Proposed tented camp in KNP gets final green light
It seems as if the construction of a luxurious tented camp in the Kruger National Park near Leopard Creek will be going ahead after all the appeals filed against it were dismissed by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA).
MALALANE – A notice from the DEA, dated April 15, confirmed the dismissal of the appeals against the tented camp, to the disappointment of appellants who have spent the last 19 months fighting against the development. It is estimated that the Radisson Blu Safari Resort will cost R217 million.
The list of appellants included the luxurious Pestana Lodge and Against Interference in Kruger Our Nature Asset (Aikona), an organisation with close to 300 members.
Appellants argued that the construction of the luxury lodge, as well as a park-and-ride facility would ruin the park they know and love by commercialising it. Both the safari lodge and park-and-ride will operate after regular gate hours. The appellants argued that this would lead to noise pollution and that the narrow road that would be utilised by users of the park-and-ride facility, would become congested.
In January this year a meeting between the appellants and the DEA was held. The appellants were offered the opportunity to motivate their stance on the issue.
Afterwards reports on what was said would be presented to Minister Edna Molewa before she would finally rule on whether the development would go ahead or not.
Gerhard Smit, convenor of the Aikona group requested access to the DEA’s minutes of the meetings following the one in January. “I requested these in accordance with the provisions of the Protection of Access to Information Act,” he said. However, the department would only provide him with a copy of the final decision, claiming that no further documents could be found.
Molewa motivated the approval of the project by referring to the jobs it would create. It was previously reported that around 350 jobs would be created as a result of the project.
Smit expressed his suspicion that the creation of jobs may serve as justification for the implementation of future decisions he described as “undesired and contrary to what one would consider their (the department’s) core business”, which according to Smit, is conserving nature.
Read our previous report on the issue:
Development of resort set to continue
