Page 34 - INTRA MUROS November 2020
P. 34
NATURE
Kruger Park recovering from
the lockdown
By James Clarke, Photos by Mary Broadley
he COVID-19 pandemic and the years, millions of people were able to We entered through the Phabeni Gate
collapse of tourism deeply affected witness, some for the first time, a clear near Hazyview and immediately noticed
Tour most famous tourist attraction – horizon every day. the accumulation of droppings on the
the Kruger National Park. roads. Under normal circumstances, even
Driving to Kruger, as we did once we had the conspicuous scattered droppings after
After several weeks of lockdown, we sought all the necessary papers (including police a herd of hundreds of buffalo has crossed,
special permission to visit the Kruger clearance to cross into Mpumalanga), we would soon be flattened and carried
National Park to see what the effects had noticed how clean and fresh the air was away on the tyres of tourists’ vehicles;
been. All of South Africa’s national parks as we passed through the country’s most effectively the droppings would disappear
had barred visitors from March 25 and, for polluted region. We still habitually call within hours.
months, the Kruger Park’s rest camps were it Witbank. The name Witbank (its name
empty. Some remained out-of-bounds means ‘white ridge’) was long ago changed On the S3 - the sand road that runs along
even into October. to something less complimentary: the Sabie River from near the Phabeni
eMalahleni, which means ‘place of coal’. Gate to the Kruger Gate and Skukuza - we
The limits placed on movement between saw not one vehicle in the three hours we
provinces literally brought tourism to But the price we are paying for cleaner dawdled along it. On this road, we soon
a halt. Only after three months were skies has been traumatic, especially for came across a ‘tower of giraffe’ - a number
people in private vehicles allowed into our most widespread and labour-intensive of them were standing close together
the southern region of the Kruger Park, industry - tourism. blocking the road. They showed little
but as day visitors only. No buses or safari
vehicles were allowed. Only game rangers and anti-poaching
personnel were allowed to move around
Worldwide, the consequences of the inside Kruger Park after the start of the
COVID-19 lockdown have been fascinating. lockdown.
Its major effect was to cleanse the air of a
considerable bulk of its poisonous burden We were there to see whether Covid-19
of chemicals and industrial fumes. regulations and the absence of visitors
were having any effect on the park’s most
Even in notoriously polluted China, where important inhabitants – its wild animals.
wearing masks has been the norm for
32 INTRA MUROS NOVEMBER 2020