International Biodiversity Day

The day is set aside to create awareness about the richness in species and ecosystems. The Garden Route National Park’s Richmond Gewers says ‘more than 164 000 visitors were recorded in the Garden Route National Park alone. This figure is up by at least 34% from last year (2013).’  This might signal an increase in the number of people interested in nature-based tourism.

International Biodiversity Day is important for the GRNP because here nature undepins tourism. ‘We encourage people to  go out and explore the richness of biodiversity in species and ecosystems by hiking or nature walks in the Park.
More than 20 300 species of flowering plants occur in South Africa. One of the six most significant concentrations of plants in the world is the Cape Floral Kingdom, with its distinctive fynbos vegetation. Most of South Africa’s 2 000 threatened plants are found in fynbos.’

The Tsitsikamma section of the Garden Route National Park has multiple hikes, ranging from day hikes to multiple day hikes. Day hikes range between 1 km to 15kms whereas multiple day hikes can mean 5 days of walking and 4 days of sleeping in the wild! Multi-day hikes in the Park include the famous Otter trail hike which is 42 kilometers long and the luxury Dolphin trail. Citizens who are up for a challenge can also run the 42km hike in a day! This is through the Otter trail run, organised by Magnetic South. The event to be held in September this year attracts many international runners like Ricky Lightfoot from the United Kingdom and others.

For more information, please visit 044 302 5600 or www.sanparks.org or follow us on social media