By Emily Setona
HARRISMITH – The South African National Parks (SANParks) Vision 2040 which was launched on Thursday last week in Harrismith, resonates with the dream of people living in harmony with nature and expressed how they would love to be part of this inclusive journey.
In his input, the secretary of the Ficksburg Landcare committee Tshepo Mosella said the future looks bright because Landcare in South Africa is responsible for the conservation of agricultural resources for the sake of food security and they have a good partnership with SANParks Golden Gate.
“SANParks vision 2040’s vision of inclusivity is very important, and we already have a good partnership with SANParks because we teach our learners about nature at Golden Gate and I would like to see this partnership go from strength to strength,” Mosella said during the engagement session.
An advocate for nature conservation from the community of Qwaqwa Sechaba Motsumi said:
“The speakers outlined words such as consultative and inclusivity in their presentations and I would like to thank SANParks for the efforts that they made to make this engagement session possible but we need to know what practical steps that will be taken so that we do not find ourselves in 2040 and nothing was done to fulfil this vision.”
In response to the people’s questions, the head of human capital management Makgomo Umlaw: “With SANParks Vision 2040, we are looking into ways in which people and nature can come together and work together and so we can bring issues around inclusivity into account.
“We acknowledge that the consultative sessions in the Free State were limited. We also acknowledged that if we say we are being more people-centred then we need to extend it to all the people living in the area so that when we talk about mega living areas and when we are saying that we are bringing people and nature together that, it becomes a reality that all the people can understand.”
This occasion was held on 26 September in seven satellite locations representing the seven national parks, and a livestream from the main event in Sandton was shared with everyone in attendance and the Deputy Minister of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) Narend Singh alongside the chairperson of the SANParks board Pam Yako, and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SANParks Hapiloe Sello and other distinguished guests attended the main event in Sandton.
Deputy Minister of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Narend Singh at the SANPARKS Vision 2040 launch.
For her part, Yako said when they started this process, they asked themselves hard questions especially about how SANParks can move into the future, and it was a cocreated vision.
“We interact with nature and maybe conservation of nature in various ways. Others are actively involved, that is the people who work in conservation which are SANParks staff and there is also some of us who want to come to the park to come to relax and take a break.
“There are also those who want to come to the park for spiritual connection. So how do we harness all of that into a vision that embraces those needs and aspirations of all of us and how do we make sure that there is inclusivity, meaningful participation and enhancing our connection?
“Vision 2040 is born out of that. It is born out of a deliberate effort to bring all of us in our diversity in our different interests towards a common vision in what dare I say is an ambitious vision. But we have done a lot of things to be a can-do nation, we sometimes forget that, as South Africans.”
During his keynote address, Singh said: “I’d really like to congratulate SANParks for this very inclusive exercise that you have been conducting for the past 18 months or so and I hope that all the other government departments or state owned entities would emulate this kind of inclusive discussions that need to take place because we say that South Africa is for all of the people in it so all the decisions must also be taken by the people who live in it or at least their representatives.”
