It is with deep disappointment that we share the formal withdrawal of all founding members, including Love Our Trails, from the Volunteer Safety Services (VSS) initiative with Table Mountain National Park (TMNP). As a founding member, Love Our Trails believed passionately in this partnership and invested significant time and energy to co-create a safer park for all. Unfortunately, the lack of meaningful action, communication, and accountability from TMNP has made the continuation of this collaboration impossible. While this chapter has come to a close, our commitment to connecting people to nature remains as strong as ever. Trails are more than just paths — they are lifelines that allow people to experience, respect, and protect the wild. We will continue to engage with SANParks and relevant stakeholders to find a better way forward, and we remain committed to holding Table Mountain National Park accountable in ensuring that all who walk these trails can do so safely.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
16 May 2025
Cape Town – It is with deep regret that the founding members of the Visitor Safety Services (VSS) initiative hereby announce their formal withdrawal from the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) and with SANParks as the primary management authority.
Established after a proposal presentation to Senior SANParks executives in December 2023, the VSS (styled on the VWS model) joint partner framework was a passionate and collaborative effort by civil society to help TMNP address the growing safety concerns in the Park.
The founding members – all volunteers — Blake Dyason (Love Our Trails), Andre van Schalkwyk (Table Mountain Watch), Fatima Sait and Frank Dwyer (representing mountain guides and Friends of Table Mountain at initial concept time), and Nicky Schmidt (Parkscape) — invested hundreds of hours over nearly two years, to help realise the vision of a safer, more welcoming park for all. (Van Schalkwyk and Schmidt withdrew earlier this year, while still attempting to find means of securing safety initiatives in the Park).
Despite all efforts and SANParks’ public statements of support, the VSS team faced continued resistance, lack of focus and priority, inadequate communication, and unmet commitments from TMNP management. Repeated attempts to co-create solutions — including offering logistical and incident response support, proactive and joint visible patrols, safety related communication (eyes and ears), Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) frameworks, apparel and logo design work, volunteer recruitment, and more — these have largely been disregarded or stalled without explanation.
A Partnership in Name, But Not in Practice
While SANParks has publicly spoken about their commitment to visitor safety, and positioned VSS as a key vehicle for volunteer engagement, their actions have not reflected this support. Examples of this disconnect include:
● Safety Huts: TMNP committed to launching safety huts at Platteklip Gorge and Lion’s Head by Easter 2025. The VSS team conducted site visits, identified funders, sourced volunteers, and offered full support. Yet no huts were deployed, and the project was later paused without any direct communication or reason given. VSS only learned of this during an unrelated meeting with another stakeholder.
● Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Despite being requested numerous times, no formal SOP has been developed or implemented to guide VSS operations, making it impossible to activate patrols and incident response or involve new volunteers with clear roles and in a safe and structured way.
● Exclusion from Key Conversations: VSS is often excluded from safety planning meetings and engagements with stakeholders, often learning about key developments while out in the field and/or via social media or third parties.
● Volunteer Shirts: In October 2024, SANParks approved VSS-branded volunteer shirts. VSS members handled designs, found suppliers, and obtained sign-off, but TMNP wanted to manage with their approved suppliers. Seven months later, the shirts remain undelivered.
These examples are not isolated. They represent a broader pattern of unresponsiveness, lack of urgency and de-prioritisation that has rendered VSS largely ineffective under the current framework.
Withdrawal From the MoU
Given this reality, and after long deliberation and heartfelt effort, the original VSS founding members — apart from the SANParks Honorary Rangers, who operate under a broader, separate and distinct mandate — have formally withdrawn from the MoU with TMNP and SANParks – and will now forge ahead with the development of various ‘Volunteer Safety
Services’ on their own.
“This is not due to a lack of effort, but rather a lack of priority shown by TMNP,” said Blake Dyason, co-founder of the initiative. “We believed in this partnership and gave it everything we had. But when simple, approved commitments like shirts and huts cannot be delivered over many months, it becomes clear that larger, far more critical systemic changes are even further out of reach.”
A Crisis of Safety
This decision comes during what – year to date – is one of the worst years on record for contact crimes in Table Mountain National Park. Park users — hikers, tourists, guides, and community members — continue to face daily risks. Yet the potential to develop and implement pro-active, coordinated, joint and integrated safety efforts – thereby significantly increasing resources focused on the issue – is being squandered. “Until TMNP makes visitor safety a real and urgent priority with an inclusive strategy and tangible action on the ground, meaningful collaboration will remain impossible.”