Aloe arborescens Mill. ‘Estelle Potgieter’ (Asphodelaceae subfam. Alooideae), a new cultivar in a variable species, with notes on aloes at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria

Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata. It aims to deliver a centralized location with open access to information to enable research, assessment and monitoring; to support policy development; to foster collaboration and advance governance. Data are aggregated from multiple, diverse data partners across South Africa including, CapeNature, the FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, Iziko South African museum, the National Herbarium of South Africa and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity. This newly developed and integrated system promotes a shift from tactically-based information systems, aimed at delivering products for individual project initiatives to a strategic system that promotes the building of capacity within organisations and networks. It has been developed by integrating SANBI’s existing authoring layers through a service-orientated architecture approach, which enables seamless cross-platform integration. Some of the key authoring layers that will be integrated are, the Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA), the Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), the Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS) and SANBI's institutional repository (Opus). Biodiversity Advisor will provide users, policy and decision makers, environmental impact practitioners and associated organizations with free access to view, query and download any of South Africa's biodiversity data available on the system, providing them with everything needed to make decisions around conservation and biodiversity planning in South Africa. All sensitive species data, which are those that are vulnerable to collecting, over-exploitation, commercial and/or medicinal use, will be redacted and only granted access upon application. Biodiversity Advisor will encourage more effective management of data within SANBI, but also encourage the sharing of data by the biodiversity community to provide integrated products and services, which are needed to address complex environmental issues.

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) has initiated the development of the National Biodiversity Information System to provide access to integrated South African biodiversity information. The aim of the project is to centrally manage all biodiversity information to support researchers, conservationists, policy and decision-makers in achieving their goals, support planners in making sensible decisions, and help SANBI understand the anthropogenic impact on biodiversity. The project is set to deliver a centralised web-based infrastructure to capture, aggregate, manage, discover, analyse and visualise biodiversity data and associated information through a suite of tools and spatial layers. The infrastructure is a Microsoft technology stack with microservices component architecture (http://microservices.io/patterns/microservices.html), which is vital to building an application out of small collaborating services, stemming from integrating the enterprise system. SANBI conducted a review of the data holdings of the individual herbaria and museums in South Africa. The intention is to have a federated approach to data management, exposing what is available as a collection but ensuring that each individual natural science collection has full ownership and management control over their data within a defined framework and governed by internationally accepted data policies and standards. The presentation highlights the opportunities and unexpected difficulties with developing a national botanical and zoological collections data management service in South Africa.

Soutpansberg Mountain range is one of the main biodiversity hotspots in South Africa and it is located in Limpopo Province. It possesses high diversity of flora and fauna. Communities surrounding this mountain have long benefited from the ecosystem services that the area provides. It is of importance to determine the threat status of plant species endemic to this mountain range that has been a great source of ecosystem services. Twenty-two endemic vascular plant species of the mountain range have been identified. In this study we use the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) current 2017 version Red List categories to determine the threat status of plant species endemic to Soutpansberg Mountain range. SANBI is the national body in South African that is responsible for national threat assessment for plant and animal species and they also provide data to IUCN (International Union ofC onservation of Nature) on threat status of plant and animal taxa found in South Africa. We calculated the categorical percentages of threat status of endemic vascular plants species of Soutpansberg Mountain range and the threats these plant species are facing were gotten from SANBI Red List. This study showed that over 50% of the plant species endemic to this area are of conservation concern meaning they deserve conservation attention. Majority of threats are due to anthropogenic pressure. This implies that the endemic flora of this region is facing risk of extinction. This study recommends protection of all the endemic plant species of this mountain range in order to prevent theirf uture extinction.

Dr Sarie Perold (nee Lombard) (Figure 1) died peacefully in her sleep in the early hours of Friday 11 November 2011, aged 83. She embarked upon a career in bryology rather late in life, at the age of 51, but nevertheless became internationally recognized as a leading authority on the taxonomy and nomenclature of African thallose liverworts, in particular the genus Riccia. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on 19 May 1928. Her father was a teacher and her mother a housewife who also ran a nursery school from home at some stage. Dr Perold matriculated from the Kensingtonse Hoerskool with four distinctions in 1945. She wanted to follow in her brother’s footsteps, who studied medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), but had to settle for a BSc degree in medical technology, majoring in Anatomy and Histology, which she completed in 1949. From 1950 to mid-1967, she worked as a laboratory technician in Histology and Chemical Pathology at the South African Institute for Medical Research, then for Irving & Robertson, a firm of private pathologists, and finally as a research assistant in the Department of Chemical Pathology at the Wits Medical School, where she co-authored four papers. In 1953, she married Jan Perold and their only child, Jan, was born in 1967. For the next eight and a half years (1967–1975), she was a housewife and mother. Re-entering the work force in 1976, Dr Perold held several temporary teaching posts at private and government schools in Pretoria and completed second year botany and zoology courses at the University of Pretoria. In 1979, she joined the National Herbarium (PRE) of the Botanical Research Institute (BRI), now the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), as a part-time technical assistant to Dr Robert (Bob) Magill, who was undertaking a revision of southern African mosses. When Professor Dr O.H. Volk of the University of Wurzburg, Germany drew attention to the need for a taxonomic revision of southern African Ricciaceae, Dr Magill assigned this project to Dr Perold. During the Volks’ visit to PRE in 1981, he introduced the research staff of the Cryptogamic Herbarium, which consisted of Dr Magill, Dr Perold, Dr Frank Brusse (lichenologist) and myself, to Riccias on a collecting excursion to Middelburg in Mpumalanga. This was the beginning of a love–hate relationship between Dr Perold and Professor Volk which lasted up to his death in 2000 and resulted in the co-authorship of 13 papers (Glen & Perold, 2000). Dr Perold was very appreciative of his mentorship and dedicated her PhD thesis to him. In a letter to Professor Volk dated 25 April 1994 she wrote: ‘I often think of you and of how much you taught me by correspondence and your visits here’. Dr Perold embarked on a scanning electron microscope (SEM) study of Riccia spores and Professor Dr Rudy Schuster (USA) was so impressed by her results that he facilitated publication in Journal of the Hattori Correspondence to: Jacques van Rooy, National Herbarium, South African National Biodiversity Institute, Private Bag X101, Pretoria 0001, South Africa. Email: J.vanRooy@sanbi.org.za Figure 1 Sarie Magdalena Perold (1928–2011). Photograph: Adela Romanowski.

Researchers and policymakers have called on the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), in its role as the statutory biodiversity organisation of South Africa, to develop a coordinated and integrated biodiversity informatics hub. While biodiversity information is increasingly available from several providers, there is no platform through which to access comprehensive biodiversity information from a single source. In response, SANBI is redeveloping the Biodiversity Advisor platform, which will integrate geospatial, species and ecosystem data, literature and other data made available by a wide variety of data partners. To do so it has adopted a Service Orientated Architecture, whereby existing, independent biodiversity datasets are integrated. Consolidating such an extensive and varied set of databases, however, introduces some significant operational challenges. Solutions had to be found to address limited infrastructure, the complexity of the system, the lack of taxonomic identifiers, as well as the need for access and attribution. Solutions had to be pragmatic, given limited financial resources and limited capacity for information technology. The emerging outcome is a system that will easily allow users to access most biodiversity data within South Africa from a single, recognised platform.

The e-Flora of South Africa project was initiated in 2013 by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in support of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC, 2011-2020). South Africa's flora consists of ca. 21,000 taxa of which more than half are endemic. South Africa will contribute a national Flora towards Target 1 of the GSPC ("To create an online flora of all known plants by 2020"). South Africa's contribution is ca. 6% of the world’s flora of which ca. 3% are endemic and therefore unique. South Africa’s electronic Flora is comprised of previously published descriptions. South Africa’s e-Flora data forms part of the Botanical Dataset of Southern Africa (BODATSA) that is currently managed through the Botanical Research And Herbarium Management System (BRAHMS). To date, South Africa’s e-Flora data (http://ipt.sanbi.org.za/iptsanbi/resource?r=flora_descriptions) represents 19,539 indigenous taxa, 79,139 descriptions of distribution, morphological, habitat and diagnostic data, and 27,799 bibliographic records. The e-Flora data was recently published online using the Integrated Publishing Toolkit and henceforth harvested by the World Flora Online (WFO) into the portal. A series of challenges were encountered while manipulating descriptive data from BRAHMS to be ingested by the WFO portal; from taxonomic issues to data quality issues not excluding compliance to data standards. To contribute to the WFO portal, the taxa in BODATSA has to match with the taxa in the WFO taxonomic backbone. Once there is a match, a unique WFO taxon identifier is assigned to the taxa in BODATSA. This process presented various challenges because the WFO taxonomic backbone and the taxonomic classification system that is used by South Africa (South African National Plant Checklist) does not fully correlate. The schema used to store taxonomic data also does not agree between BRAHMS and WFO and had to be addressed. To enable consistency for future, a detailed guideline document was created providing all the steps and actions that should be taken when publishing an e-Flora, managed in BRAHMS, to the WFO portal. The presentation will focus on matching taxonomic classifications between BRAHMS and WFO; dealing with character encoding issues and manipulating data to meet Darwin Core standards.

A comparative study Biodiversity is not a static phenomenon and many variables have an effect on accelerated biodiversity loss. While most of the variables affecting biodiversity loss are caused by humankind, many species are affected by more than one variable simultaneously. Six fundamental causes for biodiversity loss have been identifi ed, namely unsustainable population growth and associated increased pressure on natural resources; a reduced spectrum of agricultural, forestry and fishery products; failure of economic systems to attach appropriate economic value to the environment and resources; inequality in ownership, flow and management of the benefits and utilisation of resources; insufficient knowledge in the application and use of resources; and legislation and institutional systems that promote unsustainable abuse of the environment (Middleton 2003:250). The worldwide loss of biodiversity makes the management of protected areas more important than ever. Protected areas are under increasing pressure to become economically viable and independent of state grants. Tourism creates the mechanism and opportunities for protected areas to increase their economic viability while advancing the appreciation of nature. The management of these protected areas therefore includes the management of visitors. South Africa is the third most bio diverse country in the world. Amongst a variety of nature conservation endeavours nine national botanical gardens are managed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). One of the nine national gardens is the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden situated in Roodekrans towards the west of Johannesburg. A study was launched to determine preferences of visitors to the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden by making use of semi-structured interviews. The purpose of the study was threefold. Firstly the study was launched to determine whether visitors to the garden had an increased awareness of the ideals of environmental conservation after their visit to the garden. Secondly, the study determined the spatial preferences of visitors to the garden which was thirdly correlated to the time that they spent at each area. A number of recommendations were made and a comparative study followed twelve years after the initial study in which the implementation of the resultant findings was determined through observation and a comparison of information pamphlets and garden layout maps. It was found that large-scale changes took place in line with the recommendations made after the initial study. These included the demolition of unsuccessful theme gardens and their replacement by topical theme gardens such as water-wise gardens and a garden that attracts butterflies and birds. The educational function of the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden was greatly improved by adding more information plaques throughout the garden, a new interpretative centre and many additional information pamphlets that had been absent during the initial study. Major structural changes were made, such as the building of an amphitheatre which reduced the negative impact of noise and disturbance surrounding the nests of the Verreaux’s eagles that breed successfully in the garden. The changes undertaken at the garden show innovative improvements in line with the con servation principles outlined by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). The evidence of the implementation of research recommendations from the initial study could play a direct role in improving the visitor experience, which would facilitate the economic viability of the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden in its endeavours to reach its conservation goals. Further research is suggested to continuously determine the areas of preference of visitors in the evolving landscape of the garden to ensure renewed interest of visitors to the garden. If botanical gardens want to succeed in their goal to increase the environmental awareness and consciousness of visitors, continuous visitor and tourism research is required to improve the visitor experiences that will result in drawing visitors in future.

Updated country and regional plant checklists for southern Africa have been available for several decades. These form the backbone of foundational and applied biodiversity-related processes, e.g., herbarium specimen curation, conservation assessments, and biodiversity policy and planning activities. A plant taxonomic backbone for South Africa has been maintained electronically since the 1970s; originally in the custom-built National Herbarium, Pretoria Computerised Information System (PRECIS) database; and currently in the Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA), using Botanical Research & Herbarium Management System (BRAHMS) software. The BODATSA species table contains ca. 129,000 names of fungi, algae, mosses, lycophytes and ferns, conifers, and flowering plants. Taxonomic backbone data is continuously expanded, updated, and improved following strict policies and standards in an attempt to keep it up-to-date and current. The South African National Plant Checklist (SANPC) Policy stipulates that a single classification is followed for taxonomic groups at the family level and above. Thus a classification system was chosen for each plant group represented in the backbone. For genera and below, the latest published evidence-based classification is followed. Where there are opposing classifications for a group based on similar data, the SANPC Committee decides which classification is most suitable from a southern African perspective. Researchers can also make an appeal to the Committee not to follow the latest publication, if it is controversial. Updating primarily involves keeping track of literature references and the taxon additions, synonymies, and other taxonomic and nomenclatural changes they represent. Attributes affected by such changes are adjusted in the taxon module of BODATSA. Currently the taxonomic backbone for indigenous and naturalised mosses, liverworts, hornworts, ferns and lycophytes, conifers, and flowering plants is actively maintained and updated. Fungal names are not curated in BODATSA, as the Mycology Unit of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) of South Africa maintains a taxonomic backbone for fungi. In future, all fungal names will be migrated to a separate instance of BRAHMS, and links to the ARC database will be established to update the fungal backbone. Previously algae were not included in BODATSA or the SANPC, but algal names are now being added to the backbone. Only names of green and red algae will be added initially. Maintenance of the names for indigenous taxa in southern Africa was always prioritised in the taxonomic backbone. Recently, the scope was expanded to also focus more on our naturalised flora. For these taxa, expansion involved tagging some existing names as naturalised or invasive and adding others. Thus far this dataset has been managed differently, and we realize that to some extent, this will need to continue going forward since information here are more about presence or absence, and confirmation of naturalised status. BODATSA also houses 1.37 million specimen records for more than 2 million specimens housed in the three herbaria of the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI): Compton Herbarium (NBG & SAM), Cape Town; KwaZulu-Natal Herbarium (NH), Durban; and National Herbarium (PRE), Pretoria. Determinations of specimen records are directly linked to names in the taxonomic backbone. Any changes in the backbone thus filter down to the specimen records and should ideally also be reflected in the physical herbarium collections. Checklists for South Africa and the Flora of southern African region were initially published in hardcopy, with some later made available in pdf format. An official yearly release of the SANPC (currently containing just under 40,000 names for indigenous and naturalised mosses, liverworts, hornworts, lycophytes and ferns, conifers, and flowering plants occurring in South Africa) is now made available online as a downloadable spreadsheet, together with other checklist-related documents. This part of the backbone is also accessible in the searchable online platform, Plants of southern Africa (POSA). In line with global initiatives to mobilise plant biodiversity data, this platform provides specimen record data as well, and will soon link descriptive data from the e-Flora of South Africa project to the backbone (once the National Biodiversity Information System website upgrade is finalised). The SANPC connects with several international initiatives and is utilised to update the taxonomic backbones of, amongst others, the World Flora Online (WFO) Project (including the WFO Plant List) and the African Plants Database. This contribution will briefly outline the history of compiling, updating, and disseminating the taxonomic backbone of southern African plants. It will provide information on current data management processes and procedures. Challenges relating to updating the taxonomic backbone, will be highlighted and discussed.

Extinction crisis in South African cycads has been very high in recent times. This study used comprehensive distribution records of cycads that occurred in South Africa. The records obtained from the South African national herbarium named South African National Biodiversity Institute (sanbi) through the herbarium sheets were used to determine the regions of higher extinction crisis in South Africa. The threat status of the herbarium taxa was obtained from iucn 2019 version and was analysed. Threats to these taxa were extracted from iucn and the numbers of taxa facing each threat were determined to unravel the prominent threats. The herbarium records were used to construct a species distribution map for all the cycads in South Africa and another map for Critically Endangered and Extinct South African cycads. This study revealed that regions of high species richness for South African cycads are not the same as regions with highly threatened and extinct South African cycads. Prominent threats found in this plant group are also the major threats causing extinction crisis in the highly threatened and extinct cycads that occurs in few provinces in South Africa. This study therefore recommends that conservation efforts for South African cycads should be intensified in the hotspots of highly threatened and extinct South African cycads identified in this study to further mitigate extinction crisis of South African cycads.

Globally, small-scale fisheries (SSF) support over 94% of the 120 million people engaged in capture fisheries. An estimated 5.8 million fishers in the world earn less than $1 per day, yet they generate an estimated two-thirds of the global fish catch for direct human consumption, with fish being a key source of local food security. According to the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security, (2012), tenure systems are defined as the rules and norms that determine who can access what resources and their spatial and temporal attributes. The FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries (2015) identify the governance of tenure as a fundamental requirement for responsible and sustainable use of aquatic biodiversity and natural resources.In the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region, the importance of small-scale fishers to broader sustainability outcomes is crucial. In the WIO region, small-scale fishers are strongly anchored in local communities, reflect a way of life, and provide critical contributions to society, economy, culture, and environment. At the same time, there has been a rapid increase in regional dialogues and actions related to WIO blue economy initiatives and global conservation targets catalyzed by multi-lateral agencies, global development and conservation organizations and regional governments. At the core of these initiatives are substantive challenges and/or threats to marine tenure of SSF and coastal communities generally. In our presentation, we highlight in particular two specific gaps which the Blue Tenure Transitions (BTT) working group is addressing. First, how we are building the transdisciplinary science base for the WIO region on the specific impacts and implications of marine tenure and the social, culture, economic, and ecological challenges of inadequate tenure provisions in the context of Blue Economy and 30x30 initiatives such as Marine Spatial Planning in countries such as South Africa and Tanzania. Second, we will present how we are co-developing participatory methodologies that enable communities to map and subsequently ‘share their stories’ about marine tenure in creative and accessible ways (through visuals and artforms and/or narratives) that empower them to advocate for necessary reforms. Our overall objective is to support community tenure systems and highlight bright spots where tenure has led to positive social and ecological benefits to ensure small-scale fisheries have equitable access to ocean resources, and help co-generate policies and practices that help protect and enable small-scale fishers. Working group members in the BTT project are funded by the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association and are based in both academic and government positions, from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, Institute for Coastal and Marine Research at the Nelson Mandela University, South Africa, Rhodes University, South Africa, Institute of Marine Science at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Ministry of Fisheries and Blue Economy, Zanzibar, South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South African National Biodiversity Institute, and the Vulnerability to Viability Global Partnership for Small-Scale Fisheries at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

The introduction and prevalence of invasive species is an alarming reality in South Africa. The emergence of invasive species has resulted in harmful consequences on various levels and has adverse impacts on the environment and the economy. Hence, biological invasions demand attention. The control and eradication of invasive species can serve to minimise their adverse impact. In 2019 the South African National Biodiversity Institute highlighted the threats posed by biological invasions in South Africa and specifically identified Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer Beetles as a significant new invasive species in South Africa that has a demonstrable ongoing detrimental impact on varieties of trees. Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer Beetles have been detected in various urban areas in South Africa, including the City of Cape Town. This note briefly examines the control and eradication of invasive species in urban areas in terms of the South African legal framework, specifically against the backdrop of the emergence of the Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer Beetles in the City of Cape Town.

The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) recently released the outcome of the South Africa-Norway bio-safety cooperation project 'Monitoring the environmental impacts of GM maize in South Africa'. This project studied possible impacts of commercial genetically modified (GM) maize (MON810 maize), containing the Cry1Ab protein (Bt-protein), on the South African environment. The report addresses concerns about Bt-technology in GM maize in South Africa, in particular the development of possible resistance of target insects to the Bt-toxin and of unintended effects of GM maize on non-target organisms.

Freshwater biodiversity is critically understudied in Rwanda, and to date there has not been an efficient mechanism to integrate freshwater biodiversity information or make it accessible to decision-makers, researchers, private sector or communities, where it is needed for planning, management and the implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). A framework to capture and distribute freshwater biodiversity data is crucial to understanding how economic transformation and environmental change is affecting freshwater biodiversity and resulting ecosystem services. To optimize conservation efforts for freshwater ecosystems, detailed information is needed regarding current and historical species distributions and abundances across the landscape. From these data, specific conservation concerns can be identified, analyzed and prioritized. The purpose of this project is to establish and implement a long-term strategy for freshwater biodiversity data mobilization, sharing, processing and reporting in Rwanda. The expected outcome of the project is to support the mandates of the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), the national agency in charge of environmental monitoring and the implementation of Rwanda’s NBSAP, and the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management (CoEB). The project also aligns with the mission of the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) to enhance sustainable management of natural resources in the Albertine rift region. Specifically, organizational structure, technology platforms, and workflows for the biodiversity data capture and mobilization are enhanced to promote data availability and accessibility to improve Rwanda’s NBSAP and support other decision-making processes. The project is enhancing the capacity of technical staff from relevant government and non-government institutions in biodiversity informatics, strengthening the capacity of CoEB to achieve its mission as the Rwandan national biodiversity knowledge management center. Twelve institutions have been identified as data holders and the digitization of these data using Darwin Core standards is in progress, as well as data cleaning for the data publication through the ARCOS Biodiversity Information System (http://arbmis.arcosnetwork.org/). The release of the first national State of Freshwater Biodiversity Report is the next step. CoEB is a registered publisher to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and holds an Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) account on the ARCOS portal. This project was developed for the African Biodiversity Challenge, a competition coordinated by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and funded by the JRS Biodiversity Foundation which supports on-going efforts to enhance the biodiversity information management activities of the GBIF Africa network. This project also aligns with SANBI’s Regional Engagement Strategy, and endeavors to strengthen both emerging biodiversity informatics networks and data management capacity on the continent in support of sustainable development.

is the global centre of diversification for monkey beetles (Scarabaeidae: Hopliini).69 % of the world fauna occur here, with 98% of the 1040 South African species and 80% of the South African genera being national endemics.This thesis was the first analysis of the regional distribution patterns, and the processes underlying the generation of the mega-diverse monkey beetle fauna of South Africa.Specifically, the aims of the thesis were to: 1. Identify hotspots of richness and endemism, and to explore the relationship between area and richness.2. Compare centres of endemism of monkey beetles with those of other faunal and floral taxa, and to investigate patterns of biogeographic congruence.3. Explore the role of local environmental factors (rainfall, temperature, habitat heterogeneity, host plant diversity) as explanatory variables of regional richness patterns of monkey beetles.4. Model spatial turnover (beta diversity) in beetle community composition as a function of environmental (rainfall, temperature, altitude, soil fertility) and plant (host species, vegetation types, and bioregions) variables.5. Describe and quantify patterns of sexual dimorphism and putative sexually selected traits and investigate the role of sexual selection in the generation of species richness.Methodological procedures followed current and newly-developed analytical techniques used in the fields of biogeography, spatial ecology, and evolutionary biology.A key first methodological step was the compilation of a geo-referenced presence-only dataset from field observations, museum collections, and taxonomic revisions.This comprised 6959 unique point locality records which were analysed within a geographical information system (GIS).This allowed portraying of the spatial variation in richness and endemism across local and regional habitats.

The implementation gap between science, policy and practice has led to loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services throughout Africa and is described in a case study from Limpopo Province, South Africa. In 2006, the South African National Biodiversity Institute first highlighted the Woodbush Granite Grassland (WGG) in the Greater Tzaneen Local Municipality as the only Critically Endangered ecosystem in Limpopo Province. Five years later (2011), the Critically Endangered listing was published in the Government Gazette No. 34809. After repeated and sustained efforts for many years from volunteers of a local environmental group – currently known as the Friends of the Haenertsburg Grassland (FroHG) – in 2015 the intent to formally protect 126 ha was published in the Government Gazette No. 2609. Unfortunately, the proposed protected area accounts for only 66% of the largest remaining fragment of WGG, which excludes an important colony of medicinal plants. Considering that only 6% of the original extent of WGG remains in an untransformed state the whole fragment should be conserved. Non-alignment of municipal spatial priorities, as in the Haenertsburg town plan from 1896, to provincial and national environmental priorities has resulted in numerous incidents that have degraded what little remains of the WGG ecosystem. Failure of the provincial authorities to act timeously to enforce environmental regulations resulted in the FroHG successfully involving national authorities to stop illegal land occupation while another incident involving an illegal fence was resolved 9 years after erection. A strengthened relationship with Lepelle Northern Water has resulted in better planning of activities in relation to an existing pipeline. This case study shows various avenues available to environmental volunteer groups in South Africa and suggests that long-term lobbying can yield positive results.Conservation implications: Formal conservation of WGG through the intended nature reserve proclamation represents application of environmental legislation (notably Listing Notice 3, National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998: Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations, 2014), scientific recommendations and policy. Better cooperation between provincial administration and FroHG will benefit the protection and management of WGG.