megan taplin

Best Performing Park

For the second consecutive year, Mountain Zebra National Park (MZNP) outside Cradock walked away with the most prestigious award at the recent 2014/15 Frontier Regional Achievement Awards. Park Manager Megan Taplin accepted the Best Performing Park Award on behalf of her colleagues at the ceremony hosted in Addo Elephant National Park. The awards evening is …

Mountain Zebra National Park Manager, Megan Taplin, receiving the Best Park Certificate and Trophy from Frontier Regional General Manager, Dries Engelbrecht.

The awards evening is an annual event to celebrate the top individual and team achievements from the four national parks in the region – namely Addo Elephant, Mountain Zebra, Camdeboo and Karoo National Parks, and is a precursor to the annual South African National Parks (SANParks) Kudu Awards to be held in Gauteng later this year. Last year Mountain Zebra won in the same category at the national event – and currently proudly boasts with the title of top park within SANParks.

The Best Performing Park Award is for excellent achievements in Conservation, Tourism and People & Conservation – SANParks’ three core business areas – over the period under review.

In Conservation, some of the highlights were: The Park made another contribution to South Africa’s cheetah metapopulation with the translocation of two male and one female cheetah to Selati Game Reserve. This brings to 24 the number of cheetah contributed by MZNP to the cheetah metapopulation since 2010 and makes MZNP the top contributor of cheetah to the metapopulation in South Africa through the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s programme. At the same time, populations such as black wildebeest and red hartebeest were also managed effectively by means of translocations.

For MZNP, Tourism achievements during the 2014/15 financial year included: Visitor numbers increased by 4% in comparison to the same period last year. Unit occupancy showed a 2.6% increase while camping increased by 5% compared to the same period last year. Mountain cottage occupancy showed a 13% increase. Activities showed a good increase of 11.3% with night guided drives and cheetah tracking being the most popular activities. A new activity, guided sunset drives, was introduced successfully in December.

On the People and Conservation front: A total of 4 354 learners were addressed during environmental education programmes during the course of last year. This represents a 30% improvement on the previous financial year’s achievement, when 3 354 learners were reached. There was also a 37% improvement in the number of people who entered for free during the annual SA National Parks Week in September last year – from 615 in 2013/14 to 845.

Taplin once again attributed the Park’s success to excellent team work and the dedication of staff on the ground and thanked them for all their hard work.

Accolades for MZNP

Cradock’s Mountain Zebra National Park won the SANParks Chief Executive Award in the category: Best Performing Park at the 10th annual Kudu Awards ceremony in Johannesburg last week (Thursday 27 November). This is the first year the park has won the award, outperforming much larger and better-known parks in the process. South African National Parks …

South African National Parks (SANParks) supported by First National Bank (FNB) and Total South Africa, recognises deserving parks, departments and staff members at the awards evening every year.

The award was bestowed on the park for their performance during the previous financial year: 2013/14. Mountain Zebra National Park achieved excellent performance in all three of SANParks’ core business areas of Conservation, Tourism and People & Conservation over this time. Some of these achievements were:

Conservation

Three lions were successfully introduced, improving the biodiversity of the Park, improving predator-prey dynamics (especially in terms of large herbivores) and restoring a species to its natural habitat after an absence of more than 130 years.
The cheetah population was managed effectively through contraception and monitoring. New cheetah genes were brought into the small population through an effective swop with a reserve in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Due to regular fence patrols, no breakouts of predators took place. Despite 50km worth of the 72km boundary fence line being inaccessible to vehicles (and hence must be patrolled on foot), fences were checked in entirety once per week.

Tourism

Visitor numbers increased by more than 14% in comparison to the same period the previous year (from 20 529 in 2012/13 to 23 484 in 2013/14).
Unit occupancy showed a 6.6% increase (from 69.9% in 2012/13 to 76.5% in 2013/14).
Camping showed a 4.2% increase (from 45.4% in 2012/13 to 49.6% in 2013/14).
Activities booked showed an increase of 43% with night guided drives and cheetah tracking being the most popular drives.

People & Conservation

A total of 3 354 learners were addressed during environmental education programmes. This represents a 165% improvement on the previous financial year’s achievement (3 354 learners during 2013/14 compared to 2 036 learners during 2012/13).
There was a 185% improvement in the number of people who entered for free during South African National Parks Week (615 in 2013/14 compared to 329 in 2012/13).

A number of other outstanding areas of performance, such in financial management and human resources, also played a role in the awarding of the prize to the park.

Park Manager, Megan Taplin, couldn’t be prouder. “This is a real achievement for every one of the team at Mountain Zebra National Park. I am very proud of the dedicated, friendly and efficient team we have here at the park and this award is a real testament to their ongoing efforts. I hope the Best Performing Park award will also encourage new visitors to the park to join the ranks of those who claim Mountain Zebra is their favourite national park,” she said.

Earlier this year the park won in the same category at the SANParks Regional Awards evening.