Garden Route National Park 

The Wilderness Section - The part of the Wilderness Section which contains the Ebb & Flow Camp, the Serpentine and much of Langvlei originally formed part of the farm Kleinkranz, which was granted to JJ Viviers in 1818. Little is known of that period but in 1845 the land was transferred to Paul Gerber who moved there with his wife, four sons and two daughters. Early in the 20th century the western section was sold, with the Dumbleton family of Oakhurst and Fairy Knowe acquiring the westernmost section on both sides of the Touw River, and Donald McIntyre of Oudtshoorn buying a portion bordering Island Lake. The process of preserving the waterways of the Wilderness Lakes complex has been a long one. It started with the proclamation of the Lakes in 1968 and was to result in the formation of the Wilderness National Park in the 1980s, although this was by no means the end of the process, which remains ongoing. With the formation of the Lakes Area Board in 1975, the way was cleared for the identification and acquisition of suitable land for preservation.

With the inclusion in 1991 of the Lakes Nature Reserve at Rondevlei, from Cape Nature Conservation, the Park now formed a single unit stretching from the mouth of the Touw to the mouth of Swartvlei, including an important research facility at Rondevlei. In trying to manage an area which is under such intense pressure from developers, one of the significant actions of the Park involves regulating the hydraulics of the system so that the inhabitants in low-lying sections can be protected against abnormally high water levels, while simultaneously protecting the ecological functioning of the region.

The Knysna Lakes Section - The high conservation importance of this estuary has been emphasised in several studies, with it ranking 3rd of South Africa’s estuaries in terms of botanical importance, 8th in terms of importance for conserving fish, 19th in terms of waterbird conservation, and 1st in terms of overall conservation importance which includes criteria such as size, diversity of habitat, zonal rarity and biodiversity. Much of recent history is built up around the logging of surrounding forests. When the Dutch East India Company founded the first settlement in the Cape in 1652, wood from the surrounding forests was used extensively for building dwellings and wagons; These forests were soon exhausted and so the settlers had to go eastwards in search for timber - to the forests near George, Knysna and Tsitsikamma.

Reckless forest destruction was already taking place when the area was visited by Governor Joachim van Plettenberg in 1778. Meeding built a timber shed and entered into a contract with the woodcutters to supply timber. Controlling and limiting wood harvesting to a ‘sustainable’ level in the southern Cape forests was a long and difficult task. Soon the forest began also to be exploited for the British Royal Navy in 1812 and, in spite of the dangerous passage through The Knysna Heads, a port was developed at Knysna for the transportation of timber. The Cape Forest Act was passed in 1888. The first timber plantations were established near Knysna so as to reduce the timber demand on the indigenous forests. However, even under the section system forest destruction continued because the demand for timber caused woodcutters to exceed the recommended volume to be removed. Finally in 1939 the right of the woodcutters to work the forests was annulled, and state owned forests in the region were closed to non-sustainable harvesting.

Today, the Garden Route National Park (GRNP), located in the coastal strip between the Outeniqua and Tsitsikamma Mountains and the sea, can be described as a complex of protected areas managed as a single entity by SANParks.

The Tsitsikamma Section - This Section of the Garden Route National Park is situated at the heart of the picturesque tourist region known as the Garden Route, found in the Southern Cape of South Africa. The Park incorporates 80 km of rocky coastline with spectacular sea and landscapes, a remote mountainous region with secluded valleys covered in mountain Fynbos and temperate high forests with deep river gorges leading down to the sea. The Tsitsikamma Section has a long history of Marine and Forest utilisation and most of the local communities relied mostly, in one form or another, on these two ecosystems for their survival. Tsitsikamma National Park attracts tourists to the region, provides economic opportunities for local entrepreneurs, (local trail guides, adventure operators, transport services, infrastructure development & maintenance services, etc.) and as an implementing agency for poverty relief programmes, creates employment and training opportunities for some of the regions poverty stricken communities.

In September 1983 the seaward boundary of the park between the Groot River (east) and the Bloukrans River was extended to three nautical miles and the remainder (Bloukrans to Groot River, west) changed to 0.5 nautical miles offshore. The small Tsitsikamma Forest National Park was deproclaimed in 1989 (Government Gazette 1989) and the coastal park became known as the Tsitsikamma National Park (TNP). This section extends from Groot River (west) along the same seaward boundary to a point parallel to Grootbank and then back to the Groot River (west) along the high water mark.