ID: 947

Establishing Grasslands National Park, South Africa

The initiative’s landscape-level goal is the establishment of the Grasslands National Park – a unique protected area of global importance, located in the Eastern Cape mountains. The project is a collaboration between SANParks and the World Wildlife Fund, and aims to raise significant government funding for the restoration and maintenance of the landscape for water security and creating jobs in alien plant clearing and wetland restoration. WWF-South Africa has been mandated by a range of Government partners to co-ordinate a process that will result in the largest dedicated Grassland Protected Area ever established in southern Africa and will contribute substantially towards securing significant portions of South Africa’s Strategic Water Source Areas. The area is rich in biodiversity and as a result has been identified as critical for South Africa’s revised National Protected Area Expansion Strategy. According to SANPARKS Acting CEO, Dr Luthando Dziba, the proposed NE Cape Grasslands National Park will take a somewhat different form to traditional parks, in that the landowners will have the opportunity, through stewardship, to incorporate their land in the park on a voluntary basis. As such they also stand to benefit from a range of financial incentives for private and communal land that is formally protected.

Planned actions

Protection of land/water

Management of land/water

Species management