Every year, SANParks aims to increase the number of citizens who are granted free access to national parks during this time. Since the programme began in 2006, at least 438,361 South Africans have been allowed to enter national parks.
“It’s important for South Africans to visit and know the importance of national parks. They act as spaces to practice sustainable conservation, as spaces that preserve and celebrate our culture and heritage and we now see national parks playing the critical role of empowering communities living adjacent to parks through job creation and we continue to explore ways of creating business opportunities particularly for small business owners,” says SANParks CEO Fundisile Mketeni.
“Through our socio-economic transformation programmes and our expanded public works programme, we work closely with communities living adjacent to national parks with the aim of strengthening our relationships with them, in order to be more inclusive so we can tackle issues of wildlife crime with their help, afford them more access to parks for cultural use, inform young people about the different career options that parks have to offer and create job opportunities. SANParks hopes to strengthen and enable those communities to reap the benefits of the national parks.”
Visit the website for more information: www.sanparks.org/about/events/parks_week
