Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
 
 The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park comprises an area of over 2.5 million square kilometers and is the first transfrontier national park to be formed in Africa. Previously known at the Gemsbok National Park , it is located in the South Western part of Botswana, spilling into South Africa. The Kgalagadi National Park is the result of merging the Kalahari Gemsbok Parks in Botswana and South Africa. The Mabuasehube has been incorporated into the Eastern Botswana side of the park. The word Kgalagadi means ‘land of thirst’ and is characterized by huge, desert landscapes with dry riverbeds and sparse vegetation.
 
History of Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
 
The Kgalagadi were some of the first people to penetrate the northern Kalahari and lived in comparative peace with the Khoe speaking inhabitants. Kalahari is derived from the Kgalagadi word Makgadikgadi, meaning saltpans or the great thirstland. The first english speaking settlers in the area came to trade with the people living in the Kalahari.
 
In 1884, the Germans occupied South West Africa. In 1891, the Park area as well as the area to the southwest, presently known as The Mier, was annexed to what was formerly British Bechuanaland.
 
With the outbreak of World War 1 in 1914, the South African Government drilled a series of boreholes along the Auob to provide their troops with water in case South Africa wanted to use corridor to invade South West Africa. Guards were recruited mainly from the local community and hired to protect and maintain the boreholes. They were permitted to settle next to the holes with their families and livestock. This corridor was never used to invade South West Africa and the borehole guards stayed on, largely forgotten by the authorities. Instead, the Government appointed a Scottish land surveyor Duke Jackson to survey the area and divide it into farms. About this time, six farms were purchased by the South African Government, but were not occupied before the Government decided that Coloured people should rather settle the region. The British Government, then already in control of Bechuanaland, had already settled Coloured people on the east bank of the Nossob.
 
After World War 1, Scottish born Rodger 'Malkop' Jackson surveyed the region and a theoretical subdivision was made into farms of 10 200 and 12 800 hectares. Additional farms were allocated to more farmers along the Auob and along the Nossob River. However, this is a harsh environment and these farmers struggled to make a comfortable living from their farms. The settlers therefore took to hunting and they, with the biltong hunters from further a field, gradually denuded the game. Only in the more remote reaches of the upper Nossob River was the balance of nature maintained, for here the Khoe speaking people lived in harmony with animals and plants.
 
Two conservationists invited the Minister of Lands, Piet Grobler to inspect the region. Grobler piloted the National Parks Act through parliament and played a major role in the proclamation of Kruger National Park in 1926. By 1931, Piet Grobler had decided to proclaim the area between the Nossob River and the Auob River and the SWA Border a national park. Land was purchased south of the Park to resettle so called 'Coloured' people and the borehole structures were abandoned. All but a few farms that had been sold by the Government were brought back and the Park was finally proclaimed in 1931.
 
Johannes le Riche and his assistant Gert Januarie became involved in the protection of wildlife in the area. For three years, they patrolled the Park on horseback. In 1934, the park experienced an exceptional rainy season and both the Nossob and Auob came down in flood. This was followed by an epidemic of malaria and both Le Riche and Januarie died of this illness.
 
In 1935, a row of farms along the southern bank of the Auob River was purchased by the Union Government to ensure that both banks of the river would be protected. Twee Rivieren was also bought to include the confluence of the rivers into the Park. In 1938 the British Government proclaimed a new game reserve across the Nossob in what is today Botswana.
 
During World War 11, Poachers were short of bullets and game numbers increased dramatically. After the War, game fences were erected along the Park's western and southern boundaries. The Eastern boundary remained unfenced leaving this border open to animals that needed to migrate from east to west.
The Botswana Gemsbok National Park was proclaimed in 1938 by what was then called Bechuanaland. Mabuasehube Game Reserve was added in 1971 and was incorporated into Gembok National Park in 1992.
 
 
General
 
Africa's first formally declared trans-border conservation area, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, on the border of South Africa and Botswana, was officially launched on May 12, 2000 by then South African President Thabo Mbeki and Botswana President Festus Mogae.
 
The significance of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is that it is the first formally declared Transfrontier Park in Africa and it will hopefully serve as a model for conservation in the 21st Century.
 
The combined land area of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is +/- 38,000 km² of which 28,400 km² lies in Botswana and 9,600 km² lies in South Africa. Transfrontier parks are protected areas that straddle international boundaries. The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is such a protected area in the southern Kalahari Desert. The southern Kalahari represents an increasingly rare phenomenon: a large ecosystem relatively free from human interference. The absence of man-made barriers (except to the west and south of the Park) has provided a conservation area large enough to maintain examples of ecological processes that were once widespread in the savannahs and grasslands of Africa.
 
Travel Access
 
To get to the park from Botswana travel from Gaborone on tarred road for about 550km until Tsabong in Kgalagadi District, from Tsabong travel for about 310km on gravel road. This road is negotiable by 4 x 2 vehicles during the dry season and 4 x 4 vehicles during the wet season. The alternative route is to travel from Gaborone to Hukuntsi on tarred road for 530km followed by approximately 171km of sand road, which is negotiable by 4 x 4 vehicles only.
 

The Kgalagadi Transfontier National Park is situated approximately 250 km from Upington in the far northern Cape and 904 km from Johannesburg. Visitors driving from Johannesburg have a choice of two routes, either via Upington (255 km tarred road) or via Kuruman, Hotazel and Vanzylrus (+/- 340 km gravel). Upington airport is the nearest airport to the Park and has car-hiring facilities.
 
 

Seasons and Best Times to Travel
 
The Kalahari is a semi-arid region with an average rainfall of 150mm in the southwest to 350mm in the northeast. The unreliable and irregular rains fall mostly during dramatic thunderstorms, often accompanied by strong winds and dust-storms, between November and April. The first rains transform the red dunes, covering them with the fresh yellow flowers of the Tribulus terrestris. Within two weeks fresh green grass begins to grow, but if the rains do not return, the vegetation will soon wither and the thirstland once again becomes apparent.
 
Temperatures vary greatly from -11°C on cold winter nights to 42°C in the shade on summer days when the ground surface temperature reaches a sizzling 70°C. During the winter months, when frost is common, the ground surface temperature can be 25°C lower that the temperature of the air. Winter in the Kalahari is a cool, dry season from September to October and then a hot, wet season from November to April.
 
Wildlife
 
Because of the sparse vegetation and concentration of animals in the dry riverbeds of the Auob and Nossob Rivers, Kgalagadi offers premium mammal viewing.  It is especially renowned for predator watching and for the seasonal movement of large herbivores such as blue wildebeest, springbok, eland and red hartebeest. Ground Squirrel and Suricate (Meerkat) are two more of the park’s more prominent species.
 
Both these ground dwelling species live in large family groups for added protection and can easily be seen throughout the park. Honey Badger, Pangolin and Bat-eared Fox are also seen. The predators are the park’s biggest attraction and excellent chances of seeing cheetah, leopard, brown and spotted hyena and the definitive black-maned lion exist.
The Kalagadi Transfrontier Park has a list of approximately 280 bird species of which only about 92 are resident. The remainder comprises of mainly nomadic, migratory and vagrant species.
 
A variety of raptors may be seen, the commonest being Tawny and Black-breasted Snake Eagle, Bateleur, White-backed and Lappet-faced Vulture, as well as smaller species such as Pale Chanting Goshawk, Gabar Goshawk, Pygmy Falcon and Greater Kestrel.
Less common are Martial Eagle and Red-necked Falcon. Barn, Spotted and Giant Eagle Owl are common, while Pearl-spotted Owlet, White-faced and African Scops-Owl may also be seen.
Larks and Sparrowlarks are abundant particularly after good rains which is also a good time to see seed-eaters such as Violet-eared Waxbill, Black-throated Canary, Shaft-tailed Whydah and Lark-like Bunting. Kori Bustard is common along both the Auob and Nossob riverbeds with Ludwig’s Bustard being relatively common during summer.