National Protected Areas Expansion Strategy 2016: Spatial Issues

Stephen Holness sholness@nmmu.ac.za, Andrew Skowno, Dave Balfour, James Jackelman

What I am not going to talk about…

• There is a new NPAES

• Builds on the 2008 NPAES

• Includes lots of institutional & other important but dull stuff like implementation frameworks….

• Consultation: Some technical consultation, PA task team, CEOs etc., and hopefully DEA will put it out more widely

What I do want to talk about…

• Some changes in NPAES• Important concept framing “PA”

• Target setting approach

• Some interesting bits• Integrated ecosystem &

condition maps

• Bottom up building of priorities

• Some crystal ball gazing “where will we be and what the gap is”

That was then and this is now

2008:

• Few provincial plans & CBAs

• No FEPA, some early priorities

• No provincial PAES

• Few entities had any defined PA expansion priorities

• No marine map

2016:

• Everyone has plans

• Most provinces have some set of PAES priorities or even a formal PAES

• Decent habitat maps for all realms

• Establish principles

• We had to do quite a bit of planning

because there really was little to go on

• Keep all the good stuff & careful framing and messaging of v1

• NPAES sets out rules of the game (e.g. integrated maps, targets

and systematic approach)

• Evaluates where we are currently, progress and rate

• Collate priorities

• Evaluate where we will be if we do what we say we are doing

Where we are now….

Good but separate and

overlapping maps

Good but separate and

overlapping maps

Ok-ish but separate and

overlapping maps

Good but separate and

overlapping maps

Ok-ish but separate and

overlapping maps

Better than it was but

mismatch between legal

and de facto

Good but separate and

overlapping maps

Ok-ish but separate and

overlapping maps

Better than it was but

mismatch between legal

and de facto

Separate, not explicit

“official” “PA” targets set

for many systems

Ecosystem map

• But not integrated

• Overlapping terrestrial, wetland, river

Decent separate maps

• River and coast lines vs area

• Benthic vs pelagic

Some spatial concept issues

• EstuariesSome flavour

issues

Building the ecosystem map

• Terrestrial Ecosystems: The revised 2012 National vegetation map based on Mucina & Rutherford (2006) was used.

• There are 450 ecosystem types.

• Wetlands: Natural wetlands included in the 2015 revised national wetland map (4a) were used.

• Wetlands were included at the group level which has 136 distinct ecosystem types.

• Coastal and marine types: The integrated coastal and benthic habitat maps prepared for the National Biodiversity Assessment 2012 was used as the starting point.

• Estuaries: Estuaries types were mapped based on the outlines in the national estuary map 2012 and the classification in Whitfield (1992).

• There are 46 estuary ecosystem types in 3 biozones.

• Rivers: River ecosystems were based on the NFEPA classification and dataset. • Variable buffer width based on stream order.

Category and Biozone Number of Ecosystem Types

Marine 109

Coast types 32

Inner Shelf 4

Inshore 10

Island 2

Lagoon 1

Offshore Benthic 60

Marine Pelagic 16

Marine Pelagic 16

Marine Southern Oceans 1

Southern Oceans 1

Terrestrial 445

Albany Thicket 14

Azonal Vegetation 36

Desert 15

Forests 12

Fynbos 122

Grassland 72

Indian Ocean Coastal Belt 6

Nama-Karoo 14

Savanna 90

Succulent Karoo 64

Subantarctic 5

Subantarctic Polar Desert 1

Subantarctic Tundra 4

Estuary 46

Estuary - Cool Temperate 12

Estuary - Subtropical 16

Estuary - Warm Temperate 18

Rivers 211

Rivers 211

Wetlands 136

Wetlands 136

Grand Total 969

Protected Areas

Currently we only evaluate

protected areas, but in

future other effective

area-based conservation

measures will be included

Progress

Mechanisms

Review against NPAES 2008

Targets

Note: 75% no-

take

Ecological Condition

Only intact areas should meet targets

• dams, plantations, rest camps, roads etc don’t contribute even if they are in a declared PA

Principle was in NPAES 2008

• But we only excluded dams in that assessment

Targets can only be met in

intact habitat. Hence, the

first ever integrated map

of ecosystem condition

was produced for South

Africa.

National Land Cover (NLC 2013/2014) for

inland areas

• The 72 land cover classes classified as good, fair, poor.

Marine ecosystems, estuaries, rivers and

wetlands

• National Biodiversity Assessment 2011.

Integrated based on the habitat type.

• Overridden by landcover.

Made a plan for PEI

• In principle needed to be on the map

Ecosystem

protection levelDefinition

Not ProtectedAn ecosystem type of which no intact area, or only a very small area (less

than 5% of the target), is located within the protected area network.

Poorly ProtectedAn ecosystem type in which less than half (but more than 5%) of the target

is located within the protected area network.

Moderately ProtectedAn ecosystem type in which more than half of the target for an ecosystem

type is located within the protected area network.

Well ProtectedAn ecosystem type in which the full target area falls within the protected

area network.

So finally we can evaluate protection levels…

201 (21%) Well Protected

122 (13%) Moderately Protected

286 (30%) Poorly Protected

360 (37%) Not Protected

21%

24%

13%

42%

Marine (Benthic and Coastal)

Well Protected Moderately Protected Poorly Protected Not Protected

38%

44%

9%9%

Coast Types

Well Protected Moderately Protected Poorly Protected Not Protected

18%

41%

29%

12%

Inner Shelf, Inshore, Islands & Lagoon

Well Protected Moderately Protected Poorly Protected Not Protected

14%

8%

10%

68%

Offshore Benthic

Well Protected Moderately Protected Poorly Protected Not Protected

12%

88%

Marine Pelagic

Well Protected Moderately Protected Poorly Protected Not Protected

100%

Marine Southern Oceans

Well Protected Moderately Protected Poorly Protected Not Protected

Priority Areas

Where we are

Where we will be*

*If everyone does what

they say they will…

Gaps

Important to recognize but not a criticism

• Current spatial implementation plans still leave “gap” in terms of securing target• Bigger and smaller baskets

• Different levels of ambition (realism??) between plans

• Shorter and longer timelines should also be noted

But this side is a big deal

• There is a major gap between our priorities and the actual commitmented deliverables over the next few years

• Structural problem (resources, mechanisms, approach)

• We need to fix this

Some concluding thoughts

• Hopefully the 2016 NPAES will be useful and eventually be openly available!

• It has highlighted to me how far we have moved in planning (and how much faster our implementation needs to be)

• There are some key improvements:• Clarify targets

• Secure the principle of building up national priorities from the provincial ones

• There are some issues raised that may be helpful to broader NBA discussion:• Can we move to integrated ecosystem maps rather than separate realm maps?

• Can we have an integrated condition map?

• Can we move to a PA map which fully accommodates both the legal/administrative and planning/assessment needs?