A decade of biodiversity conservation and use in South Africa: Tracking progress from the Rio Earth Summit to the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development
Wynberg, R.
South African Journal of Science 98(5-6): 233-243
2002
ISSN/ISBN: 0038-2353 Document Number: 237626
This paper analyses key achievements, gaps, constraints and opportunities within South Africa's biodiversity sector since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and some of the difficult trade-offs faced in attempting to marry the country's pressing development needs with those of conservation. A suite of diverse issues is examined, including threats to biodiversity, such as those from habitat transformation, alien invasive species, overexploitation and genetic engineering; the difficulties of 'mainstreaming' biodiversity at all levels of planning and decision-making; and strategies for conservation and development such as protected area management, transfrontier conservation areas, community-based management, wildlife tourism and bioprospecting. Attention is also paid to commercializing South Africa's biodiversity, exploiting traditional knowledge, the current state of funding, and the status of knowledge, research and information about biodiversity in the country. The past ten years have witnessed profound paradigm shifts in conservation in South Africa: from a strictly protectionist approach, towards one that recognizes the need to use biodiversity sustainably and to involve the community in conservation. Despite remarkable achievements since the Earth Summit - including the development of a widely accepted national policy on biodiversity and an expansion of the country's protected areas - biodiversity loss continues, with South Africa having the highest known concentration of threatened plants in the world. Few of the priorities for implementation listed in the 1997 Biodiversity White Paper have received adequate attention. Serious constraints preclude more effective management of the country's biodiversity: these include insufficient skills, expertise and funding, legal fragmentation, the inadequate integration of biodiversity considerations into sectoral and land-use plans, and weak political commitment. Redress requires us urgently to adopt a uniform and progressive legislative framework for biodiversity conservation and use; develop a national strategy and action plan for biodiversity; and 'mainstream' biodiversity into existing development and environmental planning. Also needed are clear, unambiguous criteria and principles for quantifying biodiversity loss in the long term against socio-economic gains in the short to medium term. Success requires political commitment and leadership.