This Project will focus on 19 discreet pilot sites across South Africa, spanning five of its nine biomes and six of its nine provinces. The aim of the Project is to work closely with local communities to secure high priority biodiversity land in the protected area network and simultaneously to deliver livelihood benefits.
Two of the pilot sites are located within the Maluti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Project (a project between South Africa and Lesotho) offering opportunities to further strengthen cross border cooperation and capacity on protected area expansion and management effectiveness. Several pilot sites are located within areas important for freshwater ecosystems and the delivery of potable freshwater as an ecosystem service. These cases offer opportunities to pilot the implementation of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) toolkits as mechanisms for securing new protected areas.
The Project will operate at both macro and micro levels. At the macro level, knowledge sharing, networking and learning will take place with protected area agencies, land reform institutions and communities from across South Africa. At micro level the Project will operate in nineteen pilot sites in six provinces (Western Cape, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), Mpumalanga, and Limpopo). These two processes will work synergistically ensuring that learning and day-to-day implementation actions are strategically linked, allowing participants to 'learn from doing' and to draw out lessons and implications for national policy and institutional arrangements. In this way the Project seeks to maximize learning and adaptive management for both biodiversity and livelihoods results.
The location of the nine existing pilot sites is shown on the map (Figure 2). The labels refer to the sites described below.
A: Northern Cape Province – all three pilot sites are in the Kamiesberg in Namaqualand District Municipality. Roodebergskloof is near town of Garies; Tweerivier is near the village Tweerivier; and, Leliefontein near the village Leliefontein.
B: Western Cape Province – all three pilot sites are in the Winelands District Municipality. Genadendal is near Greyton; Klipfontein is next to Theewatersdam between Villiersdorp and Grabouw; and Fynbos Wyn and Vrugte is on the farm called Romansvlei and is near Wolseley.
C: KwaZulu Natal Province – Umgano is near Underberg.
D: KwaZulu Natal Province – Mabaso is in the Vryheid district near Pailpieterberg.
E: KwaZulu Natal Province – Somkhanda is in the Zululand District Municipality between Mkuze game reserve and town of Pongola inland from the Josini dam.
The proposed ten new pilot sites are located in the blue circles on the map (Figure 2) and consist of the following sites:
Mpumalanga Province – three sites within the Wakkerstroom area between Wakkerstroom and Piet Retief. One of these sites is highly suitable for a PES pilot project as it is located in a high value water catchment.
Limpopo Province –Moepel farms in the Waterberg region: three land restitution sites.
Northern Cape Province – near Kimberley: one site.
Eastern Cape Province – one PES site in the Umzimvubu catchment which is part of the Maluti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation Area.
KwaZulu-Natal Province – three new sites, one could be a PES pilot in Tugela catchment which is part of the Maluti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation Area and the other two in Zululand District linking to Somkhanda to create a corridor.
Problem Statement
South Africa faces critical challenges relating to the need to protect her unique and highly diverse natural environment and alleviate high levels of poverty. South Africa needs to protect her environment while dealing with environmental degradation and water scarcity, both of which will be heightened by the impacts of climate change, as well as implementing programmes and policies that seek to address poverty alleviation and the racial inequalities and injustices that the majority of the country’s citizens were subjected to in the recent past. South Africa’s rural areas are characterised by high levels of poverty, unemployment and land degradation in the former “homeland” areas juxtaposed with a highly sophisticated commercial agricultural sector, high value conservation areas and a mix of high to low value tourism and game ventures. Climate change will place further stress on freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, which is likely to lead to further land degradation and declining livelihoods.
As part of a broad programme to address poverty alleviation and racial inequalities, the government has since 1994 pursued a land reform programme aimed at giving access to land to the majority of people who were previously denied rights to own land. The land reform programme is laden with political, economic and emotional factors. There is the political need for equitable redistribution of productive resources so that access to and ownership of these resources reflects the demographics of the country in order to maximize opportunities for economic and social development. The emotional factor relates to the invisible scars people still carry due to the brutal nature of land dispossession, and the subsequent manner they were compelled to live their lives. The economic reality is that many land reform projects have failed to improve livelihoods and the socio-economic conditions of land reform beneficiaries. The recently elected government has committed itself to a renewed rural development programme in an effort to come to grips with this reality. Background information on land reform is contained in Annexure A.
Interventions/strategy
The challenge to reconcile biodiversity conservation imperatives with the broader redistribution and developmental agenda in South Africa needs to be met by a range of interventions. One such is the proposed “Improved Livelihoods and Protected Areas through Land Reform Stewardship Project”. This Project recognises the interdependence of environmental degradation and poverty, and has adopted an approach that views sustainable land management as the foundation of its activities. This approach ensures sustained ecosystem services, such as a steady supply of potable water, clean air, flood retention services and more – services that are essential for continued agricultural productivity, disaster reduction and for resilience to climate change. In South Africa, the phrase ‘biodiversity stewardship’ is linked to sustainable land management, and stewardship programs in the country assist landowners and landusers to make sustainable land use decisions, rehabilitate their land, and deliver biodiversity benefits in terms of national protected area targets.
* Please see also the attached Annexure A: Background on Biodiversity Stewardship and Land Reform in South Africa
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