African Wildlife Environment Issue 75 FINAL

CONSERVATION

provincial

protected

rivers and offshore benthic and pelagic ecosystems. However no improvement in protection level is expected for 87 ecosystem types. At present the protected area real estate in South Africa is sitting at over 12 million hectares which can be categorised from highest to lowest in terms of land-use categories (according to the National Environmental Management Protected Areas Act) as Nature Reserves (4,194,251 hectares); National Parks (3,977,540 hectares); World Heritage Sites (2,027,070 hectares); Protected Environments (772,647 hectares); Mountain Catchment Areas (624,568 hectares); Forest Wilderness Areas (274,489 hectares); Forest Nature Reserves (173,303 hectares) and Special Nature Reserves (33,603 hectares).

area expansion strategies and provides a frame of reference for

consolidatingexistingprotectedareasandestablishing new ones including both state owned or contract Protected Areas increasingly through biodiversity stewardship programmes as the preferred approach to the expansion of the Protected Area estate. The NPAES uses the established biodiversity targets from the NBA as the long-term protected area targets. Such targets for protected area expansion have been determined by proportionally allocating the total area committed to under the Convention on Biological Diversity. This should incorporate 17% for terrestrial ecosystems (we are currently sitting at 9,9%) and 10% for coastal/marine (we are currently at 5%, until recently only 0,4%!) and are set for the individual ecosystem types in the country. The general principal for site prioritisation and reserve selection are based on size, area, naturalness and species diversity, richness and endemism as well as representativeness (the number of species represented at sites) and complementarity (theminimal numberof sitesneeded to represent all species). The aim is to conserve as many ecosystems and species as possible and to try to fill in any gaps in the network. Biodiversity includes all vertebrate classes (mammals, birds, reptiles, frogs and fish), invertebrates and plants/ vegetation. The emphasis is on conserving the habitats to support such biodiversity. Besides ecosystem functionality, associated pragmatic criteria which are used in reserve selection decision-making include regional land-use, financial viability, contract agreements, economic potential and management effectiveness and other managerial factors. From a baseline ecological perspective there have been various ways of classifying the vegetation in South Africa, evolving and improving in resolution and quality (from Pole-Evans in 1936 to Acocks in 1953 to Low & Rebelo in 1996 and Mucina and Rutherford in 2006). According to the methodology used for the NPAES (2008-2028), on a fine scale, South Africa has been classified into as many as 969 distinct ecosystem types across 26 biozones. Of these 21% are ‘Well Protected’, 13% are ‘Moderately Protected’, 30% are ‘Poorly Protected’ and 37% are ‘Not Protected’. Ecosystems in the Nama Karoo, Grasslands and Succulent Karoo in particular are not well represented in the current protected area network, while lowland Fynbos and central Savanna ecosystems are also very under-represented. On paper at least, over the next 20 years the number of ‘Well Protected’ ecosystems is anticipated to more than double, while the aim is for ‘Not Protected’ ecosystems to be reduced by 70%. An improvement in coverage is particularly anticipated in the grasslands, Succulent Karoo, Savannah, wetlands,

SANParks represents an important network of protected areas in South Africa, however represents only 33% of protected area real-estate in South Africa. While most of these areas are pivotal for conservation many of the reserves were originally declared in an ad hoc manner without a scientific assessment of biodiversity representation in the country. Working in collaboration with the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, as the primary implementing bodies of the NPAES are SANParks and the provincial authorities and agencies such as Mpumalanga Parks and Tourism, Limpopo Tourism and Parks, Eastern Cape Parks Board, Ezemvelo- KZN Wildlife, North West Parks and Tourism, Northern Cape Department Environment and Nature Conservation and CapeNature. Purely from an idealistic ecological perspective the main priority areas in Mpumalanga are in the Mesic Highveld Grasslands (such as Kaapsehoop and Wakkerstroom) and focus on key corridors and threatened ecosystems with remaining wilderness characteristics (such as Schoemanskloof and the Blyde Canyon). The Blyde River Canyon forms part of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Region and is an important site for the conservation of Mesic Highveld Grasslands in Mpumalanga. In Limpopo Province, priority sites includes Nylsvlei, Blouberg,

Waterberg, Soutpansberg and the Wolkberg . In the Eastern Cape, the main

priorities are the Pondoland Centre of Endemism , the high value montane grasslands and forest mosaics of

13 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 75 (2020)