- Title
- An evaluation of the effectiveness of area-based conservation interventions in avoiding biodiversity loss in South Africa
- Creator
- Von Staden, Lize
- Subject
- Environmental policy
- Subject
- Conservation of natural resources -- Government policy -- South Africa
- Date Issued
- 2023-04
- Date
- 2023-04
- Type
- Doctoral theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/61115
- Identifier
- vital:69762
- Description
- Counterfactual impact evaluation studies form an important evidence base for the effectiveness of conservation projects, programs, and policies (collectively referred to as conservation interventions). In South Africa, counterfactual impact evaluation methods have rarely been applied to local conservation interventions, and therefore evidence for the effectiveness of key strategic national conservation approaches is lacking. This study evaluated three area-based interventions that together aim to avoid the loss of areas most important for the persistence of biodiversity in the terrestrial realm as evidence towards the effectiveness of South Africa’s landscape approach to biodiversity conservation. The first intervention, South Africa’s National Protected Area Expansion Strategy (NPAES), set ambitious targets to double the extent of South Africa’s protected area network while ensuring that the expansion preferentially occurs in areas of under-represented biodiversity. The strategy was evaluated in terms of its effectiveness in guiding protected area expansion towards more equitable representation of South Africa’s biodiversity through an assessment of changes in indicators of protected area expansion decision-making before and after the implementation of the strategy. The second intervention is the use of maps of biodiversity priorities to guide land use change decisions outside protected areas. Impact was evaluated as avoided loss of Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBAs), which need to remain in a natural condition to meet in situ conservation targets for species, ecosystems, and ecological processes. Avoided loss in CBAs was benchmarked against avoided loss in protected areas, to contextualize the effectiveness of land use planning as a conservation intervention. Lastly, the effectiveness of stricter land use regulations for threatened ecosystems to reduce land conversion pressure on these ecosystems was evaluated. Key findings were that protected areas are highly effective conservation interventions where they can be implemented, but their capacity for conservation impact is limited by severe constraints on strategic expansion.
- Description
- Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Science, School of Environmental Sciences, 2023
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (196 pages)
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Science
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
- Rights
- All Rights Reserved
- Rights
- Open Access
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NMU School of Environmental Sciences
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Von Staden, L.pdf | 8 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |