Grassroots: Newsletter of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa ▪ November 2005 ▪ Vol 5 ▪ No. 4

Transfrontier conservation The Transfrontier Transect An opportunity to learn about the effects of different wildlife management regimes across Africa's prime wildlife area Mike Peel [email protected] ith the creation of the example, due to the low impact of man Limpopo Trans-Frontier Park in the area, the newly created Limpopo Wexciting research opportuni- National Park in Mozambique is the ties have emerged to look at the effects closest to being in a 'pristine' state of wildlife management over time and when compared to the intensively at different intensities. The protected managed areas to the west of the KNP. areas of the eastern and central The study area thus provides a unique Lowveld and escarpment and the opportunity to measure the long-term Mozambique transfrontier zone form effect of the different management this transfrontier ecosystem. This regimes utilized in the Kruger National region supports one of the most Park, adjacent private reserves and diverse large mammal populations resource areas. found in any subregion in the world, To make use of this research and covers an area of about 4 million opportunity we hope to launch a ha. The largest part of this area is combined project with Limpopo covered by the Kruger National Park National Park and the private reserves (KNP) of 2 million ha and the Limpopo to improve the understanding and National Park in Mozambique of 1 knowledge about the effect of manage- million ha. This area is variously ment (fire, fencing, water provision managed as national park, provincial etc.) on the ecosystem and on sustain- nature reserve, private reserve, able resource utilization wilderness, resource area and state land. These management regimes Study area vary from “hands off” in most of the Limpopo Park to very intensive We hope to include the following areas management of wildlife in the private in the study: game reserves, with the Kruger  The Wildlife sanctuary in the National Park in between. Limpopo National Park Fences separating different land  The Limpopo National Park uses have changed animal migration  The Kruger National Park patterns while the proliferation of  The Adjacent Private artificial water points has altered the Protected Areas (APPA) to the mammal and plant species composi- west of the KNP tion and distribution. However, it is very  Mariyeta Resource area difficult to determine what the ideal between Thohoyandou state could be and depends largely on Punda Maria road and the the objectives for the area. For

7 Grassroots: Newsletter of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa ▪ November 2005 ▪ Vol 5 ▪ No. 4

Letaba river to detect long term change in The project goals are: biodiversity and system  Scientifically based function recommendations for long- We welcome anyone that is term wildlife management in interested in joining in on this project the Lowveld at different scales that we hope will be of benefit to all the and management intensities parties involved in the research.  An improved understanding of For more details contact: the system resilience to Rina Grant at [email protected] management procedures and (Kruger National Park) resource utilization Mike Peel at [email protected]  A baseline that could be used Marc Stalmans at [email protected] Acacia name change Nicky Allsopp [email protected] NA analyses has shown that the species. genus Acacia could be divided The new nomenclatural proposals Dinto five separate groups each of for Acacia have been published in which could stand as a genus. The Taxon. Then the spermatophyte African species are found in three of committee of the ICBN recommended these genera. All the Australian fell in a the changes to the General Committee single genus. who have also agreed to them. The Nomenclature is published in the Nomenclature Section of the International Code of Botanical International Botanical Congress Nomenclature (ICBN) which provides a presented this name change as a rule-bound process for allocating names resolution to the Congress which passed to plants. Among these rules is the one the name changes, so this is now establishing the right for the original incorporated in the ICBN. The final word type, in this case Acacia nilotica, to is that according to the ICBN the genus retain the generic name. However, Acacia has been split and the name there are also provisions for a new type given to the Australian species and a few to be allocated to a generic name. other species from Asia and Africa. There is a rule around nomenclatural There is a loophole for those of us who stability which argues that the genus do not like this change. Classification, which retains the most species when a as opposed to nomenclature, is not genus is split gets the original generic regulated by these rules. People are name. So, although there is speculation free to follow the classification scheme that the Australians won the case for they choose. Synonyms are not retaining “Acacia” for their species necessarily illegitimate names. So you through public pressure, the rules of the can continue to call Acacia karroo this ICBN allow this on legitimate grounds. legitimately, or its new name Vachellia Australia has about a 1000 species in karroo. If you refer to the genus you can Acacia whilst the rest of the world shares use Acacia sensu lato to refer to the old only a few hundred. This splitting of the genus in its broad sense, or Acacia rest of the world's species into several sensu stricto to refer to the new ICBN genera make it difficult, in my opinion, to delimitation of the genus. argue for the use of Acacia for African

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