The size of the new Garden Route National Park will roughly be 121000 hectares making it the third biggest National Park in South Africa.
It will consist of the Wilderness and Tsitsikamma National Parks (68500 hectares) and 52500 hectates of newly proclaimed land. The two already existing parks will retain their identity and become camps in the new greater park.
Tourist attractions in the Garden Route National Park will incluce camping decks, chalets, mountain biking trails, hiking trails, canoeing, diving and many more. There will be no other National Park in South Africa that will include the unique combination of marine, coastal, lakes, indigenous forests and mountain catchment areas.
The new Garden Route National Park will be unique in the sense that the proximity of the residential areas on its periphery will definitely have an impact on the character of the park. There are only three other National Parks in the world where residents live within the borders of a proclaimed Park - in Italy, Canada and the USA. The Garden Route National Park will be the first of its kind on the African continent.
SANParks Chief Operating Officer, Sydney Soundy, was quoted that the Garden Route is one of the critical focus areas in South Africa. “The area plays host to the largest continuous complex of indigenous forest in the country, spanning approximately 60 500 hectares. Its aquatic systems, the Knysna estuary and the Wilderness lake areas, are rated number one and number six respectively in the country. The fynbos falls within the Cape Floristic region, which is a designated global diversity hotspot.”
The Park should open it's gates anytime from now.
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