Johannesburg — Fences between the Kruger National Park and the Mozambique side of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) should be torn down in 2004, the park's project manager said on Tuesday.
Arrie van Wyk, project manager for the Peace Parks Foundation (PPF), the implementing agent for the GLTP, said his team had submitted a plan to the park's steering committee with a proposal for the fence to be torn down some time in 2004.
The steering committee which governs the project is made up of various groups, including the Mozambican government's directorate for the park, the PPF and a representative of a German funder for the park.
The proposed park is intended to link South Africa's Kruger National Park with the Coutada 16 hunting concession in Mozambique and Gonarezhou in Zimbabwe.
At 35000 square kilometres, it has been touted as the planet's largest cross-border conservation area.
"Everything is going well. An implementation unit is in place in Mozambique and all my dealings with them have been positive.
Van Wyk said a portion of the fence may even be torn away later this year.
According to an article in last week's Mail & Guardian, a huge portion of an estimated 30000 Mozambican villagers living in the proposed superpark have complained that neither government nor park officials had consulted them about the establishment of the park.
The article said village leaders, who met park officials, foreign donors and government leaders in Maputo last week, warned they would rather wage war against wild animals than vacate their ancestral land.
Van Wyk said a great amount of work still needed to be done before the park was ready, including negotiating with villagers.
"The implementation teams are consulting and negotiating with communities living on the Mozambican side of the park at the moment, but there are other factors like roads and infrastructure that also need to be put in place," he said.
Van Wyk said there had been a great deal of bad press about the GLTP recently, but he not experienced anything negative.
He said the media would be invited to the park in the next month to counter this.
The Mail & Guardian article said "political pressure by Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Valli Moosa, coupled with apparent corruption by consultants and a failure to consult communities, may derail the dream".
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A statement from Moosa's office on Tuesday said work at the GLTP was moving ahead steadily.
"The Minister is in constant consultation with his counterparts in Mozambique and Zimbabwe," the statement said.
"In the nature of a project of this magnitude, it is to be expected that concerns will be raised by stakeholders and the general public. The minister will not take these lightly."
The statement followed a call by the Democratic Alliance on Monday for Moosa to establish a commission of inquiry to probe "reports" that the future of the park was under threat.
DA environmental affairs spokesman Errol Moorcroft said Moosa should urgently appoint a commission of inquiry "to ascertain whether there are valid grounds for the reports".
He said the DA fully supported the concept of the park.
"This park, which is scheduled to become the largest conservation area in the world, promises immense benefits for the three participating countries," he said.
The DA was even more alarmed at the prospect of hasty or ill-advised actions by Moosa's ministry harming the Kruger National Park, "the flagship-park of our entire eco-tourist industry".
Moosa's office said there was no need to take hasty or precipitative action at this stage.
"One of the guiding principles in anything that has been done up to now has been to ensure that the environmental integrity of the Kruger National Park, which is the pride of the South African people, and indeed the people of the world, is maintained," the office said.
