Making Magic on Mandela Day

Addressing KNP rangers, Coleman went on to say, “I would like to say thank you for your dedication, your outstanding attributes, skills and abilities to ensure that we continue to build and maintain an even stronger ranger core team and supporting KNP Management in fulfilling our responsibility of biodiversity management, for the protection and management of natural and cultural heritage for the generations to come.”

Catherine Dreyer pointed out the deeply saddening fact that “13 rangers in South Africa have lost their lives since the last commemoration last year. It is also an extra difficult time for our rangers to carry out their normal work activities given the Covid-19 pandemic situation. And since roughly 80% of KNP’s revenue is generated through tourism, the pandemic has meant that tourism activities have been minimal, resulting in significantly reduced generation of that very much needed income.”

Mandela Day is celebrated on the 18th of July every year, on the date when Tata Madiba was born. This is the day when we honour the legacy of our former president, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, through volunteering and community service.

One this magical day, South Africans across all corners of our country happily spend 67 minutes of their time by giving back to people and communities in need.

At SANParks, our various initiatives in recognising Mandela Day 2021 spanned a number of communities, municipalities, reserves, provinces and partner organisations. Here are some of the activities

The Kruger National Park ranger team is made up of four regional rangers, 22 section rangers and 400 field rangers, and is responsible for the approximately 2 million hectares of flora and fauna

By Corporate Communications

Staff members undertook some of the activities in Bontebok National Park

our staff members undertook to make our world a better place across all our regions for everyone.

Marakele Makes Mandela Day Meaningful

Matome Motswi – Assistant interpretation Center conducting an activity with the group

In the northern part of our country, Marakele National Park commemorated Mandela Day with Thabang Drop in Centre at the informal settlement of Smashblock, Thabazimbi.

The centre was established in 2010 in response to the high rates of poverty and orphaned children in the community. The centre’s main goal is to give care to the orphans as well as vulnerable kids who are from unstable homes.

Their services include providing the kids with balanced diet meals, assist with application of ID documents or birth certificates as well as organising professional social work services where necessary.

To commemorate Mandela Day 2021, the park donated sanitisers to the centre and sanitary towels to all the girls.

The sanitary pads were proudly donated by the Marakele staff with the intention of also giving a helping hand.

Mrs Salome Mahasha, a contractor at the park, kindly donated lunch to the kids and the staff for the day.

Love Life was also invited to give words of encouragement to the teenagers who are beneficiaries of the services provided by the Centre.

Sanitary towels and sanitisers donated to Thabang Drop in Centre Smashblock, Thabazimbi

Mrs Mahasha and team donate and serve lunch to children at Marakele on Mandela Day.

The day was filled with fun and games for the kids and a great time was had by all.

Giving It All at Agulhas

Agulhas National Park celebrated International Mandela Day 2021

On Friday 16 July 2021, Mandela Day was celebrated by Agulhas National Park (ANP), consisting of park management, Biodiversity Social Projects (BSP) teams and conservation staff totalling approximately 150 individuals and members of the Elim community.

Elim was the only village visited by Nelson Mandela within the Cape Agulhas Municipal area due to its history and the service it renders to those less fortunate and it was befitting that Agulhas National Park celebrated his birthday once again in Elim in 2021.

In 2018, the tenth running of the Mandela Day event (marking Nelson Mandela’s centennial year) was also celebrated in Elim by the Agulhas National Park (ANP).

COVID-19 protocols, compliance and observance were in place and as the teams arrived in the morning they were escorted to their respective work sites in the community.

Planning meetings and site visits preceded this day for smooth implementation. The 67 minutes and other activities included the following with a litter clean up in and around Elim:

• Litter pick up and clean ups in and around Elim, including entrances and along the streets. • Lime wash and realignment of boulders along the entrance road to the cemetery. • Lime wash of events arena walls, as well as the painting of low walls around cultural features on the church square. • Opening up of five overgrown storm water drainage plugs along the water furrow. • Alien clearing and litter pick up in identified common areas. • Cleaning up of litter and rubble at the Arts and

Craft Building. • Tree cutting, pruning and garden maintenance done in the “Heer se Bos” and “Garden of

Thanksgiving”. • Garden maintenance at the Geluksoord

Community Centre. • Road maintenance and erosion control in identified areas. • The BSP project vehicles collected and dropped off litter bags.

Everyone gathered for some refreshments afterward.

Woman in Conservation – Meet Dr Nicola van Wilgen-Bredenkamp, Global Change Scientist

By Babalwa Dlangamandla

August is recognised as Women’s Month in South Africa. We decided to profile one of the inspirational women in the organisation - Dr Nicola van Wilgen-Bredenkamp. She has played a vital role in the Cape Research Centre as a Global Change Scientist.

Dr van Wilgen was born in Stellenbosch and grew up on the Jonkershoek Forest station, where she developed an early love for nature. She studied at Stellenbosch University and later she completed her PhD at the Centre for Invasion Biology (Stellenbosch University). During this time, she was very fortunate to have wide exposure to international thinking on many environmental problems. She travelled to Australia twice to learn from their experts in biosecurity risk management and ecological modelling and also presented her work at a conference that took place in Manaus in the Amazon, Brazil.

Nicola is most passionate about wild places and their conservation. As a child, she was lucky to travel to many of South Africa’s protected areas and has a passion for ensuring that future children will be able to do the same thing. She joined SANParks in 2010 and was one of the small initial team that was being set up as the Cape region’s first research hub.

Her role as a global change scientist has evolved over the years, where she was initially managing teams of people to produce a product focused on six environmental change drivers, to now focusing mainly on climate change and alien species. Because her initial role was so broad, she still works with most parks. Her position has allowed her to work with a very wide range of SANParks employees and has included visits to

Dr Nicola van Wilgen-Bredenkamp

atleast 10 of the parks and involvement in many of the management plans.

We asked her to describe the impact of COVID-19 and the changes it has brought with it and she said, “The past year and a half have been hugely challenging on a personal, organisational, societal and global level. However, they say that adversity promotes resilience and opportunity. After having been with SANParks for 10 years and not really knowing if and how one could really make a difference, I have found that there have been some unique opportunities in the past year that might not have arisen otherwise. Working ‘virtually’ has meant that we could include colleagues

from anywhere in the country in our discussions and deliberations and even bring in people from overseas quite easily.”

Nicola encourages women who aspire to become global change scientists by saying, “The world of conservation and climate change science is a very exciting and dynamic space that people in almost any field can get involved in. Being a scientist teaches critical thinking and the studying of global change processes has such broad applications that I would encourage all young women with a passion for our planet and problem-solving to get involved in this field. While many spheres of society are still male-dominated, my experience is that this is changing. Many studies have shown that women have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and also by environmental degradation. However, women provide unique and alternative ways of looking at problems and as such come up with more diverse and inclusive solutions that are key to developing a more sustainable future society.” One of the most rewarding parts of her job is her involvement in a diverse range of exciting projects, including a collaboration on several applications with US scientists to NASA’s Bioscape programme. NASA are planning to test some of their remote sensing equipment in South Africa in 2023 and will be assessing how the information can be used in conservation and biodiversity science. There are many exciting applications and broad opportunities for working with local and overseas experts. She’s also working with parks to assess park-level climate change vulnerabilities and adaptation options.

“It’s wonderful to see all the work that park staff are doing and assessing what changes might be required in the future to cope with climate change. We’re also looking at how to use parks to create more awareness of the problems related to environmental change as well as the solutions that conservation and working with nature can provide to society,” concluded Dr van Wilgen-Bredenkamp.

We say kudos to her and encourage her to keep up the good work!

Van Loveren Rhino Run Wines Expands Conservation grant to include SANParks

By Resource Mobilisation & Partnerships

Brothers, cousins, nephews, sons - makers of the Van Loveren Rhino Run Wines

Van Loveren Family Vineyards has sealed an agreement with SANParks that will see every sale of Rhino Run Organic Wine contribute to the conservation of South Africa’s natural heritage. SANParks is responsible for managing South Africa’s national parks and is now the second beneficiary to benefit from this range.

Rhino Run was established in 2013 from inspiration of Dr Ian Player, founder of the Player Ntombela Foundation and a conservationist who dedicated his life and career since the 1960s to leading the efforts to save the rhinoceros. A portion of every purchase of Rhino Run Ian Player red blend is donated to conservation and anti-poaching initiatives.

Through the agreement reached with SANParks, a portion of sales from the range will now be used towards activities in the national parks and for rhino conservation.

“We are very excited about this new development, association and relationship for Rhino Run,” says Van Loveren Family Vineyards MD Phillip Retief.

“The preservation of our country’s natural heritage is something we proudly support.”

SANParks Chief Financial Officer, Dumisani Dlamini says, “SANParks is excited to collaborate with Van Loveren Family Vineyards in fulfilling its core mandate of conservation and specifically rhino conservation. It is transformative initiatives such as this that will help us conserve our environment for future generations.”

The contribution to SANParks further expands Van Loveren’s efforts to restoring environmental health while continuing to produce exceptional and elegant wines. The journey includes Rhino Run Wines recently being certified 100% organic.

There are five wines in the Rhino Run organic range, which comprises two white wines, a red blend and two single variety reds.

For more information, or to make a direct contribution to conservation initiatives, visit www.rhinorunwine. co.za, email info@vanloveren.co.za, or call 023 615 1505. Order online at https://bit.ly/35r7FPS (www.vanloveren.co.za).

SANParks is Going Cash Free for Extra Safety and Convenience

SANParks on the Snowdonia National Park Podcast

By Chris Patton

National Park Around The World - Part 1

Mount Snowdon in north Wales is the highest mountain in the United Kingdom outside of the Highlands of Scotland. It is also the centrepiece of Snowdonia National Park, one of 15 national parks in Great Britain.

When the COVID-19 pandemic sent the whole world into lockdown, Snowdonia started to communicate with their patrons through podcasts. These ongoing podcasts alternate between Welsh and English, because unbeknown to many around the world, people in many parts of the United Kingdom do not speak English as their mother tongue… and Welsh is one of several Celtic languages in use, alongside Cornish, Scottish and Irish Gaelic.

After releasing frequent recordings on matters pertaining to their Park, the Snowdonia podcast team came up with the idea of trying to set up interviews with staff in other national parks all around the world.

They sent a speculative enquiry to SANParks’ reservation email address and were connected to the Communications department, who transferred the request for an interview to Phokela Lebea and Chris Patton, who of course recorded SANParks’ original podcasts in an attempt to make SANParks more accessible to blind people.

Some SANParks colleagues were also invited to take part, but in the end Chris was the one they interviewed alongside staff from Vatnajökull National Park in Iceland (a park of glaciers) and the USA’s Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

Chris gave an overview of all the SANParks’ parks and contrasted their operation with parks in the United Kingdom. He made special mention of Mapungubwe, because of the role a Welsh botanist, Illtyd Buller PoleEvans, played in its original establishment as a botanic reserve, and then spoke of the incredible discovery a decade later of the ruins of the Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape that would lead to its proclamation as a national park and world heritage site some 60 odd years later. He also pointed out that Kruger National Park and the entire country of Wales are roughly the same size at approximately 20 000km².

The conclusion of his half hour interview focused on the common bond between Mount Snowdon and Table Mountain as two of the World’s top-10 busiest mountains, and the Snowdonia Podcast Team are now planning a future episode where they will showcase the top 10 mountains and interview staff connected with their protection, so a follow up podcast may feature some of our colleagues from TMNP.

Anyone interested in listening to the podcast can Google “eryri podcast episode 14”.