Page 34 - Blue Valley Issue 5 2020 print.pdf

NATURE

KRUGER PARK RECOVERING FROM

THE LOCKDOWN

By James Clarke, photos by Mary Broadley

he COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse region. We still habitually call it Witbank. The We entered through the Phabeni Gate near
of tourism deeply affected our most name Witbank (its name means ‘white ridge’) Hazyview and immediately noticed the
Tfamous tourist attraction – the Kruger was long ago changed to something less accumulation of droppings on the roads.
National Park. complimentary: eMalahleni, which means Under normal circumstances, even the
‘place of coal’. conspicuous scattered droppings after a herd
After several weeks of lockdown, we sought of hundreds of buffalo has crossed, would
special permission to visit the Kruger National But the price we are paying for cleaner skies soon be flattened and carried away on the
Park to see what the effects had been. All has been traumatic, especially for our most tyres of tourists’ vehicles; effectively the
of South Africa’s national parks had barred widespread and labour-intensive industry - droppings would disappear within hours.
visitors from March 25 and, for months, the tourism.
Kruger Park’s rest camps were empty. Some On the S3 - the sand road that runs along the
remained out-of-bounds even into October. Only game rangers and anti-poaching Sabie River from near the Phabeni Gate to the
personnel were allowed to move around Kruger Gate and Skukuza - we saw not one
The limits placed on movement between inside Kruger Park after the start of the vehicle in the three hours we dawdled along
provinces literally brought tourism to a halt. lockdown. it. On this road, we soon came across a ‘tower
Only after three months were people in of giraffe’ - a number of them were standing
private vehicles allowed into the southern We were there to see whether Covid-19 close together blocking the road. They
region of the Kruger Park, but as day visitors regulations and the absence of visitors showed little interest in moving. This was fine
only. No buses or safari vehicles were allowed. were having any effect on the park’s most by us. We just sat and enjoyed the sight.
important inhabitants – its wild animals.
Worldwide, the consequences of the
COVID-19 lockdown have been fascinating.
Its major effect was to cleanse the air of a
considerable bulk of its poisonous burden of
chemicals and industrial fumes.

Even in notoriously polluted China, where
wearing masks has been the norm for years,
millions of people were able to witness, some
for the first time, a clear horizon every day.
Driving to Kruger, as we did once we had
all the necessary papers (including police
clearance to cross into Mpumalanga), we
noticed how clean and fresh the air was as we
passed through the country’s most polluted

32 • Issue 5 2020 • BLUE VALLEY NEWS