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afrol.com, 2 December - The World Heritage Council, meeting in Cairns, Australia, inscribed the uKhahlamba - Drakensberg Park on the border between Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), as the world's 23rd combined cultural and natural World Heritage Site this week. The 230,000 ha park, stretching from Garden Castle in the south to Cathedral Peak and Royal Natal in the north, is South Africa's fourth World Heritage Site and the second in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park in northern KwaZulu-Natal was inscribed as South Africa's first natural World Heritage Site in December 1999. KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife and the KwaZulu-Natal Nature Conservation Board are delighted with the announcement that the uKhahlamba - Drakensberg Park has been awarded cultural and natural World Heritage Site status. - The inscription means that the unique combination of outstanding landscape and one of the world's greatest collections of rock-art are given international standing and recognition, said Dr George Hughes, KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife Chief Executive Officer. - Apart from the added security this status provides, we believe that a really great benefit will be added to tourism in the region - and that will benefit our local communities immensely, he said. "We in KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife are proud to have been instrumental in bringing another World Heritage Site into the South African stable - this is a tribute to all the people of this province who have a passion for wildlife and the beautiful and unique places that go with it," he added. - World Heritage Site status brings increased tourism with it - and we look forward to welcoming a lot more visitors - both local and from overseas - to our mountains. More importantly, this status focuses attention on the wonderful contribution made by San artists so many years ago. This is recognition long overdue, and we in KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife are proud to be the custodians of this global treasure, said Dr Hughes. "KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife has put a great deal of energy into conservation in the Drakensberg region and is also deeply committed to it Community Conservation Programme through which we assist communities neighbouring our protected areas with upliftment projects," he said. - Through the Community Conservation Programme we have facilitated the funding and construction of many projects such as the building of the new high school at Mhlwazini near Cathedral Peak, the building of Lotheni School near to the Lotheni section of the Park, the fencing of Thibane Primary School, and Inyosana-yezangoma muti garden, water supply to Nhlathimbe Seconday and Malunga Primary Schools, the building of Myendana combined primary school and the building of additional classrooms at Injasuti High School," said Dr Hughes. - KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife believes that the inscription of the uKhahlamba - Drakensberg Park as a World Heritage Site will have a very positive upliftment spin-off for local communities through increased employment resulting from an anticipated surge of tourists to the area, he added. Possible future inclusions to this new World Heritage Site is the development of a transfrontier Park and conservation Area with Lesotho, and the inclusion of linked protected areas in the Free State and the Eastern Cape. The Park is run under a comprehensive management plan that regulates all development initiatives, and is enthusiastically supported and helped by the national Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism, Amafa KwaZulu-Natal and the KwaZulu-Natal Town and Regional Planning Commission. Through processes detailed in this plan three major developments are underway for the Park - the almost completed re-vamp of Giants Castle Camp, the building of the 214 bed Didima camp at Cathedral Peak due for completion in 2003, and the re-development of the Royal Natal Park Hotel. Discovery in St Lucia Wetland Park The coelacanth is a fish thought to be extinct until a live specimen was caught in a trawler net in 1938 off the Chalumna River Mouth off the Eastern Cape. Further specimens were later found off the Comoros Islands in 1952 and, more recently Indonesia and Madagascar. In his book "Old Fourlegs", written in 1957 and describing graphically the saga of the discovery of the Chalumna and Comoros coelacanths, Prof Smith argued for the presence of coelacanths along the eastern African coast, saying that the Chalumna specimen was possibly a stray from that area and that it was likely that it represented a population of the fish resident in a deep, rocky marine environment. This exciting discovery off Sodwana Bay is all the more important because it confirms, for the first time, a South African presence of this extremely rare fish in a formally protected area that was declared a World Heritage Site in December 1999. The three living coelacanths were discovered in a submarine canyon off the coast near Sodwana Bay this week. A group of divers, during a mixed-gas deep dive to 104 metres off the coast, discovered and photographed the coelacanths. Source: Wildafrica.net & KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife
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