Kameeldoorns now part of Mokala Park

Mokala National Park was established in 2007 as an alternative to the Vaalbos National Park which was the subject of a land claim.
This is the realisation of a commitment that South African National Parks (SANParks) made to the Northern Cape Government at the time of the land claim. The expansion in Mokala National Park will help realise the three prime objectives in the area, namely:

• The conservation of a representative sample of the regions prominent ecological patterns associated with the interface of two biomes (Nama-Karoo and Savanna) and ecological processes in a contiguous functional conservation area.
  
• The establishment of an economically sustainable park.
  
• Developing a park that is socially sustainable through the development of entrenched social linkages across the local area.

Increasing conservation land

According to Dr David Mabunda, SANParks CEO, SANParks has added some 558 897ha to their system of national parks since 2000. "The government and SANParks accounted for 54% of this through direct acquisition, donors acquired 21%, through contractual inclusion of private land a further 11%, and the transfer of other government land 15%. We are very excited about the dropping of this fence as it signifies the seriousness with regards to our mandate as SANParks of increasing the national conservation estate."

In order to achieve its national mandate of conserving representative samples of South Africa's different ecological landscapes, the establishment of ecologically sustainable park remains a priority for SANParks. In this regard, the expanded park offers a diversity of landscapes characteristic of this area of the Northern Cape, ranging from rocky hills through to the sandy plains with scattered pans, through to the threatened ecosystem of the Riet River landscape. Mokala National Park is also home to a number of game species like, eland, giraffe, roan sable, disease free buffalo, gemsbok, red hartebeest and tsessebe.