I read with interest your story, Residents petition to open Krantzkloof Nature Reserve (Highway Mail week ending 19 February 2021).
Dissecting the essence of the article, it appears that the call is for the access via Uve Road entrance to be opened, and a complaint being directed to the closure of the view site (Bridle Road).
The passionately written article calls for and demands for a right to have access to the nature reserve, in fact beautiful space that was proclaimed a protected area in 1950. For those who do not know how complicated the process is to have land proclaimed as protected, only places with significant biodiversity and places that meet specific criteria can be proclaimed as protected.
Your community is privileged to have this island of pristine biodiversity in their midst and, when one considers that it is just an island of biodiversity that is being pressured from all sides in so many ways, it is at a time like this that community members should consider the extent of which they are demanding.
Do you want the manager of this biodiversity to ‘manage for tourism (visitors)’ or manage for biodiversity? Does he/she put the visitors rights before those of the biodiversity, that very concept that enabled the area to receive protected status in the first place?
How many from your community actually go to the Krantzkloof Nature Reserve consciously thinking about the number of threatened and near threatened species occurring in this amazing space? If, for example, the pangolin species occurred naturally in this space, or another threatened mammal species, I wonder whether the call for access points to be opened would be the same?
ALSO READ: Residents petition to open up Krantzkloof Nature Reserve
Here is a word one should google – Aichi targets! These were global biodiversity targets set way back in 2010 for 2020. There are 20 goals that were defined then, with the first goal being ‘awareness’. The 2020 Global Biodiversity Targets were redefined recently with the clever biodiversity people around the world admitting that none of these targets were met. The test is quite simple; if you knew what an Aichi target was, the global effort to create awareness around these targets were met.
From my understanding, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has a delegated responsibility in terms of the National Environmental Biodiversity Management act to be the caretaker of this space called Krantzkloof Nature Reserve and, as a cost centre (not a profit centre), their obligation is to manage the biodiversity as their key focus. These delegated powers are, in terms of strict regulations, set out for the sake of the biodiversity in the nature reserve, and its unique species. These regulations include access control as one of the leading biodiversity management tools.
As an exercise to understand the theme of this opinion piece, make a list of the key areas of respect you demand within the space you function within daily. Then consider how you feel when this space is disrespected. That is how a biodiversity practitioner feels when people come into a space with pristine biodiversity and disrespect it. The message herein is a simple one and challenges the reader to consider whether the same article would have appeared in this media platform if the threatened species were a pangolin, and not a plant? I have no doubt that the community would have the nature reserve wrapped in cotton wool, protecting it fiercely – if it were a mammal of some sort.
My one and only visit to Krantzkloof a few months ago left me cringing at the disrespect shown by so many of its visitors that day to the unique setting they were in. I really felt for those visitors trying to enjoy the nature, however could not do so because of others who arrived at the nature reserve thinking it was their playground to do as they pleased. I can assure you, that the lack of regulation I witnessed that day, and the lack of respect for a protected area, could be a reason for this tightening of controls?
I write this with no disrespect to those who called for the petition, but simply reminding us all to recognise the rights of biodiversity and its special parts that have no voice.
Yours in conservation,
Greg Vogt
Upper Highway
Caxton Local Media Covid-19 reporting
