Lake St Lucia - A World Heritage Site - Welcome!

Lake St Lucia, or more recently known as The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, is truly a unique and special place. 

The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park is one of the jewels of the South African coastline. Located on the north-eastern coast of KwaZulu Natal, stretching from Kozi Bay in the north to Cape St Lucia in the south, the park was the first in South Africa to be declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco). The country has a total of seven World Heritage sites. 

The park's uniqueness lies in its remarkable diversity, particularly its combination of a subtropical coastline and a classic African game park.

It is South Africa's third-largest park, spanning 280 kilometres of coastline, from the Mozambican border in the north to Mapelane south of the St Lucia estuary, and made up of around 328 000 hectares of pristine natural ecosystems – including swamps, lake systems, beaches, coral reefs, wetlands, woodlands and coastal forests.

The park takes in a 60 kilometre river mouth that creates a huge estuary, Lake St Lucia, running parallel to the coast and separated from the sea by the world's highest forested sand dunes. The lake is part of the St Lucia estuarine system, the largest estuarine system in Africa. 

The park incorporates the whole of Lake St Lucia, the St Lucia and Maputaland Marine Reserves, the Coastal Forest Reserve and the Kosi Bay Natural Reserve. The 40 0000 hectare Mkuzi Game Reserve is also in the process of being incorporated into the park.

St Lucia's wide variety of ecosystems and natural habitats provides for an astounding diversity of species in the area. With its lakes, lagoons, freshwater swamps and grasslands, St Lucia supports more species of animal than the better-known and much larger Kruger National Park and Okavango Delta - from the country’s largest population of hippos and crocodiles to Giant Leatherback turtles, black rhino, leopards, and a vast array of bird and marine life. 

According to Living Lakes, more than 530 species of birds use the wetland and other areas of the Lake St Lucia region. "These waters also are graced by 20 000 greater flamingos, 40 000 lesser flamingoes, as well as thousands of ducks. With 36 species, this area has the highest diversity of amphibians in South Africa.

"... Here, and nowhere else in the world, can one find hippopotamuses, crocodiles and sharks sharing the same waters."

In proclaiming the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park a World Heritage Site in 1999, Unesco said: "The interplay of the park's environmental heterogeneity with major floods and coastal storms, and a transitional geographic location between sub-tropical and tropical Africa, has resulted in exceptional species diversity and ongoing speciation.

"The mosaic of landforms and habitat types creates superlative scenic vistas. The site contains critical habitat for a range of species from Africa's marine, wetland and savannah environments."