South Africa: Kruger National Park
Score: 70

This is "Africa's Yellowstone—a beautiful, well-managed park, but dangerously overloaded" with eager nature lovers. Local communities need to have more share in the park's successes.

Here is a representative sampling of additional anonymous comments from the panelists. They are not necessarily the views of the National Geographic Society:

"This is Africa's equivalent to Yellowstone, a beautiful, well-managed, but dangerously over-loved park. The pressures on management to generate local income, protect the resource, integrate the employee base, and keep everyone safe and happy create a razor-thin tightrope that is being walked as well as could be realistically hoped for."

"Kruger continues to be a huge tourist draw card with a good infrastructure, but environmental sustainability is questionable. Invasive plants and poaching are big issues. Cultural tourism seems to be growing and is generally well handled."

"Kruger is a good example of trans-boundary conservation, but fails badly at integrating population with the surrounding community. More must be done seriously to benefit the local black African community."

"Wildlife is often more elusive here than in Botswana or Tanzania. Invasive species are a growing problem; even park staff are helping spread non-native plants."

"All in all, Kruger National Park remains a great wildlife tourism destination and is well managed despite the complex sociological pressures that the area faces as a sort of 'island' in a sea of growing human development. The opening of partnerships with neighboring communities and conservation partnerships that include trans-frontier conservation areas are counteracting the pressures."