Take a shot left and enjoy MTPA’s Mahala Week
The week is aimed at encouraging locals to visit the MTPA’s nature reserves during the month of September in order to promote a culture of travel
MBOMBELA – The Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) will for the first time introduce the Mahala Week in its nature reserves to run from September 21 to 27 as part of Tourism Month initiatives.
The week is aimed at encouraging locals to visit the MTPA’s nature reserves during the month of September in order to promote a culture of travel and creating awareness about our natural heritage.
“We are excited to be introducing the Mahala Week concept in our own nature reserves this year.
We have a total of 11 provincial nature reserves throughout the province which will be open to the public during that week and we trust that the public will take advantage of this opportunity and explore and appreciate the wildlife and natural heritage surrounding some of our communities”, said Mr Abe Sibiya, acting chief executive officer of MTPA.
The national focus week is a worldwide campaign that was introduced in South Africa in 2006 seeing that most South Africans do not have access to the national parks.
The idea is to encourage locals to take pride in the environment and their heritage sites. According to Sibiya, by so doing they will start to take care of the natural resources and understand the importance of conservation.
“As we adopt this concept, we trust that it will afford us an opportunity to showcase some of the less visited nature reserves in the province.
During this period day visitors will be allowed to enter the reserves free of charge.
The intention is to create awareness and expose our communities to our natural resources at the same time instil the culture of travelling locally”, added Sibiya.
He added that the free access into the selected nature reserves was strictly for day visitors only and did not include accommodation and other tourism activities on offer at those reserves.
“In order to be allowed free access, visitors will be required to present their South African identity documents.
The set terms and conditions for this duration will apply and we appeal to our locals to comply and support us with this initiative.”
