…work being done to improve facilities The number of visitors to Kaieteur Falls per month doubled during Guyana’s hosting of Carifesta X.The ten days period saw about 500 persons visiting the Kaieteur National Park, compared to an average of 250 during the previous month.Chairman of the Park, Shyam Nokta, told Kaieteur News that the park benefited significantly during the Carifesta period.Nokta said that at present work is being done to improve the park.Focus is being placed on having a state of the art visitors’ center,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, he said.According to Nokta, this project will be funded through the German Development Bank project that is being implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency.This project,NFL Jerseys China, he added, is expected to begin before the end of the year.Nokta told Kaieteur News that such a facility is very essential for any park,Cheap Jerseys Free Shipping, or protected area.The particular center, he added,NFL Jerseys Wholesale, will be designed to serve as an interpretation area while at the same time act as a facility where local handicrafts can be sold.Shyam Nokta Apart from the visitors’ center, another guest house will be constructed within the park.“We envisage in the future that we will have more and more groups of person coming overland to Kaieteur and indeed that is the kind of experience we want to promote.”He said that flying into Kaieteur and spending two hours on the ground only offers visitors a quick glimpse of what the area has to offer.During these short visits, the Chairman said, persons only see the falls.He added that the park is much more than Kaieteur Falls.Persons who visited via the over land trip have experienced the biodiversity, the landscape and the adventure of the facility, Nokta added.Focus is also being placed on rehabilitating the present facilities at the park.Another area where some progress is being made is the development of a comprehensive management plan for the park.“A management plan for any protected area is a very essential tool to help management in terms of planning and managing a park or area,” the Chairman said.“In the past we have had several plans done for Kaieteur…some focus on tourism development and conservation. But what we need is a comprehensive management plan that is able to integrate the various aspects of planning. It should also be centered on managing a park that is important not only from a tourism stand point, but also from a biodiversity and conservative perspective as well.”This management plan will allow for the examination of the baseline data that has already been obtained, he said.“Much of the work, in terms of biodiversity collection, has been centered on Kaieteur Falls and the immediate environs of the falls but we need to expand this work to the wider park,Discount NFL Jerseys, as well as to use the ecological information and physical information that we have to develop a model.”Out of that model there will be a zone depiction and the management of the park will be able to identify areas for different levels of conservation,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, tourism development and other uses.Kaieteur National Park is located in the heart of the Guiana Shield, in the Pakaraima Mountain region.This area is composed mainly of plateaus and steep sloped escarpments, and is noted for its many rivers and waterfalls, which drop off the edges of the escarpment.Kaieteur Falls is located on the Potaro River.This majestic wonder, the centerpiece of the park, proudly boasts being one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the world. (Tusika Martin)