An open letter to SANParks CEO, Dr David Mabunda

Posted on 5 December 2013

Dear Dr Mabunda,

I would like to bring something slightly concerning about your marketing and PR efforts to your attention. But before I do that, let me give you a brief overview of who I am and what I do.

I am passionate about South Africa, in particular, the rich natural heritage that we have been blessed with and inherited and I support those organisations that endeavour to protect this heritage. I spend as much time as I can outdoors and in nature and frequent as many South African nature conservancies and parks as I can. In fact, I have bookings at three of your incredible parks to look forward to next year.

To make a living, I am a passionate brand strategist. I strive to ensure that the brands I work with are positioned optimally for maximum impact and effect in the market and I work to help them maintain a good, responsible and positive image in the minds of consumers, ultimately to help guarantee their business success.

Let me return to the purpose of this mail. I follow SANParks on Facebook. You have an impressive 51 000 followers – a number to be proud of in the social media environment in South Africa. That means over 51 000 people have chosen to follow what you say and over 51 000 are recipients of the communication that you extend to them on a daily basis.

I have noted with interest the increasing number of posts on your Facebook page about rhino poaching and what has essentially become and been termed The War on Rhino Poaching. Fair enough, the levels of rhino poaching are alarming. Enough, I believe, to have imposed a decline on our rhino population and if you add up the numbers, to threaten extinction to the species in less than a decade.

We all have the right to be extremely concerned and frankly, angry. Our heritage is being threatened and very little is being done internationally to help tackle the demand for rhino horn. Parks and conservancies are the ones who appear to be bearing the brunt of this epidemic with little reassurance that it is going to slow down any time soon.

In the last three to four years, the South African public has finally been made more aware of what is happening and on what scale poaching is taking place. This is fair and arguably good. We are joint custodians of our natural heritage and have the right to know what is threatening it. It is also necessary to gather the support of South Africans to increase the pressure on government and international organisations to do something about this on the levels that count, i.e. to encourage proper attempts to challenge and curb the demand by a largely Eastern market – a demand fuelled by the leaders of the very countries in question.

On the ground at home, we are dealing with an equally complex situation. Our country and our neighbouring countries are plagued by poverty. Because of this it isn’t difficult to convince a few economically desperate people to plunder a natural heritage – South Africa’s rhinos. That is the least of their concerns. It is a heritage that they realistically reap no rewards from and one that they have had not had the means to appreciate and fully understand the greater meaning of. This is what SANParks is dealing with. And lately, this is what SANParks is becoming increasingly public about – the confrontation between its field rangers or hired task forces and the impoverished “runners” paid very little to break through a fence, find a rhino and kill it.

Via your daily updates, not only are your followers and the broader South African public being made aware of your attempts to curb poaching on the ground, we are also privy to the increasing number of human deaths that are a result of this anti-poaching effort. In fact, your organisation or brand, seems to be advertising the fact.

 

 

In a post I was exposed to on the 20th November, along with thousands of other South Africans, SANParks acts almost proud that another poacher was fatally wounded (exclamation mark, exclamation mark). It seems fair to assume that SANParks is quite proud of the death of a human being who has done wrong and by deduction, one can’t help but think that SANParks thus advocates the death sentence.

From using Facebook for simple daily updates on the state of the natural nation to it becoming a platform to convey what one can argue is an underlying, yet powerful political ideology is quite a bold leap for a brand with a very defined purpose. This move is one that I am not certain is within the best interests of your brand or grounded in what I believe your brand purpose to be.

Instead of rallying a nation of natural heritage custodians and conservators, you seem to be rallying a crowd for war – a crowd just as pleased as you by the death of another human being that has done wrong; a crowd ignorant to the complexities that fuel this poaching epidemic; a crowd that is starting to outwardly condone death, war, murder as the final resolution.

A representative sample of SANParks followers' comments.

 

This is what concerns me most. A brief look at global history might suggest that this attitude or approach only ends badly. Perhaps it is time to take a brand leadership stance and influence your followers from the position of a renowned and admired nature conservator and not an organisation that is proud to kill.

Regards,
Jayne Holness






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