A new approach is needed for conservation in South Africa. Saving the Big Five, little five and all life on land, in the ocean and in the air, as well as the ecosystems in which they thrive, demands more than national parks, private reserves and conservation efforts.
Creating a new model — involving a patchwork of properties including tribal and communal lands, farms, game and hunting ranches — through deals that support biodiversity and wildlife, could help to protect both, along with the livelihoods of people living there.
This, say leading conservationists, is what South Africa’s new draft national biodiversity economy strategy aims to do in moving away from fortress conservation, where fenced reserves exclude local people. Adopting the strategy would expand the “biodiversity economy and investment estate” by 2040 by 14-million hectares, an area bigger than the Free State. But of the increase from 20-million hectares to 34-million, only 4.2-million would be declared protected areas while the rest would be for “other conservation measures”, which could include hunting and farming livestock.
WWF-SA CEO Morne du Plessis said: “The strategy is about making sure that another 18% to 20% land and seas are conserved ... that communities and private and commercial landowners buy into conservation and land is managed sustainably. In the context of a developing country with the challenges of South Africa, this strategy is a rational approach.”
Within the next year, the protection of grasslands in the northeastern Cape will expand under communal farmers practising regenerative wool production and could be the first example of how a “mega conservation living landscape” — one of five identified in the strategy — works in the mountainous areas surrounding Nqanqarhu (Maclear).
The strategy is about making sure that another 18% to 20% land and seas are conserved.
— WWF-SA CEO, Morne du Plessis
“The strategy needs to contract people into the mega living landscapes. This is how we will get to 30x30,” he said of the global biodiversity goal to protect 30% of land, freshwater and seas by 2030.
This week more than 1,200 delegates attended a meeting in Johannesburg on the biodiversity economy and investment, following the release of the draft strategy known as NBES (National Biodiversity Economy Strategy) on March 8. Thirteen researchers and conservationists have come out publicly in its support.
Chief director of communication for the department of forestry, fisheries & the environment, Peter Mbelengwa, said: “The national biodiversity economy strategy aims to bring in participation by the majority of South Africans who have been previously excluded due to apartheid and dispossession of land.”
The Babanango Game Reserve and the Tsitsikamma National Park, among many others, show how conservation and local community beneficiation can work, according to the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa.
Controversial elements in the NBES, however, include a jump in the killing of wild animals through hunting and game meat consumption, a heightened risk to animal welfare, and a proposal to stimulate the domestic market for rhino horn and ivory. Also sparking an outcry about the NBES are the projected amounts to be gained from hunting and game meat, which appear unrealistic.
Endangered Wildlife Trust CEO Yolan Friedmann said: “Why even have numbers in a strategy which is looking at high level options? These distressing figures are highly unlikely [to be realised].”
These are small components of the strategy, said Du Plessis.
Biodiversity is already exploited in South Africa, legally and illegally, and the profits typically benefit a minority while leaving communities on the edge of game reserves hungry.
“South Africa already has a thriving biodiversity ‘economy’, but much of that happens in the shadows, supporting international criminal networks ... Rhino horn, abalone, pangolins and succulents are among the more well-known examples that threaten those species and their habitats,” say leaders of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa).
South Africa already has a thriving biodiversity ‘economy’, but much of that happens in the shadows, supporting international criminal networks.
— WWF-SA CEO, Morne du Plessis
“Alongside those criminal activities we have commercial and ‘legal’ exploitive practices of our wild spaces and species that have given rise to canned lion hunting, the lion bone trade, bush meat trade and the breeding of ‘fashionable’ variants such as black impala and golden wildebeest. None of those serve the integrity of our ecosystems.”
Wessa acting CEO Cindy-Lee Cloete and Dr Gary Koekemoer, the chair of the environmental governance committee, said the draft strategy had the “potential for significantly improving upon the current unsustainable status quo”.
“In a country grappling with an unemployment crisis ... the strategy could benefit communities by opening opportunities,” said Simangele Msweli, senior manager of the youth leadership programme at the African Wildlife Foundation, referring to sectors such as tourism, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and bioprospecting.
“South Africa is among the world’s top mega-diverse countries,” she said. “As a young South African conservationist who grew up in Mtubatuba, close to iSimangaliso Wetland Park, I witnessed first-hand how people benefit from biodiversity for basic needs.”
Biodiversity is the foundation of the economy, Du Plessis said, calling it a mistake to talk about it as a new part of the economy. “Just about everything depends on biodiversity, on the wellbeing of nature. At least 70% of the food on your plate is a product of the invisible and free services nature provides like pollination and freshwater. Once it is gone, how would we keep going? The economy would come to a standstill.”
Asked whether the proposed strategy would compromise biodiversity and animal welfare with its hunting and game meat plans, Mbelengwa told The Sunday Times: “The NBES doesn’t support intensive and captive breeding or farming of animals ... [it] promotes extensive wildlife systems where animals roam freely and fend for themselves.”
Mbelengwa said South Africa was committed to protecting endangered animals and plants. “To prevent the over-harvesting of indigenous plants, nurseries are already cultivating these species for medicinal and other forms of consumptive use. There are strict regulations governing the management of species such as elephants.
“Private and state conservation authorities regularly cull plains game [such as antelope, zebra and buffalo] when numbers increase beyond the carrying capacity of the land. These animals can be donated to start herds on new land that will be placed under extensive game ranching.”
Wessa leaders noted: “For those of us opposed to killing animals, the uncomfortable truth we must face is that trophy hunting and biltong/recreational hunts have made a positive difference to species’ wellbeing in the past. What the hunting fraternity in turn need to face is that consumptive preferences are changing, and South Africa’s wildlife ‘brand’ is threatened by changing perceptions of what is socially acceptable.”
The cabinet on Wednesday approved the implementation of the policy on lions, leopards, rhino and elephants. Mbelengwa said: “This policy position has been adopted with the direct intention of dealing with matters that have historically brought South Africa into disrepute and to clarify our policy position with regard to international trade in rhino horn and ivory.”
South Africa remains committed to combating illegal trade, wildlife trafficking and poaching, said Mbelengwa. “The domestic trade in rhino horn that was sanctioned by our courts is carefully controlled and permitted. Rhino horn is a natural resource acquired legally though natural death of rhinos and other management interventions.”
Wessa does not support the trade in rhino horn because South Africa lacks the necessary governance and policing to ensure the trade is legitimate, and they do not support the domestication of such species, said Cloete and Koekemoer.
Judging by attendance and theatre at the indaba this week , investing in biodiversity is a hot topic.
South Africa is among the world’s top mega-diverse countries.
Yolan said it was encouraging that “everyone from members of deep rural communities to the president” attended. The ministers of agriculture and higher education were also present, flanking the environment minister Barbara Creecy, while President Cyril Ramaphosa gave the keynote address.
He said: "When one goes to rural areas, you just often get so sad to look at rural areas that you can see are just dormitories where people live, with hardly much economic activity …
“And yet lying hidden, like Rembrandts or Gerard Sekoto pieces in the attic, are the endowments that our people should now utilise – the land, the plants, and everything else that is in our rural communities. Those need to be brought to life.”
Besides the usual conservation NGOs and scientists, traditional leaders and healers, small and established businesses from the wildlife, eco-tourism, marine and fisheries and bioprospecting sectors attended, as did community representatives from protected areas and provincial and national conservation authorities.
Dr Theressa Frantz, chief director of biodiversity research assessment and monitoring at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, described the indaba as a “melting pot of people looking at how we can optimally utilise the biodiversity economy” and making pitches on how to do this. “What came out clearly from all the commissions is that government must take action to remove the red tape that hampers investment in the sector,” she said.
Complicating implementation of the strategy, departments such as minerals & energy have competing mandates for nature conservation. For example, coal mines are incompatible with protecting strategic water source areas. Even within the department, the fisheries agenda can diverge from the conservation of marine life. Wessa warned about “the unsustainable exploitation of fish stocks and the ‘gold rush’ approach to offshore oil and gas reserves that fundamentally threaten our rich marine biodiversity”.
“As things stand, we are likely to see the African penguin go functionally extinct in our lifetimes due to over-fishing of their food stocks. African penguins are sentinel species, they are indicators of ecosystem health.
“Something must be done. Urgently. The status quo is untenable.”
Wessa leaders encouraged a detailed examination of whether the strategy has “the potential to significantly improve on the unsustainable status quo”. They were among major conservation bodies saying they were still studying the NBES and it would be premature to comment on what the plan means for South Africa.
Cloete and Koekemoer said: “The strategy may of necessity be focused on the ‘economy’ of biodiversity, but it must form part of a raft of strategies that address the non-economic value and approach to our wild spaces and species...
“We would caution the drafters of the strategy that seek with good intent to make conservation ‘pay its way’ not to reduce the value of our biodiversity to a balance sheet entry.”
*The draft national biodiversity economy strategy has been published for public comment and the comment period extended until April 15.
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