Solutions for the Amphitheatre

I am the injured guy, thanks for asking PD. Today was my second day home from hospital and my healing process can truly begin now that I'm back with my wife and kids.

My physical injuries are healing and there will be follow-ups required. This process is disruptive, time consuming and costly but it is obviously counter balanced by that fact that I'm alive!!!

My emotional injuries are hard to define and I suspect it may take me a while. I am deeply shaken and still can't believe this actually happened.

Please keep up this discussion and welcome any ideas so that they can be considered, discussed and shaped appropriately or set aside. The media is what it is so let's try hard to direct the energy it attracts in a useful and positive way as it may just be the leverage tool that gets the right people involved in the decision making process.

Once again, thank you for your support. I will participate actively soon (when I'm ready).

Dave

About commercial ventures...
A fee is a fee and we should not forget that often commercial ventures lure a lot of the people with wallets, which ultimately supports the local economy. And marketing is not cheap.

That being said, I'd be willing to pay a bit extra if it meant that conservation and safety goals are met. But all within reason...

When I did my first game ranger course in the mid 90's I remember the instructor often barking, "If it pays it stays." Later when I worked for Cape Nature I really saw this implemented to great effect. But they have developed models whereby they incentivise rather than penalise, and it works.

About photography and filming for commercial purposes. This is not cheap and parks has a set of rules for this. It requires separate permits and paperwork, as well as money. I am in full support of this and believe in following the rules to give me continued access. And mostly when working with the bigger brands they require you arrange this anyway as they don't like apologising afterwards. I am actually heading down tomorrow again with an international team for exactly this purpose. A week of exploring so that our beautiful mountain can be featured some more around the world.

Now ask yourself, is everyone following these rules? Answer is a no and the reason is because they always get away with it. Is that not another form of taking?

To @vividjones and the other guys, strongs! Wishing you only the best in recovery and thank you for sharing your stories with us.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

I would join the Honoury Officers tomorrow but the last time I tried they said I need to join the area I live in and in my case it is Wagondrift Dam – being a Mountain Guide myself I would want to be in the mountains – so I just left it at that.

I agree VE is not increasing the amount of people hiking, the people on VE is existing hikers and although it would be nice to grow the number of people hiking this in turn would also have a positive spin of for the parks as their revenue would also grow. I am not attacking the rangers and I do understand the issues around funding but it seems to me that due to nepotism setting in to certain sectors are making things worse. Personally it seems to me that for most it is just a job and not a calling any more, and for most it is just a pay check.

I think it is a few bad apples taking advantage of easy pickings on the mountains because they them self’s benefit from the spoils – I’ve personally seen some “locals” walking around with down jackets attending their sheep – where did they get it from, the local shop – me think not. They might not have been involved in an attack but must have battered with some one that could have been. Address the problem people. The feeling at the moment is that the criminals has got more freedom that the law abiding and tax paying citizens.

I can't help but wonder what the smugglers would make of all this extra attention and the ones causing it...? Some chance of mob justice, maybe?

DeonS wrote: The feeling at the moment is that the criminals has got more freedom that the law abiding and tax paying citizens.

That is often how I find the law to work.

Take the amendment to the law that resulted in a minimum sentence for anyone who kills a pedestrian in a car accident (the assertion being that you should be able to see all pedestrians at all times, and adjust your speed accordingly). 2 people hit pedestrians in similar circumstances, and both pedestrians die.
- Person A is an honest citizen and calls the police and an ambulance. They are charged criminally with culpable homicide and probably receive a suspended sentence (with the accompanying criminal record), the pedestrian dies in hospital or at the scene and this person must cover the bills under the law of delict.
- Person B knows that there were no witnesses and that they might be in legal trouble, so they speed off leaving the person to die.

Person A, who was honest enough to do what you are legally required to do, has a criminal record and a pile of hospital bills to pay, while person B gets away with it.

You often see the same problem in tax - there are people who operate small cash-only business and never register for tax. A similar business owned by an honest citizen does register for tax, and pays their tax on time every year. The honest taxpayer was not aware that you have to keep documents for 5 years from assessment, and shreds their documents once 5 years have passed from the transaction date. So 6 years after a transaction occurs, SARS decides to audit a 4 year 360 day old tax return, and they no longer have the documentation - so SARS disallows all their expenses, charges them a 400% tax evasion penalty and interest for 5 years. The same could occur if the invoice was issued to "Vertical-Endeavor (Pty) Ltd" or "Vertical-Endeavour" rather than "Vertical-Endeavour (Pty) Ltd" (made up company name - and yes, SARS can disallow an expense if 1 letter is missing from your company name) - where the taxpayer had no intent to evade taxes, they simply didn't notice that their name on the invoice wasn't 100% correct.

Even worse - how about that case a few years ago where a teenager was raped, and it was recorded on camera. In court, they failed to prove that it was rape, so both of them were charged criminally with having under-age sex and the person who filmed it was charged with making child pornography.

I could go on with examples - but I think I have made my point.

Disclaimer: none of the above constitutes legal or tax advice.

Back to the topic.

Quite a lot of people contributing to this thread agree that:
1. apprehending the criminals responsible for the event near Fangs and for the incidents at the chain ladder as well as robberies near Tugela Falls would help enormously in countering further crimes which could end even worse that the one near Fangs.
2. Apprehending the criminals is a necessary but probably not sufficient step. Other things need to be done to connect with the community - as per the discussions of fees benefiting the community (and the closure of the area being a cost to them).

How is step 1 to happen? Its tricky because a) its international b) its remote c) police forces of both countries would probably not have the motivation or capability to take it on.

Nevertheless, step 1 is important to most of us on VE.

So here is the suggestion - how about some crowd sourcing, starting with VE, to hire someone private to liaise with the chiefs, show them the newspaper article on the attack, note that the incident is serious and that 'steps' are being taken. The person concerned could keep an eye out for those in the community wearing blankets and those in the community wearing anomalous looking, new hiking gear.
I'm in with the first 3K ZAR.

How do others feel?

I'm all for the suggestion, however surely it would be pertinent to gauge potential costs and support within the VE Community? Possibly someone on the forum (I can think of a few individuals) could volunteer their services to engage with tribal leaders and those of us who are unable to assist physically but who are able to assist financially through crowdfunding the initiative can do so freely?

Captain wrote: I'm all for the suggestion, however surely it would be pertinent to gauge potential costs and support within the VE Community? ?

Indeed Captain. Regarding VE support, that is what I meant when I wrote 'how do others feel?'

I think it is nothing more than right if the Lesotho people benefit from us hiking in their country, after all we are mostly in Lesotho when hiking on the escarpment. There are also other land owners, nature reserve and local communities on the SA side that should benefit. I think most of us will be more than happy to pay an increased fee to acquire a permit if the money generated is benefitting the involved parties and in the process gives us freedom to hike in safety. As long as the money trail doesn't corruptly (I mean abruptly ) ends before reaching the poor shepherds pockets. It might be a daunting task to organize all this over the length of the Drakensberg and with all the stakeholders. Maybe it will be possible to implement this on a small scale in problem areas like the amphitheatre.