Address of the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, at the opening of the Mata Mata Access Facility to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Your Excellencies, the President of the Republic of Botswana, Festus Mogae, and the President of the Republic of Namibia, Hifikepunye Pohamba
Your Excellencies Ministers and Deputy Ministers
Your Excellencies Ambassadors and High Commissioners
Distinguished guests
Community leaders and representatives
Ladies and gentlemen

This is indeed an historic occasion for all of our nations gathered here in the grand expanse of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park to celebrate this momentous accomplishment - the official opening of the Mata Mata Tourist Access Facility.
Today, together, we rejoice in our shared natural and cultural inheritance with great pride.

I am pleased that this development is happening on the ancient land of the Khoi and San people, for whom these lands have been sacred since the dawn of time.
I recall the objectives we set our countries on 12 May 2000, as we signed the Treaty and launched the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park at Twee Rivieren.

The Mata Mata Access Facility is unique in that it enables a very strategic physical linkage between the two Transfrontier Parks of Kgalagadi and the !Ai-!Ais/Richtersveld.

I am convinced that nothing can stir the soul and evoke intimacy with the remote, better than the legend of the lost city and the stilled voices of past civilisations buried deep beneath the shifting sands of the Kgalagadi Desert.

The spectacular sights set upon the contrasting tapestry of the expansive plains and undulating dunes of the red sands of Kgalagadi, set against the rugged mountains of the Richtersveld and the habitat engraved by the third largest canyon in the world, hold out the prospect of a real encounter with African infinity.

Perhaps the enormity of the experience offered by this desert can better be described in the extraordinary images imagined by the poet William Blake when he said: "To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower; hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour." (Auguries of Innocence)

Indeed this picturesque landscape, artistically formed by the hand of antiquity, constitutes the ever rhythmic African reality, interwoven with infinity.

In this regard, let us embrace the tourism as well as the social and economic opportunities that are presented by the natural endowment of our transfrontier parks as we prepare for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup and the years beyond.

Our Ministers responsible for Tourism and Environment in our region have assured us that the Transfrontier Parks and Transfrontier Conservation Areas are well positioned to serve as Southern Africa's premier international destinations.

These Ministers are hard at work to ensure that the seven Transfrontier Parks and Transfrontier Conservation Areas that have been identified in the TFCA Strategy for 2010 and later years receive the necessary infrastructure overhaul, as well as branding and marketing, to assure their long-term sustainability.

Today it is exactly seven years and five months since the signing of the treaty that established the first transfrontier park of our region, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

And this year, conservationists' worldwide joined the celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the establishment of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, (a Transfrontier Park), between Canada and the United States.

This 75th Anniversary Commemoration was marked by a major international conference in Canada, with senior representation from our region.

I am informed that a special session at that conference was especially dedicated to the development of transfrontier parks in our region, to enable the countries of the world to learn from our experience.

Evidently, our decade-long collaborative conservation efforts have made a significant global impact, equivalent to that of seven decades in the developed world.
The global recognition of our regional, Southern African Development Community SADC conservation efforts would be rendered meaningless if these fail to improve the lives of our people, as well as inspire confidence in our peoples about their tomorrow.

The important strategic physical linkage between the Kgalagadi and the !Ai-!Ais/Richtersveld Transfrontier Parks is indeed indicative of our efforts to promote conservation for the people, with the people.

The 27 June 2007 proclamation of the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape as a World Heritage Site, itself, like the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, the cradle of indigenous knowledge systems in our region, should inspire all of us to do everything we can to protect this heritage and use it to for the benefit of the people.

May I also add that, of great significance, the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape is communally owned and managed by the Nama people.

The indigenous knowledge systems to which we have referred range from ancient rock art, to the ground breaking commercial application of the traditional use of the Hoodia species by the San people as an appetite suppressant in dietary control, which will be commercialised into a food supplement and/ or prescription medicine.

Once again, the equitable access and benefit sharing principles, together with the recognition of the intellectual property rights of local communities for their traditional knowledge, bear testimony to our commitment to the use of conservation for the people, with the people.

When the winds will have wiped out all of the footprints of our generation from the sands of the Kgalagadi, this excellent Mata Mata Tourist Access Facility will stand to tell the timeless tale that we championed global conservation and friendly communion among the peoples of the world through tourism, for the benefit of our respective nations and all humanity.

As South Africans, we are pleased and privileged that we share this happy moment with the leaders and representatives of the sister peoples of Botswana and Namibia, which confirms that we do indeed share a common destiny, enriched by an abiding spirit of hope.

Thank you.

Issued by: The Presidency
12 October 2007