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Table Mountain
SANParks, City of Cape Town, and SAPS, together with NGOs and other partners, have launched a festive season programme to ensure a safe holiday for all visitors to Table Mountain National Park.
A helicopter from the Kruger National Park has been deployed to beef up aerial surveillance during the festive season.
An eye in the sky gives authorities a literal bird’s eye view of what is going on on the mountain.
Table Mountain National Park is vast, stretching over 50 kilometers from one end to the other, it’s also 25 000 hectares of park within a city.
As an open-access park, there are countless entry points, making safeguarding a challenge.
Table Mountain to enhance safety of visitors:
Safety approach
But SANParks says with its integrated safety approach with the city and the police, it is tackling all forms of crime on the mountain.
Managing Executive of Parks Property Mokoena says, “Incidents have dropped by 62% if we compare the previous year and this year. So, if you have a chopper, it gives us a competitive advantage because we can now operate from an aerial base and we can do rapid response if we have to deal with incidents or rescue our clients in the mountain. The chopper will be based here from now until mid-January. All the choppers in SANParks are based in Kruger National Park, but they belong to SANParks so we can deploy a chopper to any national park at any given time. So if there’s a need for the chopper to come back, we’ll just make the call and bring the chopper here.”
Its highly skilled Special Operations Rangers of the Sea, Air and Mountain team will also be on active duty throughout the festive season.
A K9 unit that can track, apprehend and aid in search and rescue, among others, is part of crime-fighting efforts, including poaching.
The City of Cape Town is deploying 32 officers from its safety and security cluster as well as 120 new cadets daily.
Commissioner of Public Safety, Robbie Roberts says, “The deployment from all our metro police, traffic, law enforcement as well as our safety and security investigation unit as well as our safety security information unit management unit. And we’ve got also our fire services and disaster management forming part of the plan. Both SANParks and the South African Police and we are deploying two shifts from 4 a.m. up until 12 and from 12 to 10 p.m.”
The public is urged to always take precautions when going to any part of the large park, travel in groups of at least four people, and always ensure others know where they will be.
People are also urged to report any suspicious activity to the SAPS.
