Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology

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Browsing Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology by browse.metadata.advisor "Biggs, Reinette, 1979-"

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    Exploring the social-ecological drivers and impacts of the blueberry boom in South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-04) Fourie, Michelle; Selomane, Odirilwe; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Esler, Karen J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of AgriSciences. Dept. of Conservation Ecology and Entomology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since 2015 there has been a rapid increase in blueberry production within South Africa, with most of the industry focused on exporting the fresh fruit. Despite the recent emergence of the blueberry industry, it contributed over R1 billion in export revenue in 2020. To date, little research has been conducted to understand what is driving the growth in the blueberry industry, what impacts the industry has on the local environment and community and how vulnerable the industry is to external shocks. Because the industry is focused on exports, this study explored the social-ecological drivers and impacts of the industry using the telecoupling framework. The thesis consists of 5 Chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the blueberry industry in South Africa, while Chapter 2 introduces the telecoupling framework, which allows for a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. In Chapter 3, I analysed interview data with individuals in the blueberry industry using a deductive thematic analysis approach as a qualitative method to investigate the drivers of increasing adoption of blueberry production in South Africa. In Chapter 4, I used a life cycle assessment (LCA) as a quantitative method to analyse the social-ecological impact of the blueberry industry in South Africa. Chapter 5 provides a set of conclusions. Chapter 3 identified seven key drivers that contributed to the adoption of blueberry farming. These drivers included (1) the perceived profitability due to the high market value of blueberries on the export market, (2) access to start-up capital as loans or investment to afford the high start-up cost of blueberry production, (3) the growing market with an increasing number of blueberry consumers in richer countries, (4) existing or early relationships with exporting companies to gain access to proprietary genetic material, production advice and connections with buyers, (5) the fact that the harvest season of blueberries falls outside the harvest season of other valuable export fruits like citrus, apples and pears which allows farmers to diversify their operation and income, (6) employment opportunities in a mixed operation that allows farmers to keep their best seasonal staff employed throughout the year, and (7) the low risk of theft associated with blueberries due to their delicate harvesting method. Concerns were raised about the industry’s vulnerability to external shocks, but recently observed socio-political and environmental shocks appeared to have had limited impacts to date. National and global lockdown restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020 – 2021) had minor impacts on farm operations because agricultural production was considered to be an essential service under lockdown regulations. Additionally, the initial hard lockdown in South Africa (23 March 2020 – 1 May 2020) occurred outside the blueberry harvest season that starts in July, which gave farmers time to prepare. The blueberry industry already complied with many of the COVID-19 hygiene requirements, because blueberries are picked by hand and receive no post-harvest treatment before consumption. Climatic shocks including droughts, early-season rain and hail have had the biggest impacts on the industry. Recent droughts in various areas of South Africa (between 2015 – 2018) forced some farmers to reduce their operation size and to truck water in at an additional cost to meet irrigation needs for blueberries. Abnormal early season rain and hail storms during the picking season in the northern parts of South Africa damaged the fruits and resulted in large yield losses. After civil unrest in two major economic hubs of South Africa (July 2021), Durban and Gauteng, a concern for blueberry farmers surfaced, even though this occurred outside the harvest and export window and had no direct impact on the industry. Concerns were related to the unpredictability of civil unrest shocks and are associated with the time sensitivity of exporting blueberries due to their short shelf life. The study also found that despite the age of the industry it is already experiencing many changes and facing numerous challenges. The first is increasing competition in South Africa as a result of the industry’s rapid expansion as well as increasing competition from other southern hemisphere countries. The increasing supply of blueberries allows buyers to obtain more competitive prices which impacts the profitability of the industry. This is combined with other existing challenges in South Africa, like the increasing cost of essential inputs (fertiliser, fuel, electricity) and inefficient and degrading port infrastructure that often result in export delays, has reduced the profitability of the industry over the last few years. South Africa’s current social and economic climate makes it harder for farmers to acquire loans or investments which limits their ability to adopt new technology or expand their blueberry operations. Despite the challenges of the industry, the farmers are, however, optimistic about the future of the industry and are looking at solutions such as precision agriculture, to address some of these challenges. Chapter 4 used a LCA to explore the social-ecological impacts of the blueberry industry in South Africa and found a variety of impacts. A hectare of blueberries produced in South Africa had the potential to damage (1) population health through increasing the number of years lost to ill-health (measured as disability-adjusted life years), (2) the economy, by increasing the cost required to extract resources in the future (measured as surplus resource cost), and (3) the environment, by contributing to biodiversity loss(measured using species loss potential per annum). The production phase of blueberries contributed to more than 90 per cent of the impact, driven by the use of protective structures (plastic tunnels), fertiliser, agrochemicals and fuel, while packaging and storage were responsible for the remaining impact. While the same pattern was observed for apples, grapes, oranges, pears and strawberries, blueberries had the lowest impact on human health, the economy and the environment in comparison. In, I also reflected on the potential of the LCA ReCiPe 2016 method (Huijbregts et al., 2017) as a tool to quantify the social-ecological impact of a system within the telecoupling framework. In the end, I found that LCA impacts are restricted to selected environmental indicators that are converted to high level social, economic and ecological impacts. Therefore the LCA alone does not account for all of the impacts and should be combined with other methods such as surveys and interviews to identify the broader impacts. I addressed this limitation of the LCA by including other impacts of the industry that emerged during interviews were discussed. These impacts include both negative and positive impacts such as creating job opportunities, adding to the tourism industry, and decreasing the aesthetic appeal of scenic tourist routes. In conclusion, the blueberry industry is a well-suited case study to explore the social-ecological drivers and impacts of a commercial superfood industry in Africa using the telecoupling framework, as the production is mainly driven by consumers in faraway places (Europe and Asia).
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    Quantifying the effectiveness of private land conservation areas in preventing losses of natural land cover and biodiversity intactness across South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-12) Shumba, Tafadzwa; Clements, Hayley S.; De Vos, Alta; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Esler, Karen J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Agrisciences. Dept. of Conservation Ecology and Entomology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Global biodiversity conservation targets cannot be achieved by relying on state-owned protected areas (PAs) alone. Private land conservation areas (PLCAs) are one potential complementary conservation strategy. However, despite their increasing extent and recognition, little is known about their effectiveness in conserving biodiversity, or how different environmental and social-ecological factors influence their effectiveness. In South Africa, a long history of conservation on PLCAs and the diverse PLCA models provide an interesting case study to address this knowledge gap. The effectiveness of PLCAs across South Africa, and factors influencing their effectiveness, were thus quantified using losses in natural land cover (NLC) and the biodiversity intactness index (BII) as proxies. NLC was based on 1990 and 2013 national land cover maps, while BII represented a measure of the percentage of major taxa that can persist in an area given different land use scenarios. Points within PLCAs were matched with unprotected control points to test the prediction that if PLCAs offer effective protection, losses in NLC and BII would be significantly lower within their boundaries in comparison to unprotected controls exposed to similar conditions. NLC and BII losses were then compared across different types of PLCAs, with the hypothesis that legally protected PLCAs would be more effective than the informal ones. Of particular interest was also how different factors influenced the effectiveness of PLCAs in preventing losses of NLC and BII. In that regard accessibility (distance to road, distance to town, elevation and slope), rainfall, age and size of PLCAs were considered as explanatory variables. There were significant differences in losses in NLC and BII between PLCAs and matched unprotected areas. PLCAs lost 3% NLC and 2% BII between 1990 and 2013, while unprotected areas lost 6% NLC and 4% BII. These findings indicate the relative effectiveness of PLCAs, and provide insight into the implications of NLC loss on biodiversity intactness, thus advancing standard approaches for quantifying PA effectiveness. There were also significant differences in losses of NLC and BII between different types of PLCAs. However, contrary to the hypothesis, effectiveness did not depend on legal protection, as informal PLCAs were relatively more effective than some of the formally protected ones. NLC and BII losses were likely to occur at points within PLCAs that were closer to towns, further from roads, with low elevation, gentle slopes, within small and old PLCAs, and with low rainfall. This supports research on state-owned PAs, in which highly accessible areas were shown to be less effective due to higher human pressure. This study provides evidence that PLCAs are relatively effective, which is highly relevant given current discussions around their inclusion towards biodiversity targets. The study also highlights how different factors influence the effectiveness of PLCAs, which has important implications on where best to establish future PLCAs and how different management strategies and policies can be better placed to facilitate biodiversity conservation within PLCAs. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge about PLCAs as a complementary biodiversity conservation strategy worth considering, which future studies can build upon.
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    Understanding social-ecological regime shifts : the case of woody encroachment in South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Luvuno, Linda; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Esler, Karen J.; Stevens, Nicola; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Agrisciences. Dept. of Conservation Ecology and Entomology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Humanity has been very successful in modifying the planet to meet the demands of a rapidly growing human population. As human activities have grown in magnitude, they have become increasingly interlinked with ecosystem dynamics, creating social-ecological systems (SES). Increased human impacts on ecosystems are also leading to an increased occurrence of regime shifts: large, persistent changes in the structure and function of ecosystems and SES that often have substantive impacts on the suite of ecosystem services provided by these systems, and on the well-being of people who live in them. As global changes accelerate, better understanding the drivers, impacts and risks of regime shifts has become a key need. This knowledge has important implications for the formulation of management strategies that aim to either maintain existing desirable regimes, restore previous regimes where a regime shift has occurred, or facilitate transformation to new regimes in the novel planetary conditions we face. A prevalent regime shift in savannas worldwide is woody encroachment. Woody encroachment is a shift from a grassy savanna to a persistently woody savanna, and has direct implications for a variety of ecosystem services such as livestock grazing, and people’s livelihoods that depend on these services. Much of the work on woody encroachment has focused on the direct drivers of the process, such as the role of fire or grazing in inhibiting or promoting encroachment. However, less is understood about how underlying social processes may impact these drivers, how ecological changes may feedback to affect some of these underlying social processes, how to monitor woody encroachment as a regime shift and how encroachment impacts ecosystem services and human well-being. This dissertation consists of four research chapters in journal format. The first is a synthesis of the ecological drivers and the social processes and drivers of woody encroachment based on the published literature, synthesized using causal loop diagrams and a published regime shift analysis framework. The remainder of the papers focus on woody encroachment in the Hlabisa district of South Africa. The second paper used Landsat TM imagery to quantify the extent of woody encroachment from 1990 to 2016 under contrasting land uses, specifically state-owned conservation land and communal land largely used for subsistence agriculture. The third paper builds on paper 2 and used spatial autocorrelation and the sequential t-tests analysis for regime shifts (STARS) to explore whether the changes observed in the remote sensing data conform to the statistical properties of a regime shift. The fourth paper used semi-structured interviews to investigate how different land users in the Hlabisa area (state conservation game reserve, private game reserves and local communities) are impacted by woody encroachment. Paper 1 provides a broader social-ecological understanding of woody encroachment. This review highlighted the link between increased human populations (locally and globally) and woody encroachment, and suggests key management options based on the key feedback loops identified. Paper 2 and 3 highlight the value of multi-temporal remote sensing data to monitor the extent of woody encroachment and collect time series data that could be used in the detection of regime shifts and early warning indicator of these shifts. Paper 2 found that Hlabisa experienced significant increases in tree cover between 1990 and 2016, under both the conservation and communal land uses, suggesting that the changes may be largely driven by global drivers rather than local land use practices. Paper 3 shows that these tree cover changes constituted a regime shift, confirmed through the results of STARS and spatial autocorrelation. This paper also suggests that these approaches offer a method that could be used to monitor woody encroachment regime shifts. Paper 4 reveals that all interviewed land users perceived woody encroachment to be increasing in the area. Community members and private game reserve managers mostly reported negative impacts of woody encroachment, with mixed reports from the state reserve managers. This paper also showed that private reserve managers are the most active in undertaking actions to counter encroachment. This research can inform policy and management practices. The dissertation emphasises the importance of understanding the social and ecological interactions that underlie woody encroachment, including the worldviews of land users and managers. With the looming impacts of global warming, and possible technological advances that can change how people live and view the systems in which they live, it is important for SES managers to adopt a complex adaptive systems approach that considers possible feedbacks, drivers at local to global scales, approaching system thresholds, livelihood impacts, as well as the potential for novel planetary conditions.