News

Karoo National Park’s Junior Ranger programme is one of only two fully functional such groups throughout SANParks, with the other at Agulhus National Park. They are a group of high school learners from schools around the Park who showed a keen interest after the programme was promoted at the different schools.

Headed by the Park’s People and Conservation Department in the form of Esna van Zyl and Jan Jacobs, the second group of intakes is currently in their second year of the programme. The learners, who start in Grade 7 and carry on through until Grade 10, meet at the Park once a month on a Saturday to go through the SANParks course material.

Van Zyl, a former teacher, started the programme in the Park in 2011 when she realised that while it existed within SANParks, there was no such group in the Park. She investigated the matter and learnt that though there was a set national curriculum, it wasn’t up-to-date. She then got in touch with her former counterpart at Table Mountain National Park, Christa Stringer, who also led a well-formed Junior Ranger group at the time, who let her have the course material she had developed for Table Mountain, based on the nationally set themes. This is when Esna took on the task to develop Karoo National Park’s own course material and the establishment of the fulltime Karoo’s Junior Ranger programme.

The first intake of 13 learners graduated in 2016, while the current group of 14 are due to graduate in 2020.

Some of the topics covered under their curriculum include getting to know the Park, its history, medicinal plants, ecosystems, bird identification, animal identification through tracks and droppings, Karoo plant families, monitoring of animals, invasive plant species, etc. The SANParks Honorary Rangers in the Karoo region also assist greatly in transferring their skills onto the learners.

“Even if these learners never choose to follow a career in conservation, the knowledge about and love for the environment they receive with us over the years will hopefully contribute to them being able to better care for it and pass on what they’ve learnt to others over time,” says van Zyl.

The majority of Karoo National Park’s current Junior Rangers.

Issued By

South African National Parks (SANParks) Frontier Region Communications
Tel: 082 888 0201

Enquiries

Fayroush Ludick
Regional Manager: Communications, SANParks
Tel: 082 888 0201
Email: [email protected]