Assessing the relative contribution of conservation areas to the protection of key biodiversity features in Mpumalanga, South Africa. Karen Vickers, Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa. email: [email protected] Supervisors: Mathieu Rouget, South African National Biodiversity Institute. Private Bag x101, Pretoria 0001 Morne du Plessis, Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa. ABSTRACT Contemporary conservation planning emphasizes target driven approaches for systematic identification of priority areas for biodiversity conservation. Budgetary constraints facing conservation agencies, particularly in developing countries, requires that the maintenance of existing reserves and the delineation of new reserves occurs in the most cost-effective manner possible, but little is known about whether the resources allocated to conservation areas reflects their conservation importance. The aim of this study was to quantify the conservation importance of every existing conservation area within the South African province of Mpumalanga and relate their importance to their current protection status. Using geographic information systems and associated conservation planning software, I assessed the spatial distribution of 336 key biodiversity features and calculated conservation importance based on an area’s contribution to feature targets. The province has 161 conservation areas including the Kruger National Park, categorized into 3 conservation area types based on legal protection status. Results indicate that while these areas contribute more to provincial biodiversity targets than non-conservation areas, a large proportion of biodiversity is found in informally protected areas such as conservancies and heritage sites. Conservation importance (determined through site irreplaceability) was 0.18, 0.04, and 0.10 for informal Type 3, semi-formal Type 2, and formally protected Type 1 conservation areas, respectively. While Type 1 conservation areas achieved more targets, Type 3 areas contained 42 (13%) features not represented elsewhere in the conservation network. For conservation agencies to succeed in meeting explicit biodiversity goals it is imperative that the contribution of informal conservation areas be addressed, and that resources be redistributed toward priority areas. Keywords: protected area design, irreplaceability, conservation targets, biodiversity conservation. 2 1. Introduction Faced with the task of mitigating the ongoing loss of natural habitat and biodiversity, the conservation community has identified the need for an effective, efficient global protected area network (Chape et al. 2005). Currently, over 12% of the earth’s terrestrial surface is protected in reserves of various types (World Database on Protected Areas; WDPA 2004). However, the often cited 10% and 12% targets lack scientific credibility and many studies indicate that setting protected area targets at a uniform 10% is insufficient and potentially damaging to the conservation movement (Soule & Sanjyan 1998, Brooks et al. 2004). As land use pressures continue to increase, there exists a need to find a defensible means for determining the degree of coverage required to ensure the future persistence of the planet’s biodiversity (Brooks et al. 2004). While the reported global protected area coverage has more then tripled in the last 15 years (Ervin 2003), using protected area number and extent as an indicator of conservation success may be inappropriate. One problem is that political, social, and economic pressures have, in the past, led to ad hoc reserves, delineated for purposes other than the representation and persistence of biodiversity (Pressey 1994). This has resulted in a network of conservation areas located on lands that may be unproductive and unrepresentative (Scott et al. 2001). The consequence of promoting quantity rather than quality means that worldwide we are spending limited conservation funding on protected areas that are inadequate in design and coverage (Ervin 2003). The process of reserve delineation will remain inefficient unless it is directed at meeting measurable conservation goals. Contemporary conservation planning emphasizes target driven approaches for systematic identification of priority areas for biodiversity conservation, and is commonly conducted via Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and associated conservation planning tools (Margules & Pressey 2000). Spatial analyses of species distributions and other features thought to play a crucial role in ecosystem functioning can determine where current gaps exist in the protection of key biodiversity, and aid in the design of an optimal reserve network. Numerous studies have indeed revealed that globally there are gaps in the representation of biodiversity (e.g. the US GAP analysis, Scott 1993, Brooks et al. 3 2004, Rodrigues et al. 2004) and prioritized areas based on the concepts of species richness, representativeness (making sure all species are represented in the network at least once), complimentarity (representing species not represented elsewhere in the network), efficiency (protecting the most species per unit area), or the use of rare, endemic, or threatened species hotspots (e.g. Lombard 1995, Kiester et al. 1996, Rodrigues et al. 1999 Cantú et al. 2001, Eeley et al. 2001). Others include measures of site vulnerability and conservation importance to select areas of highest conservation priority (Myers 1988, Margules & Pressey 2000). These exercises are undeniably useful in identifying current shortfalls and making practical recommendations for how to move forward in protected area design and land-use planning. However, the real challenge faced by many conservation agencies is not where to establish new reserves, but how to find the financial means to maintain the existing ones. Therefore, it is imperative that agencies ensure that conservation area resource allocation is clearly aligned with conservation objectives. Insight into assessing the effectiveness of reserves for achieving biodiversity objectives can only be gained by investigating the extent to which specific resources are being protected within specific reserves (Scott & Csuti 1997, Pressey et al. 2003). Yet a fundamental understanding of the relative importance of existing conservation areas, and interrogation into whether they receive adequate protection and resources that reflect their biodiversity value, is surprisingly non-existent in the conservation literature. Over 1000 terms exist globally to designate a conservation area’s status and these terms often reflect the objectives of, and legal commitment to, habitat protection as defined by a nation’s legislation (Chape et al. 2005). No standard status requirements exist, though the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas are attempting to calibrate globally registered protected areas to six different classes based on park objectives and management strategies (IUCN 2004). If the preservation of biodiversity is the principal objective of a reserve network, then it is vital ensure the future integrity of an area by allocating protection status in a manner that is reflective of its contribution to biodiversity conservation. The aim of this paper is therefore, to address the above issues of conservation area effectiveness. Using a novel approach, which to my knowledge, has never been used 4 to assess a region’s conservation network, I quantified each conservation area’s contribution towards explicit biodiversity targets by looking at area irreplaceability. I compare these results in relation to a conservation area’s status as well as to the biodiversity value of the non-conservation estate in order to reveal how effective the current network is. The study does not attempt to select an optimal network within the planning region, but merely to assess the relative importance of each existing conservation area. The study site is the South African province of Mpumalanga, a biologically diverse region that is in the process of conducting a provincial conservation plan for land-use management purposes. This analysis is based on the data from Mpumalanga’s conservation plan, it can therefore be used to make recommendations to the conservation agency responsible for the protection of the region’s biodiversity. 2.Methods 2.1 Study Area Mpumalanga is located in eastern South Africa bordering Mozambique and Swaziland to the east and south, respectively (Figure 1). At 8.75 million hectares it makes up 6.5% of South Africa’s land and has a population of just over 3.1 million people. Agriculture and mining are two of the most important contributors to the provincial economy and these, along with afforestation, are also the major transformers of most of Mpumalanga’s vegetation communities. Still, the province has high levels of plant diversity containing 21% of the country’s known plant species (Emery et al. 2002). Plant diversity is predominantly confined to four identified centres of endemism. Previous landscape analyses indicate that 62% of Mpumalanga's 20 broad vegetation types are under protected (i.e. <10% under formal protection; Emery et al. 2002). In addition, five have been transformed by more than 40% (the theoretical threshold beyond which ecological processes are significantly disrupted; Driver et al. 2005) and are largely located along the foothills and high escarpment