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News - Date: 30 August 2002
VENETIA - De Beers and South African National Parks (SANParks), have signed an agreement on August 23 which will see the integration of parts of the De Beers-owned Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve (VLNR) into the core of the proclaimed Vhembe/Dongola National Park, in the Limpopo province in South Africa.
In addition to its own land, De Beers has also contributed about R10 million to the Peace Parks Foundation (PPF), specifically to help fund the purchase of several other properties that will fall within the future park. In terms of the agreement, the South African National Parks will contractually manage the area while De Beers retains the title deed to its own properties. It is hoped that the Vhembe/Dongola National Park will eventually form part of a Transfrontier Conservation Area, a nature reserve of almost 5 000km2 being proposed by South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
De Beers has a long history of nature conservation dating back more than 100 years. In keeping with this tradition, the company decided to develop a major conservation area in tandem with the development of the company's Venetia diamond mine in the Limpopo Province in the late 1980's. To this end, De Beers purchased some 40 000 ha of land to establish the Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve. The broad objectives of the reserve are to conserve bio-diversity, restore natural ecological processes, and to develop ecologically and economically viable land use practices so as to provide benefits and opportunities for the region and its people.
This De Beers conservation initiative acted as an important catalyst for re-establishing the short-lived Dongola Wildlife Sanctuary, which was deproclaimed in 1948, and reviving the vision of General Jan Smuts for an international conservation area in the very same region. Not only would such a regional and international conservation area protect a number of important natural and biological elements, but the area also has a well documented archaeological record, including Mapungubwe, one of the most culturally important sites in southern Africa. A large international conservation area, spanning the borders of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe, would do much to restore the natural eco-system, relieve the environmental pressures exerted by increasing numbers of elephants in the Tuli block in Botswana, and extend the range for these and many other conservation important species
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