African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure, Volume 8 (5) - (2019) ISSN: 2223-814X Copyright: © 2019 AJHTL /Author/s- Open Access- Online @ http//: www.ajhtl.com 1 From game camps to landscape conservation: The evolution and development of the Addo Elephant National Park, South Africa Michael R. Brett Department of Social Sciences University of Zululand, South Africa E-mail: BrettM@unizulu.ac.za Abstract In 1931 an area of 4,517 hectares was declared a national park to protect a remnant herd of 12 elephants, the only remaining elephants in the Eastern Cape. Effective conservation measures not only protected the elephants, but also the only remaining buffalo in the Cape Province. Conflict with neighbouring farmers and collisions with trains limited the population increase for two decades. In 1954 a herd of 20 elephants was eventually confined by the first elephant-proof fence in Africa. Preservation of large mammals inadvertently resulted in the conservation of the endemic, subtropical thicket. As the elephants increased in number, the enclosure had to be enlarged from its original 2,270 hectares. Two state forest reserves were transferred to the national park in 1985 and 2002. A coherent expansion blueprint, completed in 1997, succeeded in attracting funding from government and international sources and increased the size of the national park by 36-fold. Tourist facilities have been considerably increased and two new rest camps and two tented camps have been added. Visitor numbers increased by 145% between 2004 and 2019, while unit nights increased by 65%, which indicates that many tourists are staying in accommodation outside the AENP. The AENP illustrates important shifts which have occurred in conservation in South Africa in nine decades, with less emphasis being placed on the protection of large mammals and greater emphasis being placed on the conservation of landscapes. Keywords: Eastern Cape, African elephant, national park expansion, ecotourism development Introduction National parks in Africa are an integral component of tourism in Africa. Increasingly, the media seems to be dominated by “doom-and-gloom” accounts of poaching, habitat destruction and climate change and an impending environmental calamity. The Addo Elephant National Park (AENP) appears to be a rare exception. A spatially-restricted preserve set aside for a relic herd of elephants in 1931, has been enlarged to include five biomes and a marine protected area. Apart from the expansion of the land area of the national park, tourist facilities have kept pace and AENP is one of SANParks’ best performing national parks in terms of visitor numbers, unit occupancy rates and activities sold per 100 overnight visitors (SANParks, 2007a, 17). The paper makes extensive use of the literature in an attempt to understand why the AENP seems to have succeeded in capturing both the interest of the public and has also attracted funding from government and donors. Maps of the original park boundary were analysed, as well as maps from 1960 and 1980, and changes in the spatial extent of the park since 1931 were documented Tourism data from SANParks and for the concession lodges was analysed for the past 15 years to ascertain whether AENP is performing better than a flagship park, such as the Kruger National Park.