Research objectives in South African national parks

Abstract

The primary purpose of any national park service in administering natural areas is to maintain an area’s ecosystems in as nearly pristine a condition as possible. This means that ecological processes, including plant succession and the natural regulation of animal numbers, should be permitted to proceed as far as possible as they did under pristine conditions, and that modern man must be restricted to generally non-consumptive uses of these areas (Houston 1971).