Honorary Rangers celebrate 50th anniversary
Approximately 500 SANParks Honorary Rangers and senior SANParks staff recently celebrated the Rangers' 50th anniversary at the Skukuza Rest Camp in the Kruger National Park.
The four day indaba was a mixture of meetings, training courses, and an opportunity to meet with other honorary rangers from across South Africa.
The highlight of the event was the Honorary Rangers' annual general meeting where feedback was given on achievements and decisions made on the future. Outgoing national executive committee chairperson Janssen Davies, highlighted some outstanding results which were achieved during the previous year. This included a growth in membership, bringing the membership to 1,320 members. A special achievement was the overall contribution to SANParks reaching R43.3m worth of funding and services provided for 2013. This contributed to a total contribution of R248m over the past ten years.
Recipients of awards
"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 chairperson, Louis Lemmer.
There were many worthy recipients of awards. These included the Tsitsikamma region as Region of the Year Award, while 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 parks and has raised millions of rand in support of conservation.
Kuseni Dlamini, chairperson of the SANParks board, congratulated the SANParks Honorary Rangers on their anniversary. He expressed his 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.
