Orlando Chauke
LIMPOPO – WILLIAM Mabasa, the Kruger National Park’s (KNP) general manager: communications and marketing, said littering was not only a hazard for humans and the environment, but also endangered animals.
Speaking on Friday during a clean up campaign in partnership with Total and schools around the Phalaborwa and Giyani area for World Environmental Day, Mabasa said it was important that communities bordering the park’s fence avoided littering to maintain a healthy environment for its animals.
He said litter from communities outside the Kruger National Park’s fence found its way into the park where it killed animals if consumed.
“Litter kills, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a wild animal or domestic one, if that particular animal grazes on a plastic bag that people carelessly discarded, it dies because that plastic bag is indigestible,” explained Mabasa.
He said baby nappies and other material from communities bordering the park were huge polluters of streams which ran into the park, killing fish.
“To keep up with our slogan of keeping the park clean, we need to get people that reside outside it on board, and this is why we’re hoping the learners that are here today will go back and spread the message,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of Limpopo department of economic development, environmental and tourism (Ledet), Rachel Chabalala said statistics indicated that the current human population in the world was seven billion, which was too much for the planet to maintain with it’s natural resources.
“If we don’t take care of the environment, we will be in chaos by 2050, because the human population is very high and the number of natural resources are limited,” Chabalala explained, urging learners to avoid littering in order to help save the world’s environment.
“At school we have a tourism class where we learn and talk about tourism in general and how a dirty environment can negatively affect tourism in the country,” said Tintswalo Baloyi, one of the learners from Masiza High school, who participated in the clean up campaign at the Kruger National Park.
