A nearly 20% increase in national park fees for visitors may force South Africans to take rhino poaching more seriously.
|||KwaZulu-Natal - Gate entry fees will go up by between 15 and 25 percent in some national parks from next year, partly because of the rhino poaching crisis.
The cost of staying in 20 national parks will also rise by an average of 10.1 percent from November next year, when SA National Parks (SANParks) introduces a new three-tier tariff system.
SANParks spokesman Joep Stevens said conservation fees (daily gate entry costs) would be higher than expected mainly because of higher operational costs.
For example, nearly 100 new rangers had been employed to combat rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park while about 85 new rangers had also been hired in the Table Mountain National Park to reduce tourist muggings on mountain pathways.
This meant that the daily conservation (entry) fee for South Africans visiting Kruger National Park would rise from R50 a day to R62 a day (an increase of almost 20 percent).
The new system has different charges for the high, low and shoulder seasons.
Statistics released last week showed that at least 618 rhinos have been poached nationwide this year. Most of the deaths were in Kruger, where 380 rhinos were killed, with another 60 killed in KwaZulu-Natal.
Although bookings through central reservations opened on Tuesday for accommodation after November 1 next year, the new tariffs for individual camps have yet to be published online. - The Mercury