University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

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Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature 3.2.4. Wildlife in Kruger National Park KNP is the only national park in Africa that does not have a deficit. Due to this it helps financing other national parks in Africa. But why is the park so economically strong The National Park offers: “The drawing car, the game which includes, according to Kruger’s official list, 29,142 zebras, 2,314 hippos, 250-300 cheetahs, 4,600 giraffes, 3,150 kudu, 1,425 waterbuck, 350-plus wild dogs, more than 500 species of birds, and all the “big five”: elephants (7,834), rhinos (220 black and 1,871 white), leopards (600-900), Cape buffalo (15, 253), and lions (1500-plus) “ (Honey, 1999). In relation to tourists services “There are eight entrance gates, a network of some 2600 km of tarred and gravel roads, 24 rests camps offering a variety of accommodation and camping facilities. The Kruger has 4200 beds, and with day visitors, can accommodate around 5000 visitors at any time. The management has imposed a limit of 1 vehicle per km of road at peak periods. The Kruger National Park takes an unashamedly populist approach, offering people comfort and easy access to wildlife. There is little of the classic African safari left in the Kruger. Despite the massive tourist presence, the rest camps, roads and viewing bands that run alongside them, occupy only some 4 per cent of the total area of the park. The remaining area is unspoilt and left to nature.” (Roe, et al, 1997). 3.2.5. Human influence on the wildlife Human disturbs the animals directly and indirectly. Although tourists behave respectfully to wildlife, there are some kinds of animals, which need an quiet environment or who are just shy as cheetahs. Human presence can cause very important problems in cheetahs due to the fact that they are used to hunt at day in contrast to lions, who are nocturnal hunters. It has been shown that during 64
Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature the more active cheetahs hours, the tourists are more active too, and since cars are allowed in some national parks, these animals have developed a stressrelated disease similar to HIV “…which causes their immune systems to collapse “(Kock, 1994). However, it has been shown that sometimes the presence of tourists can be positive for hunters due to the prey can be confused which; the tourists actually help the predator to in their hunting efforts. However, this is just a positive and marginal point of view if we consider that the cheetahs population has decreased 30 per cent since cars were allowed in national parks. A very important problem of the tourists presence is not only that animals get shy, on the contrary some of them get too used to humans (and their machines). They are used to be feed by them and some gets aggressive in order to get more food. A curious case is that of the Antarctic whales where “….calves normally maintain constant body contact with their mothers but, when separated, can transfer their attachment to the side of a boat” (Roe, 1997). In parks with species similar to human beings such as gorillas, human can contribute to infection of human diseases which are in some cases mortal. This has resulted in a minimum distance of 5 meters between gorillas and humans, although these rules sometimes are not fulfilled. (Roe, 1997). The basic indirect problem caused by the protection of National Parks is the change in habitats from trampling and littering. Managers in several National Parks worldwide consider forbidding cars in the parks because they (as for example, in the Kakadu National Park, Nothern Australia) “…contribute to weed infestation by transporting seeds into the park” (Roe, 1997). Littering is also a very important problem in National Parks nowadays. To avoid habitat changes, KNP “has a management policy that aims to retain the habitat in a state that is neither too closed for tourist viewing, nor too utilised by elephants” (Roe, 65
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