Nature friends urgently address crime spike at PTA nature reserve

In the past week, Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve (FGNR) and community leaders have held urgent meetings with city council representatives in a bid to discuss measures to make Klapperkop Nature Reserve in Pretoria safer.

The meetings come after FGNR said crime in the reserve had “escalated substantially” with eight attacks on people in the past three weeks.

According to the FGNR Facebook page, the most recent attack took place last Friday evening when two women were held at knife-point at the tower lookout. According to the Facebook post, the suspect was wearing running clothes.

See the full post here: 

A screenshot of a post on the latest attack at Klapperkop Nature Reserve. Picture: Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve Facebook page

This eighth attack came after a raid on the Klapperkop Nature Reserve on Friday morning, which was attended by Hi-Risk Unit security, community members, FGNR and Ward 59 councillor Shaun Wilkinson.

According to a post on the Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve Facebook page, while no arrests were made, two large holes in the game fence were found.

“Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve, who is also the nature friends group for Klappperkop for the past 15 years, has had, together with other community leaders, meetings with city council representatives in the past week. Plans are in progress to implement various measures to make Klapperkop safer,” read the post.

A screenshot of the post on the Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve Facebook page on a raid at Klapperkop Nature Reserve on January 13. Picture: Facebook

On January 8, Centurion Rekord reported that four of these attacks took place over the course of a week in early January.

READ MORE: Pretoria nature reserve targeted by criminals

On Wednesday, Robrecht Tryhou of Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve took to the Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve Facebook page to post about the solutions to the crime problem.

Tryhou wrote that a combination of measures had been agreed upon and listed them as follows:

• “The council’s Nature Conservation (NC) deptartment will provide the staff for patrols and access control
• “FGNR will provide the required R60 000 for the installation of gates, access control, etc at the two entrances
• “NC and FGNR will provide for signage
• “Improve collaboration and efficiencies with NC, metro police and local security companies like Hi-Risk Unit
• “NC to inspect and repair the boundary game fence on a daily basis
• “Future steps will be implemented once funds at the city council are available: ie. strengthening of the fences and improvement of the lighting near Fountains circle
• “In the long term the upgrading of the whole Precinct is necessary. The development of a Nature and Culture precinct with a specific focus on coordinated and integrated safety, including the roads and open spaces.”

Tryhou said that FGNR and NC would like to recommence with conservation work on Klapperkop as well as improve the mountain bike and hiking trails and tag trees once these security improvements had been done.

“During the past 15 years, FGNR and NC have together created Klapperkop Nature Reserve. This included the erection of the game fences, game grids, introduction of zebra, wildebeest, rooihartbeest and impala,” said Tryhou.

Tryhou encouraged social media users that through combined efforts, they could make the nature reserve and the precinct, an asset of Pretoria.

Facebook users were inspired by the solutions, and the post had been shared 19 times by midday on Thursday, with 42 reactions, since it was posted on Wednesday morning.

A screenshot of comments by Facebook users on the Friends of Groenkloof Nature Reserve Facebook page. Picture: Facebook

– Caxton News Service

For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.