SANParks Honorary Rangers celebrate 50 years

The four-day Indaba was a mixture of meetings, training courses, and an opportunity to meet other honorary rangers from across South Africa.

The highlight of the event was the annual general meeting where feedback was given on achievements and decisions made on the future. The outgoing National Executive Committee chairman, Janssen Davies, highlighted some outstanding results that were achieved during the previous year. They included a growth in membership, bringing the membership to more than 1320. A special achievement was the overall contribution to SANParks reaching R43.3 million-worth of funding and services provided for 2013. This contributed to a total contribution of R248 million over the past 10 years.

"This year's Indaba was a culmination of a very successful year of supporting our national parks. The work we do is incredibly important and this type of event is critical in motivating our members to even greater success in the next year," said incoming National Executive Committee chairman Louis Lemmer.

Recipients of awards

There were many worthy recipients of awards. These included the Tsitsikamma region as Region Of The Year award and Project Of The Year was awarded to the SASOL Birding Events. Sasol's sustained sponsorship over many years has contributed significantly to the establishment of birding events in many of our parks and has raised millions of rand in support of conservation.

Kuseni Dlamini, chairman of the SANParks board, congratulated the SANParks Honorary Rangers on their anniversary. He expressed his deep appreciation for the manner in which the Honorary Rangers as unpaid volunteers support the national parks and stressed the importance of the relationship between the two organisations.

"The SANParks Honorary Rangers are volunteers committed to conservation in support of SANParks, and we are achieving some excellent results through the dedicated and passionate service of our members, and good solid working relations with SANParks. We are looking forward to making an even bigger contribution to conservation in the future," concluded Lemmer.