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On the front page and spotted in the The Herald

I think it's great news to expand the Garden Route Parks into one Mega Park!

3 Cheers to the person who thought that out!

Dalene Matthee memorial

If all goes well, Tsitsikama, Knysna and Wilderness will soon be linked up with other open patches of land to form the Garden Route National Park. How super will that be!

Can anyone from SANP perhaps comment on the status of the Park merge on the Garden Route?

Hi guys,

This has been brought to the attention of Clementine Mbatani - Marketing Manger for the Garden Route area.

Hopefylly she'll join us here soon.

Any news on this yet?

the first big steps in creating a mega park

News24:

New Garden Route park is here

Cape Town - The proposal for proclaiming the Garden Route National Park (GRNP) was finally gazetted on 21 November 2008 and the proclamation of the Park is now only months away.

There are only three other National Parks in the world where residents live inside the borders of the proclaimed Park - in Italy, Canada and the USA - and the new Garden Route National Park will be the first of its kind on the African continent.

Mvusy Songelwa, Regional Manager of SanParks Garden Route said it is an exciting challenge for the area.

"The National Park will be made up of the currently proclaimed Tsitsikamma and Wilderness National Parks, the Knysna National Lake Area, the Southern Cape Indigenous Forests and the associated fynbos Mountain Catchment Areas."

"The team in the Garden Route will be part of the coining of a unique conservation model in South Africa and Africa. The geographical diversity of these various areas makes for an exceptional conservation model.

"There will be no other National Park in South Africa that will include the unique combination of marine, coastal, lakes, indigenous forests and mountain catchment areas.

No additional entrance gates

"The National Park will also not have any additional entrance gates and fences erected to mark its boundaries other than those already in place at the various camps.

"Our distinctive economic drive will be 'conservation without boundaries' in the landscape, unlike in other parks with fenced boundaries."

The statutory 60 days for public comment will apply and during this time SanParks Garden Route will host public information sessions, starting in January 2009.

Songelwa said it is important that the community is part of the process.

"We want to encourage the public to write their comments directly to the Department of Environmental Affairs as per the gazette requirement."

Once the 60 days period has expired and pending public comments to the Minster, the proclamation will follow suite.

"We hope that the new National Park will be a reality by Easter 2009," said Songelwa.

Thanx DQ

So what is this going to mean for the people living there? Here in England we have areas of outstanding natural beauty converted into National Parks e.g. The Lake District, Exmoor, and the New Forest. Within these areas development is strictly controlled - even our famous red phone boxes had to be grey.

We are going through the process of proclaiming a new National Park - the South Downs. Residents of towns nearby are petitioning to be included within the new parks boundary as they will be able to have a greater say in any new development (read say no to any proposed new development). Businesses are not too impressed as they have stricter planning laws to consider e.g. they will be limited to what signage or advertising they can put up.

The areas tend to rely almost exclusively on tourism and when something happens to stop this then residents tend to suffer. An example is the outbreak of Foot & Mouth disease in 2001. Footpaths were closed during the lucrative spring, summer and autumn seasons, causing many business - B&Bs, shops and cafes - to go out of business. No tourism = no income.