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Park Planning

The primary responsibilities of this section is to inform buffer zone planning, implementation and management, with a special emphasis on co-managed areas.

Buffer zones are part of South Africa’s National Buffer zone strategy. This aims to integrate National Parks into the landscape, to the benefit of communities living adjacent to parks and through the improved conservation and protection of the attributes and functions of the national parks, supporting healthy ecosystems which very often exceed the boundaries of parks. Simply put, such approaches recognise that what happens outside of national parks, very often affects what happens in them. The buffer zone implementation further requires collaboration with different sectors and stakeholders to inform environmentally sound development, while enabling sustainable benefits to those persons and communities living next to the national parks. This well resonates with SANParks Vision of “Connecting to Society”.

Functions

  • Representing SANParks on the implementation teams for the Global Environmental Facility Protected Area Program (GEF5) and RESILIM programs.
  • Dealing with the Association of Private Nature Reserves (APNR) and SSW issues and contractual Protected Areas (Pas) such as Makuleke, Mjejane and others.
  • Aligning our buffer areas with municipal IDPs, etc.
  • Promote social-ecological systems and governance frameworks, especially related to contractual and trans-boundary biodiversity management interlinked with improved livelihoods and resilient economic development.
  • KNP representative and important role player in the ‘Kruger to Canyon’ Biosphere initiative.

Contact

Dr. Marisa Coetzee
Senior Manager: Park Planning and Conservation Management