South Africa has passed the halfway mark of its goal to conserve at least 30% of its terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine areas by 2030 — Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The idea is to increase conservation areas globally to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
However, despite the progress made towards achieving the “30×30” target, South Africa still faces challenges in managing these protected areas, including human-wildlife conflict, alien invasives, poaching and illegal wildlife trade, and climate change.
Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) spokesperson Peter Mbelengwa said SA’s current conservation estate coverage was 16.75% — 20.4 million hectares, including declared protected areas and conservation areas.
South Africa is considered the third most megadiverse country in the world; home to species and ecosystems that occur nowhere else.
To increase conserved areas, South Africa has adopted the National Protected Area Expansion Strategy, which provides an informed systematic approach to the expansion of the conservation estate, with an annual increase rate of 0.5%.
Mbelengwa said: “South Africa will achieve 28% by 2036 for its terrestrial space and 10% by 2036 for its marine space; with an ultimate goal of conserving up to 36% for representation of all biomes in the country.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN’s) State of Protected and Conserved Areas in Southern and Eastern Africa report concludes that South Africa is on track to achieve this.
IUCN South Africa representative Vhalinavho Khavhagali said, “We are seeing South Africa doing well in conservation and we would like to see more biodiversity value to the communities — value for ecotourism, biodiversity value for the youth and women empowerment.”
Khavhagali said if one looked at both formal and informal conservation areas, South Africa would have already achieved its 30×30 target. “We have plenty of conservation areas that, in my opinion, will contribute easily to that provision of 30% of the biodiversity in the country.”
Khavhagali said there was a need to ensure protected areas were managed effectively to improve their biodiversity status and address regional issues.
“At the end of the day, we must bring the economic value and also the human value in these conservation areas.
“There’s a wide range of benefits that such draws from ecosystems and the biodiversity sector. But when pressures increase, we start seeing the shrinking of resources — safe drinking water, food security, water security issues and human health. These are some of the issues, as well as the socioeconomic values of this particular biodiversity,” said Khavhagali.
South Africa’s protected and conserved areas
According to the latest IUCN report, South Africa has 1,669 protected areas covering 113,601km2 of land (77,290km2 with management effectiveness assessments) and 239,050km2 of oceans.
Since the first IUCN report four years ago, South Africa has added many sites including:
- Three marine protected areas;
- 47 nature reserves;
- One national park (Meerkat in the Northern Cape);
- Eight protected environments;
- Four forest nature reserves;
- One game reserve;
- One conservancy;
- Three Ramsar sites (Dassen Island Nature Reserve, Dyer Island Provincial Nature Reserve and Geyser Island);
- One World Heritage Site;
- One provincial nature reserve;
- One mountain reserve; and
- Seven botanical gardens and 10 buffer and transition zones of Unesco man and biosphere reserves.
Taking into account that 82% of South Africa’s land is privately or communally owned, the establishment and declaration of conservation areas is voluntary.
Read more: SA needs to preserve the equivalent of Kruger Park each year to meet UN goals
Of the 2.4 million hectares of new protected areas added since 2020, Mbelengwa said 73% was achieved through the biodiversity stewardship programme — agreements with private and communal landowners to protect and manage land in biodiversity priority areas, led by conservation authorities.
The programme recognises landowners as the custodians of biodiversity on their land and illustrates why it is important for surrounding communities to be included and form an integral part of the decision-making process in conservation.
To meet the 30×30 target and for South Africa to move from a baseline of 16.65% (20 million hectares) to 30%, the country requires an additional 16 million hectares of conservation estate — translating to 2.2 million hectares per year by 2030.
Mbelengwa said they had identified a number of approaches to contribute towards the target through formal proclamations.
Community engagement
Khavhagali said, “While you put a protected area in the middle of Mpumalanga, you know that there are people staying in Mpumalanga and they need to have access to resources like water, wood — all those basic needs that they’ve been dependent on.
“So by putting up a fence, you simply say it’s a no-go area. Then there arises a conflict between people who are in need of resources and conservation areas, that they may not be able to even access because of various issues,” he said.
Khavhagali said having communities on board was a crucial component of not just expanding conservation areas, but also improving management and co-ownership of the biodiversity.
“They become the guardians of these natural resources. They have been the guardians for the longest time, for that matter, so they know how to manage this, not even using a textbook or a manual. So we can actually learn from them in terms of indigenous knowledge and sustainability,” said Khavhagali.
Communities in protected areas also benefited economically from tourism.
Read more: With nature and biodiversity under threat everywhere, bold conservation funding ideas are needed
The marine environment
In the marine environment, expanding protected areas from 5.4% (57,900km2) to 30% by 2030 means there needs to be an increase of 4.38% (67,293km2) a year for six years.
The marine environment is a complex space with conflicting and competing uses. To meet the targets, Mbelengwa said, areas with competing uses should be avoided.
“The process of identifying potential conservation areas is informed by scientific data collection and monitoring (physical, chemical, biological and biodiversity measures) through conducting routine measurements in both shallow and deep ocean waters within marine exclusive economic zones.
“This process is followed by extensive stakeholder consultations which, in most cases, delay the proclamation of marine protected areas,” he said.
This was the experience during the proclamation of the Prince Edward Island Marine Protected Area, which took more than 10 years.
More potential marine conservation areas have been identified. Mbelengwa said preliminary stakeholder engagement had been conducted and would continue towards the proclamation of these areas.
However, there are still challenges, not only in expanding protected and conserved areas, but also in ensuring that these areas are working.
Mbelengwa said, “Public expenditure is the biggest contributor to funding of the conservation mandate and over the years, the fiscal space has become constrained as conservation is not only a scientific management function but is also labour-intensive.”
According to the IUCN report, in South Africa, agriculture is the main pressure on the country’s terrestrial protected and conserved areas, followed by invasive species, then residential and commercial developments.
