Water Conservation
Michael Rattray’s family owned and ran MalaMala Game Reserve, a private game reserve on the border of the Kruger National Park, for 52 years and his association with the National Park goes as far back as 1938. During this time, he watched with concern as the river levels dropped lower each year and the perennial Sand River assumed non-perennial status flowing intermittently during the dry winter months. This became the unfortunate state of affairs of most of the Kruger National Park’s rivers and it became vital that something be done to reverse this trend. The continual decline of “instream flows” impacted negatively on wildlife biodiversity in parks such as the Kruger National Park and the protection of these water resources became imperative to ensure the sustainability of the wildlife and therefore encourage an ongoing increase in tourism. The necessity to protect catchments is borne out of the fact that 80% of any river’s flow emanates from 20% of its most upstream area.