Skukuza Airport Management Company wins bid

Skukuza Airport Management Company will, in turn, contract with:

• Lion Sands for the provision of hospitality and retail services;
  
• Federal Air for the provision of non-scheduled feeder air services connecting Skukuza airport with lodges that are beyond reasonable land transfer distance; and
  
• Airlink for the provision of scheduled air services linking Skukuza with OR Tambo International Airport, Cape Town International Airport and King Shaka International Airport (and via these hubs, with the rest of the world).

Skukuza Airport Management Company will take over the operation of the Skukuza airport on 1 September 2013, and commence with the alterations and improvements essential to bring the airport to the international standard required to allow the operation of scheduled passenger services on airline category aircraft.

It is envisaged that the upgraded airport will be operational by 1 November 2013, and fully licensed to accept scheduled flights in the first quarter of 2014 with scheduled flights recommencing in March 2014.Inaugural scheduled and non-scheduled flights are, therefore, likely to take place on 1 March, 2014.

It is currently planned to offer a daily flight from Cape Town, and double daily flights from Joburg. Flight schedules and fares will be circulated to the travel trade imminently, and flight seat inventory will be displayed and bookable in the GDS during August 2013.

Significant in the context of South African tourism

The return of scheduled air services to Skukuza airport is significant in the context of South African tourism as this will allow all tourism stakeholders the ability to provide a far more integrated and effective product to the global market. With the benefit of efficiencies of scale, costing improvements will in time reflect in the pricing of product.

In compiling the operational plan for the airport and its associated air services, the Skukuza Airport Management Company has been sensitive to the environmental concerns associated with operations in a protected wildlife surrounding. This reflects in a comprehensive environmental management plan, together with strategies and plans to both manage and route air traffic in such a way as to limit the noise impact of operations in the area. The physical design of the new airport building structures as a part of the refurbishment has also followed an overarching minimized environmental impact philosophy.

Skukuza Airport Management Company is pleased to have been able to partner a number of community development trusts with a view to working in close co-operation with the local communities and SANParks employees to the benefit of all. It is, therefore, significant and exciting for Skukuza Airport Management Company and its stakeholders to have been chosen by SANParks to operate the airport and services.

Lion Sands donates to help legalise rhino horn trade

Mpumalanga's Lion Sands Game Lodge recently handed over a cheque for R205,000 this week to the Private Rhino Owners Association (PROA), helping to fund its campaign to legalise the international trade in rhino horn.

Pelham Jones, chairman of PROA, which represents the majority of private owners of some 5000 rhino, 27% of the national population, called the donation "an important intervention against the threatened rhino in South Africa".

In effect, he said, it hangs a flag on a pole for the PROA's drive to legalise the international demand for rhino horn and collapse the illegal trade of the so-called "blood horn" trade.

The use of ground-up rhino horn as traditional medicine in Asia, especially in Vietnam and China, has increased to the level where the keratin is expected to be worth more than gold. The weight of a full-grown adult horn can reach 6 to 8kg. In response to this demand, rhino poachers and their agents in South Africa and neighbouring countries are now slaughtering adult and young animals at a rate that, for the first time this year, may exceed their natural population growth.

This year, with the rhino death count already in excess of 500, they are working with the Department of Environment Affairs on a last-ditch strategy which Pelham Jones agreed is "highly controversial".

"It is time to add to our fight for the survival of the estimated 20,000 rhino we have left," he said. "Joining the international commercial trade in rhino horn is highly controversial. It is polarising the conservation community. As PROA our position at CITES 2016 will support sustainable utilisation and legalising the trade of rhino horn from authorised stockpiles and from normal mortalities.

"This aims to control the amount going into the international market each year and consumer education reducing demand for the horn. It's not a debate about the morality of the trade or the efficacy of the product as a medicine. We don't want to join the rhino horn business; our agenda is to save the rhinos' lives."

This recommendation was part of a Department of Environmental Affairs' Rhino Issue Management (RIM) report last month (July 2013) which was approved by Cabinet for South Africa's rhino trade proposal to CITES 2016.

Pelham Jones likens it to the procedure by which the influx of blood diamonds from war zones in West Africa were policed in the world market.

Certified through DNA and legalised for sale

"The horns we sell will be certified through DNA and legalised for sale. By ensuring the origin of the product that we sell we will be ensuring against the 'blood horns' of the poachers' trade flooding the market. This is not a plan to benefit anyone's personal financial interest. The 5000 rhino on PROA's game reserves and farms are valued at R1 billion, but in terms of South Africa's future wildlife legacy they are priceless."

Robert More, whose Lion Sands Reserve shares a boundary with the Kruger National Park in Sabi Sand Wildtuin, although to date untouched by this horrendous slaughter, is wanting to engage before it is too late.

"Despite the support from the government, corporates and private persons, which is being channelled into the anti-poaching campaigns, the number of fatalities continues to grow exponentially," he said. "We are losing the battle against poaching on the ground. We are putting the lives of our own rangers, conservationists and ecologists at risk who are in effect waging what is a narcotics war.

"In such a war the illegal trade can outpower you with its financial resources on the ground. Our next step therefore must be to change the law."

Pelham Jones cites conservationist Dr Ian Player's Operation Rhino in the 1970s as the way forward for South Africa, once today's horn trade has been regulated. "The white rhino population was reduced to 300 before Dr Player's campaign of relocation and anti-poaching operations restored it to nearly 20 000.There were 23 African countries that didn't follow the Op Rhino lead and their herds of the animals were decimated to the point of extinction. Rhino populations across most of Africa have disappeared in a similar manner."

The Lion Sands donation is made in the name of Robert More's brother Nicholas, the CEO of Lion Sands who died in a helicopter accident near Nelspruit in April this year.

"My brother was very much involved in funding the first Lion Sands donation in support of anti-poaching measures last October," said Robert More. "Nick was the lead conservationist in our family and now I am taking over the baton."