, noting that tourists are put off by the risks associated with a combination of conflict zones and poaching (Salafsky et al. 2002). Since tourism revenue is key to sustaining protected areas, this constitutes a significant challenge for communities aiming to capture tourist value of wildlife in CAR, Sudan, DRC and the Rwanda-Uganda-DRC border areas (Lombard 2012). Whereas the military may have arrived to protect one resources or species (gorillas, tigers, elephant, rhino), by building roads, driving recklessly and/or using off-road vehicles illegally through conservation areas, they are often a major threat to another, often smaller, species such as frogs or tortoises (Darst et al. 2013). Indeed, for conservation agencies that purport to manage ecosystems rather than single species, the focus on a single species may present substantial management challenges (NatureServe 2008).

From the impacts of the military on biodiversity conservation we shift our focus to social impacts including human rights violations by the military in conservation areas. The military has been known to threaten civilian populations with violence that has left local inhabitants scarred and without their civil rights. Similar to Ybarra's findings (2012), Knudsen (1997) argues that the lack of trust between Wakhi villagers and the government excludes the possibility of cooperative management of the Khunjerab National Park. The villagers are intimidated by the military's armed presence and de facto control of the park. Since the military are not trained in conservation principles this creates conflict between the villagers, park management and the military. Cross-border invasions, such as those launched by Zimbabwe in the mid-1980s in an attempt to stem the cross-border activities of Zambian-based poachers in the Zambezi Valley, have disastrous consequences for people and wildlife (Dublin and Wilson 1998).

As a result of the way in which conservation has been implemented in Africa, protected areas frequently symbolise oppressive colonial practices and may play a role in perpetuating conflicts (Carruthers 1993, 2010; Barquet et al. 2010). The role of armed guards and the ‘shoot on sight’ policy has been severely criticised as reminiscent of colonial practices of exclusion and ‘Othering’ (Wilshusen et al. 2002; Neumann 2004; Baines and Vale 2008). Furthermore, protected areas have been accused of facilitating the continuation of military conflicts because they help finance military operations by providing resources and shelter, as in Cambodia, where timber harvesting financed political and military rivalries at great expense to local freedoms (Barquet et al. 2010). Jana (2007) provides several examples of human rights violations by the military and the legacy such violations have left in Nepal. She and Knusden (1999) highlight the manner in which the military exacerbates gender inequality in and around protected areas in Nepal and Pakistan respectively.

In the Liwonde National Park in Malawi, a South African private military company was used to train the park rangers in their duties and later park staff were implicated in over 300 deaths, 325 disappearances, 250 rapes and numerous instances of torture between 1998 and 2000 (Neumann 2004). By implication, South Africa exported its propensity for violence to Malawi, usually thought of as a gentle country (Silver and Wilson 2007). Human rights violations were vividly experienced in the rhino wars in the Zambezi Valley in the 1990s when local communities were caught in the crossfire between organised poachers and parks agencies (Duffy 2010; Duffy and St John 2013) and in Nepal, Pakistan, Ecuador and Guatemala people were violently evicted from their homes to make way for protected areas (Knudsen 1997; Sawyer 1997; Jana 2007; Ybarra 2012). Men in uniform, both police and military, (often confused by people under threat), have been involved in clearing areas, moving people and burning their houses, crops and livestock to make way for conservation (Knudsen 1997; Sawyer 1997; Jana 2007; Ybarra 2012). Those whose lives were disrupted have remained hostile towards and threatened by the military for many generations.

The ultimate human rights violation may be to ‘shoot on sight', without fair trial and in the absence of any declaration of any sovereign war. Neumann (2004) spearheads a penetrating critique of the normalisation of violence and killing in Africa in the name of protecting wildlife within the fortress model of conservation and ‘the war for biodiversity in Africa’ which frequently puts the interests of biodiversity above those of human life (Neumann 2004).

In reviewing the history and legacy of military presence in international conservation areas, from Guatemala to Guam, from Tianen to Pakistan and in many regions in Africa, the long term outlook is predominantly negative for the environment and local populations.

South Africa's experience parallels that found in the literature on the military in conservation

In the second part of the paper we compare the international experience of the military in conservation to conditions in the Kruger National Park. We categorised our findings in ways similar to those above: in terms of positive, unintended and negative impacts. There are few documented positive experiences of the military in conservation in South Africa other than the role the government has played in the protection of the rhino in recent years (DEA 2010, 2014, 2015; SANParks and Denel 2012). The closest we could come to the unintended (positive) consequences of military bases as described above, was that the national arms manufacturer, Denel, has a testing range on the borders of Agulhas National Park in the Western Cape. The management of Denel have put a plan in place to protect several endemic and threatened species of fynbos (Giel de Kock pers.comm.2014). However, the social impact of removing the fisher-people from the area in the 1960s was severe and they still resent losing their land and access to the sea (de Kock 2011).

South Africa has suffered most of the negative outcomes ascribed to the presence of the military in conservation in terms of biodiversity, social justice and human rights violations. SANParks maintains an uneasy relationship with a number of its neighbours who were forced off their land and are still resentful of the privileging of biodiversity conservation above their livelihoods (Ramutsindela and Shabangu 2013). The use of force by men in uniform irrespective of whether they are security personnel, police, rangers or the military has blurred the boundaries between the military and conservation. During the apartheid era, none of these units was an ally to the majority of the people. The security police were notorious, SADF troops in the townships pitted the might of the military against ordinary black people (Le Roux 2005), while beyond South Africa's borders, the SADF was responsible for deaths of liberation fighters and civilians in Botswana, Mozambique and Lesotho (Reeve and Ellis 1995; Van Vuuren 2006;Montesh 2013). In the apartheid era, 3,000 Makuleke villagers were forced to burn their own homes in the Pafuri area of the Kruger National Park (Cock and Fig 2000); the ‡Khomani San (bushmen) were removed from the Kalahari Gemsbok Park (Holden 2007); and people in the Madimbo Corridor were moved and still feel constantly threatened by military presence (Whande 2007). None of these issues have been entirely resolved despite South Africa's land claim and restitution process.

As in the rest of Africa, there has been a decimation of wildlife in cross-border insurgencies between South Africa and its neighbours (Ellis 1994; Cock and Mckenzie 1998; Whande 2007; Ellis 2012; Fenio 2015). During and after the liberation struggle, South Africa has been awash with weapons (Cock 1996), the SADF was responsible for the decimation of wildlife in Namibia and Angola (Rademeyer 2012), and illegal ivory and rhino horn have been used by the military to finance the war effort (Ellis 2012; Montesh 2013; Humpries and Smith 2014). Other transgressions of conservation ethics, similar to those found in the international literature, include protected areas in South Africa that have been used as military training bases. The best documented example is that of Renamo who were trained in the Kruger National Park (Ellis 2012).

The dawning of democracy in 1994 signalled the need for new approaches to almost every sphere of life in South Africa including conservation. On paper and in some sections of DEA and SANParks, both the ethos of conservation and the philosophical approach to the ways in which protected areas should be governed, shared and made accessible to the people shifted towards a human rights approach. The notion of fortress conservation was replaced by a concept captured in the vision statement ‘connecting to society'. However, residual elements of the previous regime and ideology lurk in almost all corners of the organisation, most clearly visible in the retention of the hierarchical structures and uniforms. Less obvious but equally pervasive are old attitudes, forms of language and a reluctance to trust and share with neighbouring communities. The sustained collaboration between the park and the military have shaped generations’ access to land and natural resources and are the basis for the sustained ill-feeling towards many officials and negative perceptions of conservation which persist along the borders of the Park today (T Moholoholo, Hoedspruit pers.comm. 2015).

As with the conservation sector, the military underwent significant changes of demographics and orientation after 1994, but the essential character remains intact. Military discourse is still associated with precision, force, discipline, killing the enemy, power and hierarchical structures (Brotz and Wilson 1946). ‘Real soldiers’ are still expected to be full blooded hunters who enjoy the adrenaline rush of the chase and the kill as valourised in ‘Battleground Rhino Wars’ (Animal Planet 2014). However, post 1994, the functions of the military and conservation were largely separate until their trajectories were reconnected by rhino poaching: an ideal arena in which to exercise military skills of bush war grown rusty with a lack of practice. In 2012, Major General Jooste was appointed to head the joint operations of the police, the park rangers and the military (Scott 2014). Disappointingly, members of the SANDF (as well as SAPS and SANParks) have not been able to avoid the transgressions of the past, and have been arrested for being involved in rhino poaching (SANParks Communications Division media release.2016).

There are impacts on the security personnel themselves too (Marler 2014). Older rangers who were trained in conservation have had to be retrained in anti-poaching tactics. New recruits to conservation are immediately put through six weeks of para-military training rather than conservation (Wildlife College pers.comm. 2015). Rangers report that they currently spend up to 90% of their time on rhino poaching activities and only 10% on biodiversity conservation. Many are unhappy with this and there is considerable impact on conservation management when rangers cannot perform their routine monitoring of park systems and vulnerable species (Anonymous pers. comm 2015).

“I have become a mercenary”. This was the deprecatory description heard several times in and around the Kruger National Park in February 2015. It is illegal to be a mercenary in South Africa (Government Gazette 2007) so the self-selected label is not a happy one albeit that the violence is state sanctioned. For those who find themselves facing an armed poacher in the field and having to make a split second decision about taking a life, there is, officially, no ‘shoot to kill’ or ‘shoot on sight’ policy in South Africa. There has never been a death penalty for poaching and the death penalty itself was abolished in South Africa in 1995 (South African Constitutional Court 1995). Officially, the procedure is to arrest illegal trespassers, yet in a ‘friendly fire’ incident in Kruger National Park it would appear that one of the allied operatives opened fire on a member of the SANParks staff (Pillay 2012). The obvious question is how often this has or will occur in such tense and dangerous conditions.

All security personnel are called out regularly on anti-poaching missions and live under conditions of extreme stress (Massé and Lunstrum, 2016). The relentless pressure of being part of a war machine puts strain on the rangers and on their families who did not sign up for the trauma and tension of being on stand-by or in combat. The senior rangers predict that is only a matter of time before partners, wives and children are no longer willing to be constantly living in fear of rangers’ lives (Anonymous pers. comm 2015; Serino 2015). Friends and neighbours do not necessarily want to be drawn into supporting efforts that may run contrary to their own convictions.

While it could be argued that tracking down a human enemy constitutes a component of military or even police training, taking a life affects people differently. There will be those for whom killing a fellow human being will result in an ongoing disorder, such as the security agent who, after killing an armed poacher who had threatened his life, told his mentor, “I can't sleep. When I try, this man comes to me in my dreams and says ‘take me home, take me home… my ancestors are waiting'. But I can't take him home and I can't sleep” (Stakeholder Hearing 2015). On the other hand, there are men such as Bruce Leslie of SANParks who said, ‘but I suppose the brutality of it actually is being lost on me at the moment. I think to survive the emotional side of things, one gets hardened. It is like seeing dead poachers now. I've seen enough this year not to worry about them anymore.’ (Rademeyer 2012). In the long-term, South Africa cannot afford to have more people damaged by violence. Our ruptured society needs to find non-violent solutions to challenges, including rhino poaching that promote health, social cohesion and reconciliation.

Rhino poaching exacerbates the thin relations that exist between the Park and the neighbouring communities particularly since the majority of poachers (60%) come from or are sheltered by these communities (Milliken and Shaw 2012). Poachers’ families are unlikely to admit the culpability of their kin. They are more likely to be alienated by the loss of a breadwinner and the descent into (further) poverty. We anticipate that for every poacher arrested or killed, at least four, but probably six or eight people, will be resentful of those perceived to be responsible for the arrest or death. The literature shows that this disaffection may be extended to the entire community (Neumann 2004; Hutton et al 2005; Duffy and St John 2013; Lunstrum 2014). When poachers are killed it is not always clear how their bodies are treated, whether they are given to communities for proper burial or not, but it is well known and understood that such rites are important and if not undertaken may lead to further alienation of families and communities.

The cost of operations and the risk of entrenching the military

Military protection for the rhino is expensive (Tatham and Taylor 1989; Dublin and Wilson 1998). Funds are drawn from national coffers as well as significant grants received from the Swedish and Norwegian governments and individuals such as Howard G Buffet who donated R255 million in 2014 and R37 million in 2015 for a helicopter with night flying capabilities (SANParks 2015). There have also been donations of hardware including drones ($15000 each) and substantial off-road vehicles (Venter 2014). Despite this massive intervention that constitutes South Africa's primary intervention, poaching is continuing. This would indicate that more of the same, i.e. increased levels of military intervention will not be sufficient to curb poaching. If intervention is prolonged and involves international interests it runs the risk of entrenching its own violence, becoming a permanent feature and/or becoming an arena for other conflicts (Ybarra 2012). It is possible to see vested interests developing in maintaining military action and technology testing in the Park where conditions are ideal for training and demonstrations. Although NGOs have reported that donors prefer to fund “boots on the ground and technology” rather than more peaceful strategies (Welz 2013), the financial costs of the joint operations are likely to be unsustainable for South Africa when donor funding dries up.

It can be observed that the military is making an impact on the base town of Hoedspruit where enterprises are developing in response to military needs (Jana 2007), increasing the footprint and pressure in the areas bordering the Kruger National Park. The injection of cash into the local economy by the forces stationed at the base town, the development of businesses to service them, liaisons and children, the use of Kruger National Park as a training ground, and the temptation of poaching itself, will make it difficult to withdraw security personnel. If the security forces are caught up in an arms race with poachers, or if the crime syndicates take hold in the area, the region may be destabilised and the military may be called on to stay.

The literature shows that as militarisation and alienation are entrenched inside and outside the Park, it may become more difficult to work with people towards solutions (Duffy and St John 2013) and that short term gains by the military which alienate the communities involved are not recommended (Tatham and Taylor 1989; Duffy and St John 2013). Even success poses a risk to civilian life; if the number of rhinos poached stabilises, the argument may be made to maintain the familiar military presence, thereby further entrenching the military option as a normal way of life.

Complementary strategies and alternatives to militarisation have been developed but are not yet receiving anything like the attention and resources that the security forces are. The Rhino Issue Management (RIM) Report (DEA 2013) was the result of an eight-month process driven by the DEA, which engaged a wide variety of stakeholders in the development of ‘a common understanding of key issues concerning the protection and sustainable conservation of the South African Rhino population'. The RIM report made extensive recommendations on funding, safety and security, conservation, commerce and trade. Nationally and internationally, criminal justice systems, tax departments, intelligence networks, customs officials and other law enforcement agencies need to engage to overcome wildlife trafficking including the illegal rhino horn trade. South Africa and its neighbouring countries will have to continue to develop and maintain close cooperation in order to coordinate their anti-poaching efforts. SANParks and DEA have both developed their own integrated approaches to conserving rhinos which consist of similar multi-pronged components: compulsory interventions and protection; increasing rhino numbers; long term sustainability interventions (creating sustainable demand for rhino products), game changing interventions such as disrupting organised crime and the creation of economic choices for communities bordering the Park (DEA 2013). The RIM report highlights in-country strategic thinking beyond the military option that is currently the only real response. Bonacic et al. (2016) suggests an international fund to support rhino conservation in the long term. The impetus for this paper came from a concern with ratcheting up the violence in the discourse of stakeholders and the intervention of the military in the Kruger National Park.

We have argued that the negative implications and the social and economic costs of the military anti-poaching operations in the Kruger National Park are considerable and will be unsustainable in the longer term. At a country level, all dimensions of a multi-pronged rhino management strategy will have to be given equal attention, in particular disaffected communities must have the opportunity to become equal partners in conservation as a national public good and asset.

Militarisation; poaching; protected areas; ivory trade; peri-urban matrix; poverty; persecution; international agreements; anti-poaching activities; local communities and rhino horn trade

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Tracing the cost/benefit pathway of protected areas: A case study of the Kruger National Park, South Africa

2017, Ecosystem Services

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Protect Our Parks

Water pollution in national parks: case study of kruger national park in south africa.

So far, we have discussed about air, noise and land pollution issues that are prevalent in national parks. In this blog post, the focus will be on another type of environmental pollution- water pollution , specifically in Kruger National Park (KNP) in South Africa. I will be adopting the “Message Box” approach that we have learned from Tutorial 1, to unpack and summarise key information from a journal article on the impacts of pollution in KNP. The main source that I will be drawing information from, is a journal article titled “Pollution impacts on the aquatic ecosystems of the Kruger National Park, South Africa”, which was written by Riddell et al. and published in the Scientific African journal in 2019.

But first, let’s take a quick look at a video that summarizes the problems of water pollution that the KNP is facing today.

Context The KNP is a savanna ecosystem that is situated in the middle reaches of a few sizeable and biologically diverse transboundary river systems. Over the last 30 years, the KNP has been at the forefront of applied river ecosystems research due to the various challenges that the rivers face- which have often arisen from anthropogenic changes in the catchments of the park. The resultant challenges give rise to a multitude of effects that bear upon the parks’ capability to maintain the viability of aquatic ecosystems in a large and biodiverse landscape.

Main Rivers of the KNP ( South African National Parks )

Audience Various Stakeholders that are responsible for the management of the KNP, such as the South African National Parks (SANParks) and the Olifants Catchment Management Agency, as well as the users of the rivers, such as the densely populated peri-urban settlements who rely on the water from the river for agriculture and irrigation.

Purpose To get an overview of the challenges that the KNP face in terms of upstream pollutants and its impact on the aquatic ecosystems. Since it is the responsibility of the KNP to conserve these important ecosystems, the focus on the effect of diffuse pollutant impacts to the freshwater aquatic biota as well as the diversity of these impacts will be explored.

Issue Water pollution in the rivers of the KNP as a result of mining activities and municipal wastewater problems.

• Cyanide spills occur from extensive mining of copper and phosphate along a tributary of the Olifants River at KNP’s western boundary. The mining expansion in the Olifants River suffered serious salt enrichment, mainly from the sulphate and phosphate through controlled effluent discharge
• There is little oversight of the licenses of industrial mining facilities that sets out how much water it can use and what quality of water it can release into the river, especially for mines owned by people with political connections (Kings, 2017)
• Municipal wastewater treatment plants release polluted water more often than not. These plants are generally acknowledged in the environment sector as being the single worst source of pollution in South Africa (Kings, 2017)
• There is no systemic eco status monitoring that is taking place in the KNP’s northern rivers for at least 20 years and this is a cause for concern. Only the Crocodile and Sabie systems are being monitored by the Inkomati-Usuthu Catchment Management Agency (IUCMA)

Bosveld Phosphates pollutes Kruger rivers, causing acidic waters and resulting in the death of fishes ( Kings, 2014 )

• Point and diffuse sources create a cascade of environmental pressures, such as affecting the mortalities of species like the Nile crocodile
• The manifestation of diseases as a result of upstream pollution impacts and eutrophication leads to a trophic level shift, with both crocodiles and sharp-tooth catfish changing to a more piscivorous diet
• Discernible effects of heavy metal bioaccumulation as a result of mining activities in the Olifants catchment
• Impacts on top predators such as the Tigerfish in the aquatic food chains
• Diffuse accumulation of Copper, Mercury and build up in egg-shells of crocodiles in the Olifants River, resulting in an eco-toxicological effect
• Intermittent fish kills arising from anoxic sediment sluicing
• Serious human health risks associated with regular subsistence of protein consumption of tissue from fish
• People using untreated water from these contaminated sites (along the Olifants) face a high risk of contracting diseases, such as diarrhoea and E coli
• Rivers supply valuable water resources for domestic water supply, irrigation farming, industrial and mining developments. Tackling the pollution related issues in the KNP would thus provide important economic and social benefits to the users of both South Africa and Mozambique.
• Conserve the ecosystems and the biodiversity in the KNP
• Ensure safe water supply to tourist camps in the park that are dependent on the water from the Olifants River

Kruger National Park wildlife at watering hole. Source: Secret Africa

• The rivers of Kruger cannot be managed in isolation from the rest of the catchment area upstream of the park, but will need to align with integrated catchment management processes
• Categorising different rivers for various management options and setting up relevant institutions to oversee water resources within the 19 water management areas throughout the country
• Adopt a more stringent approach in ensuring that industrial mining activities follow the regulations set out for them, and punish those who do not stick by them, such as through heavier fines.
• Promote awareness of the benefits of conserving river biodiversity within the water management areas by tackling the prevalent pollution issues in the KNP

Till next time, Irsyad

—————— References:

Kings, S., 2017.  A River Of Shit, Chemicals, Metals Flows Through Our Land . [online] The Mail & Guardian. Available at: <https://mg.co.za/article/2017-04-13-00-a-river-of-shit-chemicals-metals-flows-through-our-land/>

Kings, S., 2014.  Bosveld Phosphates Pollutes Kruger Rivers, Again . [online] The Mail & Guardian. Available at: <https://mg.co.za/article/2014-03-10-company-pollutes-kruger-rivers-again/>

Riddell, E., Govender, D., Botha, J., Sithole, H., Petersen, R. and Shikwambana, P., 2019. Pollution impacts on the aquatic ecosystems of the Kruger National Park, South Africa.  Scientific African , 6, p.e00195.

Siyabona Africa. n.d.  Managing Kruger’s Rivers . [online] Available at: <http://www.krugerpark.co.za/krugerpark-times-4-7-krugers-rivers-24334.html>

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