Browsing by Author "Balfour, Dave"

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    National Protected Area Expansion Strategy for South Africa (2016)
    (2016-01-01) Balfour, Dave; Holness, Stephen; Jackelman, James; Skowno, Andrew
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    Northern Cape Protected Area Expansion Strategy
    (2017-06-22) Balfour, Dave; Holness, Stephen; Oosthuysen, Enrico
    The spatial prioritisation for the Northern Cape Protected Area Expansion Strategy (NCPAES) was based on a modified version of the recently completed provincial Critical Biodiversity Areas Map. The final outputs and underlying data from this analysis were combined with implementation priority areas identified through workshop interactions with agencies and conservation NGOs active in the Northern Cape to define a set of focus areas for protected area expansion. Focus areas were largely limited to the Critical Biodiversity Areas. The underlying features included in the biodiversity plan were evaluated, and those features that are critical for protected area expansion (e.g. terrestrial ecosystem types, estuaries, rivers, wetlands, key areas important for threatened species etc.) were incorporated into a revised MARXAN-based systematic biodiversity plan. The NCPAES assessment identified 18 primary focus areas. These are the priority areas which are broadly within areas where there are active protected area expansion initiatives or which were identified as having potential for short term implementation. In addition, secondary focus areas were identified, which are the large intact priority areas identified in the NCPAES analysis which are outside of areas targeted by active protected area expansion initiatives. The primary and secondary focus areas should be the main areas targeted for the strategic expansion of protected areas, and wherever possible biodiversity offsets should also be concentrated in these areas. Protected area expansion in primary and secondary focus areas would significantly improve the representation levels of terrestrial ecosystems and other important biodiversity features. However, these areas do not include all important biodiversity features in the province, and hence other Critical Biodiversity Areas and remaining aquatic priorities (i.e. Freshwater Ecosystem Priority Area wetlands and rivers) could be targeted for expansion where there are low opportunity costs or there are specific offset requirements that make it impossible to secure targets in the focus areas.