A Multi-Scale, Participatory Approach to Developing a Protected Area Wetland Inventory in South Africa

Nancy Job,N S Cole,H Bezuidenhout,D J Roux

doi:10.3389/fenvs.2020.00049

Abstract

Given limited time, staffing and specialist expertise, management of wetlands within biodiversity-rich protected areas of developing countries is often held back by a lack of information on the extent and nature of wetland resources. Rapid, realistic and effective wetland ecosystem assessment methods are needed to develop a baseline for monitoring that detects trends and guides management. Lack of available in-house wetland expertise stimulated a novel team which harnessed wide-ranging complementary and, ultimately, indispensable expertise, spanning all branches of the park, including park management and rangers, Scientific Services and Biodiversity Social Projects. Within a year, the team developed a sufficiently comprehensive inventory which captured the variation of wetlands present in Mountain Zebra National Park, South Africa. A total of 267 wetlands were mapped, while 62 were visited in the field and assessed through rapid verification. Careful collation of existing data and imagery informed a catchment approach, an emphasis on wetland-landscape connectivity, and strategic targeting of a sub-set of important and representative sites deserving of targeted, high effort field assessment. The remaining wetlands not visited in the field were subject to desktop review. Overall, this resulted in a comprehensive overview assessment of the entire Park at multiple scales. The approach of convening a multi-disciplinary team supports strengthened governance and integrated implementation of the findings into park planning, management and rehabilitation. The process provides a potential template for rolling out similar work in other parks and other areas that have limited funding and capacity.

Highlights

The mapping, classification, and description of wetlands and their associated biotic and abiotic features are vital steps in building a framework to understand, manage, rehabilitate and conserve these ecosystems (Finlayson and van der Valk, 1995; Finlayson et al, 1998; Zedler, 2000; SANParks, 2016)
We present an overview of the approach and results of, to the best of our knowledge, the first wetland inventory for a national park in South Africa
Mountain Zebra National Park is one of the 19 national parks managed by South African National Parks (SANParks)

Summary

Introduction

The mapping, classification, and description of wetlands and their associated biotic and abiotic features are vital steps in building a framework to understand, manage, rehabilitate and conserve these ecosystems (Finlayson and van der Valk, 1995; Finlayson et al, 1998; Zedler, 2000; SANParks, 2016). In developing countries, including within their biodiversityrich protected areas, effective management of wetlands is hampered by a lack of information on the extent and nature of these ecosystems. In these countries, most nature reserve and national park management agencies have limited resources, including specialist expertise. Most nature reserve and national park management agencies have limited resources, including specialist expertise This is the case in the agencies mandated to support conservation at provincial and national level. In South Africa only one out of nine provincial conservation agencies was found to support an adequate complement of dedicated aquatic scientists (Impson, 2016), and most institutions are experiencing declining funds (Van Deventer et al, 2019). Wetlands are at the transition between terrestrial and aquatic habitats, and multidisciplinary expertise is required to comprehensively assess and manage these systems

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Results

Conclusion