The imposing stone memorial, with a huge lead wood stump symbolising the rangers, was handed over to South African National Parks by the SANParks Honorary Rangers.
"It is our privilege to dedicate this monument to the men and women who look after our parks. We want to assure them that they have the full support of the South African public and that we appreciate them and what they do," said Louis Lemmer, national chairman of the SANParks Honorary Rangers.
This event was also the kick-off of Project Relax. The aim is to uplift the quality of life of the rangers and their families. As a start, the SANParks Honorary Rangers has donated R 150,000-worth of items to all the rangers posts throughout Kruger. The items include furniture, jungle gyms, board games and vegetable gardens.
The SANParks Honorary Rangers is a group of passionate volunteers who give freely and without reward of their time and skills to support conservation in the South African National Parks. They have started an initiative whereby they adopt ranger posts. This means that the Honorary Rangers will assist in upgrading the communal areas of these often isolated outposts, to enhance quality of live and show support for our rangers.
Unlike many fundraising initiatives the SANParks Honorary Rangers utilises 100% of all money raised for the purpose for which it is donated. No public money is used to run activities and every cent donated by the public for counter poaching or other projects is used to fund the actual project in our national parks.
For more information, go to www.sanparksvolunteers.org.
