The Kruger National Park is one of the most popular and famous conservancies in the world, attracting many visitors locally and internationally. The Kruger National Park has evolved quite a lot from its first inception all the way back in 1926. Even though the park has changed so much, there is one aspect that has stayed prominently through all the years and that is the conservation of the animals of the Lowveld, big and small.
The Kruger National Park originally was much smaller than its current iteration with no rest camps, hardly any roads and no outside visitors allowed. As the park slowly grew in size it required more funding and its gates were opened to select members of the public, who could travel along the few developed roads and experience the beauty of the lowveld’s animal and plant life. The conservancy expanded to nearby parks increasing the its size to accommodate the increasing number of animals. More wardens were hired and rest camps were build to accommodate visitors in their visit to the Kruger National Park.
However, as popularity of the Park grew, opportunistic people started to take chances and attempted to use the Kruger National Park for their own form of business, black market trading and poaching. Because of the vast size of the Kruger National Park, many saw opportunities and weaknesses that could be exploited to allow corrupt business opportunities to take place. The Elephants and Rhinos in the Park started to fall victim to poaching as their horns and tusks were highly sought after on the black market.
As the years moved on and the Park grew, more effort could be put in to conservation and to keep the animals of the Kruger National Park Safe. Many more rangers were hired, training has increased, early response units and K9 units have been established, all with the goal of stopping the poaching threat and conserving the beautiful animals of the Kruger.
Today, the Kruger National Park is effectively taking part in the conservation effort with a number of smaller and larger conservation projects running its course while the Anti-Poaching unit as strengthened significantly with much more updated gear and training. More anti-poaching wardens have been added to the group and education and intelligence have greatly been adapted to decrease the time it takes to react to a call and reaching the location. Parkwide, many security systems have been updated and integrated to keep our beloved animals safe.
Some current projects also aim to restore some of the almost lost histories that the Kruger National Park is also famous for. Some ongoing projects aim to conserve the Thulamela Heritage Site and conserving the history that comes with it. The goal of this conservation is to address the cultural tolerance by conservation areas and all the neighboring communities. Another important conservation project is the control of invasive species into the Kruger National Park and to limit the immigration of foreign, often threatening species, to the delicate ecosystem the Kruger National Park is known for.
