Tourist attractions such as Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site and Pilanesberg Game Reserve are among the provincial reserves needing urgent attention to cope with budget cuts and other threats, a new report by the Endangered Wildlife Trust reveals.
The Endangered Wildlife Trust has identified 29 out of 429 provincial reserves requiring urgent intervention to sustain their work in conservation, with its benefits to rural communities, in the report, State of Provincial Reserves in SA: Challenges and Recommendations.
“The provincial reserves are important, not only to biodiversity but also as strategic water resources,” says Dr Ian Little, head of conservation at the Endangered Wildlife Trust.
The 29 reserves most in need of intervention have “high conservation value” but are ineffectively managed and compromised by a lack of funding and resources, the poaching of wildlife and plants, alien plant invasion, insufficient fencing and other problems.
SA’s three million hectares of provincial reserves are the “core” of its protected areas network, which are vital to protecting its species, habitats, heritage, economy and human wellbeing, Little says.
More than half of the provincial nature reserves are found in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, run by the state-owned Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and CapeNature respectively.
More than 70 conservation experts surveyed for the report raised concerns that SA is failing to conserve its rich biodiversity, and habitats are being degraded and lost. SA is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, with more than 87,000 species.
Ineffective management, “drastic budget cuts” and insufficient funds, and a lack of skills and capacity are among the problems jeopardising the provincial reserves, the report warns. The increasing degradation of roads and infrastructure mirrors these concerns.
South Africa is home to about 87,401 species, contributing a significant proportion to the world’s plant species (7%), reptile species (4%), bird species (7%) and mammal species (5%), with new species regularly discovered and described.
— Biodiversity in numbers
The Free State has the most well-managed provincial nature reserves over time, followed by the Western Cape, according to an analysis of the management of 172 provincial reserves.
Of the 22 top-scoring reserves, eight were in the Free State, four in the Western Cape, three in Gauteng, two in KwaZulu-Natal, one in the Eastern Cape and one in Mpumalanga, according to the report.
More than a third of the reserves struggling with management are in KwaZulu-Natal, according to these scores, but they are based on limited and subjective data.
The reserves had an average score of 53.8%, indicating “basic management with significant deficiencies”, but these scores are based on limited and subjective data over time.
Recommendations to improve management of the reserves include:
- Recruiting qualified, skilled and experienced managers and staff
- Refurbishing infrastructure and improving roads and fences
- Building partnerships and strategic collaboration with the private sector, NGOs, communities and volunteers
“Most provincial nature reserves are in remote areas and are a key driver of rural economies. From this perspective alone, a well-managed and financed provincial reserves network is critical to the lives of SA’s poorest and most under-resourced communities,” the report notes.
The provincial reserves are important not only to biodiversity but also as strategic water resources.
— Dr Ian Little, EWT head of conservation
Eco-tourism, biodiversity offsets and biodiversity credits could contribute to the sustainable financing of reserves, according to the report.
The national department of forestry, fisheries and the environment, and provincial conservation authorities should lead the way in leveraging money for reserves, it finds.
Little says: “We also need to make sure provincial reserves have adequate resources from the National Treasury so they are managed properly.”
“Many protected areas were established decades ago to protect specific endemic and threatened vegetation types, housing an array of threatened biodiversity (but) don’t lend themselves to broad-scale eco-tourism and as a result many have been left stagnant with no direct management,” he says.
“They do still, however, support the original biodiversity, and it is critical that we expand their extent and continue to retain the biodiversity value.
“With Covid, we have seen a massive increase in demand for camping, glamping and cottage type getaways, and these small reserves now have the opportunity to take advantage of these opportunities. Co-management linked to corporates or NGOs is also an opportunity.”
Not every reserve is a national treasure like a Table Mountain or a Kruger National Park, he says, but these reserves are nevertheless vital to the survival of endemic species.
* The State of Provincial Reserves in SA: Challenges and Recommendations is written by Tamanna Patel, Oliver Cowan, Ian Little, Yolan Friedmann and Andy Blackmore.
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