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Tuesday 12 April 2011
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The SA Surf Life Saving Nipper Championships were held in per fect weather conditions at Strand beach on Saturday. The Fish Hoek Surf Lifesaving Club walked off with the championship title, while Durban Surf and Kings Beach (PE) placed second and third respec tively. Photo: Denzil Maregele
Not all rangers will be armed TERESA FISCHER
CONTRARY to earlier media reports, not all of the 50 additional rangers who will be deployed in the Table Mountain National Park will be armed. Instead, there will be a specifically-trained unit of armed rangers, with one armed ranger per patrol group. These officials will carry 9 mm handguns. It is envisaged that the first recruits will be in action within the next three months. On Wednesday 6 April, the chief executive officer of South African National Parks (SANParks), Dr David Mabunda, announced that rangers are to be armed. The park currently employs 43 rangers and 12 visitor safety officers, who cover the mountain range from Cape Point to Table Mountain. According to Mabunda, efforts will be made to increase the number of additional rangers by 50 over the next three years. There will also be more dogs used on the
mountain. SANParks spokesperson, Wanaka Rusthoi, adds that at this stage numbers of armed rangers cannot be given for safety reasons. The specifics of where these rangers will be deployed and in what circumstances they could use their weapons has not been finalised. Rusthoi says this is partly to maintain the element of surprise, but added that hot spots would certainly be targeted. A spate of mugging incidents, often at knifepoint, flared up in May last year. However, the latest announcement seems to have taken civilian stakeholders by surprise. In February Community Safety MEC, Albert Fritz, initiated the formation of a steering committee to tackle crime on the mountain. This aimed to coordinate park officials, police and groups such as the Table Mountain Safety Action Group and to facilitate consultation. The announcement that rangers would soon be armed followed, but it is understood that no mention of the plan was made at the last Safety Fo-
rum meeting. Asked to comment on this, Rusthoi says only: “The steering committee is working well together on all matters regarding visitor safety on the mountain, including search and rescue efforts. We look forward to working together to make the mountain safer for all visitors.” Asked if the decision was a result of the efforts of the steering committee, Melany Kühn, spokesperson for Fritz, said that the SANParks announcement was driven nationally and that it was the culmination of a process that started “way before” the steering committee was formed. Kühn adds safety on Table Mountain is about involving the community as a whole to bolster existing law enforcement initiatives. According to Kühn, a prime example is that UCT, which borders the mountain on the Rhodes Memorial side, is currently looking at additional state-of-the-art cameras to include the mountain in its surveillance. Mabunda said the impact of
ESTERFORD
crime over the years in parts of the TMNP had resulted in the decision. He adds that SANParks and its partners had to “act decisively”. But it is understood that promises of an armed response team were made two years ago but never materialised. Andre van Schalkwyk, of the Table Mountain Safety Action Group Watch, a group of hikers, mountain bikers and walkers, welcomes the development and says he is very happy with these new steps. “We believe the constant pressure all concerned mountain users and the media have applied over the past four years has contributed to these developments, especially the data and the statistics we made available recently.” Van Schalkwyk adds that the TMNP has a clear obligation to ensure people are secure within their parks and that not delivering on this mandate would not be in their interests. Noordhoek resident, Louis Liebenberg of CyberTracker, has previously submitted a proposal to the
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TMNP to train rangers to become trackers. He tracks and maps the paths and hiding places that criminals use on the CyberTracker software he developed, along with an American programmer. Liebenberg says: “The announcement is to be welcomed as the park currently has far too few rangers to make it safe. “The aggressive nature of the incidents makes it necessary for rangers to be armed.” He adds: “However, simply employing more rangers to do visible patrols will not be sufficient. Criminals often simply hide when they see patrols, and then attack visitors when the patrols have moved on.” Rangers need to be trained in tracking skills and stealth in order to catch criminals.”
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