SAJS: Land-cover change puts biodiversity at risk August 12, 2010
Posted by Andrea in : SAJS, Uncategorized , trackbackLand-cover transformation poses one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity and, in light of extensive land-cover change, protected areas are often viewed as a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for conservation. However, there has been growing awareness that formally protected area systems are failing to protect global biodiversity effectively.
Conservation initiatives have had to look beyond reserve fences, to the actual management of the surrounding landscape, to enhance the functioning of protected areas. Land-cover transformation beyond the borders of the protected areas may have potentially devastating impacts on the ongoing conservation efforts undertaken within these, should it continue unchecked.
Given the current government’s emphasis on socio-economic development, conservation has had to evolve in order to be politically acceptable. Conservation decisions cannot occur in isolation any longer; future conservation initiatives must explicitly acknowledge proposed socio-economic development agendas. The challenge now is how to rectify the failings of the current protection area system in order to maximise biodiversity protection, while addressing the unavoidable land-cover modification that is associated with economic growth. In order to ensure the best use of limited conservation resources and promote enduring biodiversity protection, conservation efforts need to be directed at areas that will remain intact and secure from future transformation.
In a first step towards such a conservation plan for the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve, the largest in South Africa and the third largest in the world, Coetzer et al. quantified land-cover changes in this landscape and found that 36% of the reserve underwent land-cover change between 1993 and 2006. Settlement areas increased by 40%, while the vegetation remaining intact in the surrounding areas declined. This loss of intact vegetation could result in fragmentation, which would affect ecosystem functioning. Although there were small declines in forestry and mining, agricultural usage in the reserve increased by 52%. These land-cover data, together with economic and biodiversity data, can help to reconcile the spatial requirements of socio-economic development with those of conservation in future conservation initiatives.
Read it in the July August volume of the South African Journal of Science: Coetzer KL, Erasmus BFN, Witkowski ETF, Bachoo AK. Land-cover change in the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve (1993– 2006): A first step towards creating a conservation plan for the subregion. S Afr J Sci. 2010; 106(7/8), Art. #221, 10 pages. DOI: 10.4102/sajs.v106i7/8.221.
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