Browsing by Author "De Vos, Alta"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    The dynamics of proclaimed privately protected areas in South Africa over 83 years
    (Wiley Open Access, 2019) De Vos, Alta; Clements, Hayley S.; Biggs, Duan; Cumming, Graeme S.
    Views that protected area (PA) expansion relies predominantly on land purchased by government are increasingly being challenged. The inclusion of privately owned PAs (PPAs) in national conservation strategies is now commonplace, but little is known about their long-term persistence and how it compares to that of state-owned PAs. We undertook the first long-term assessment of the dynamics of a national system of terrestrial PPAs, assessing its growth, as well as its resilience to downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD). Between 1926 and 2018, 6.2% of all private nature reserves established in South Africa were degazetted, compared to 2.2% of state-owned nature reserves. Privately owned PA growth exceeded that of state-owned PAs. Trends in PA establishment differed between privately owned and state-owned PAs, reflecting different legislative, political, and economic events. Our findings highlight the value of enabling legislative environments to facilitate PPA establishment, and demonstrate the potential of PPAs as a long-term conservation strategy.
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    Effectiveness of private land conservation areas in maintaining natural land cover and biodiversity intactness
    (Elsevier, 2020) Shumba, Tafadzwa; De Vos, Alta; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Esler, Karen J.; Ament, Judith M.; Clements, Hayley S.
    Private land conservation areas (PLCAs) are increasingly looked to for meeting the deficit left by state-owned protected areas in reaching global conservation targets. However, despite the increasing extent and recognition of PLCAs as a complementary conservation strategy, little research has been done to quantify their effectiveness; a critical consideration if they are to be counted towards international biodiversity conservation targets. The long history of PLCAs in South Africa provides an interesting case study to address this knowledge gap. Here, we quantified the effectiveness of South African PLCAs by comparing losses in natural land cover and biodiversity intactness within PLCAs with different levels of protection to that of unprotected control points. Points within PLCAs were matched with unprotected control points to test the prediction that if PLCAs offer effective protection, losses in natural land cover and biodiversity intactness would be significantly lower within their boundaries in comparison to unprotected controls exposed to similar conditions. Consequences of natural land cover loss on biodiversity intactness were thus assessed, thus advancing standard approaches for quantifying effectiveness. Between 1990 and 2013, PLCAs lost significantly less natural land cover (3%) and biodiversity intactness (2%) than matched unprotected areas (6% and 4%, respectively). Of the natural land cover lost within PLCAs, most was converted to cultivated land. Farms can support more species than other land uses (e.g. mines), a likely explanation for why losses in biodiversity intactness were less than losses in natural land cover. Contrary to the predicted pattern, effectiveness did not increase with level of protection; informal PLCAs with no legal protection had comparable natural land cover and biodiversity intactness retention to strictly protected PLCAs, with most losses recorded among PLCAs with moderate protection. This study provides the first national-scale evidence that PLCAs can be an effective mechanism for conserving natural land cover and biodiversity intactness, which is highly relevant given current discussions around their likely long-term biodiversity conservation capacity.
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    Effectiveness of private land conservation areas in maintaining natural land cover and biodiversity intactness
    (Elsevier, 2020) Shumba, Tafadzwa; De Vos, Alta; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Esler, Karen J.; Ament, Judith M.; Clements, Hayley S.
    Private land conservation areas (PLCAs) are increasingly looked to for meeting the deficit left by state-owned protected areas in reaching global conservation targets. However, despite the increasing extent and recognition of PLCAs as a complementary conservation strategy, little research has been done to quantify their effectiveness; a critical consideration if they are to be counted towards international biodiversity conservation targets. The long history of PLCAs in South Africa provides an interesting case study to address this knowledge gap. Here, we quantified the effectiveness of South African PLCAs by comparing losses in natural land cover and biodiversity intactness within PLCAs with different levels of protection to that of unprotected control points. Points within PLCAs were matched with unprotected control points to test the prediction that if PLCAs offer effective protection, losses in natural land cover and biodiversity intactness would be significantly lower within their boundaries in comparison to unprotected controls exposed to similar conditions. Consequences of natural land cover loss on biodiversity intactness were thus assessed, thus advancing standard approaches for quantifying effectiveness. Between 1990 and 2013, PLCAs lost significantly less natural land cover (3%) and biodiversity intactness (2%) than matched unprotected areas (6% and 4%, respectively). Of the natural land cover lost within PLCAs, most was converted to cultivated land. Farms can support more species than other land uses (e.g. mines), a likely explanation for why losses in biodiversity intactness were less than losses in natural land cover. Contrary to the predicted pattern, effectiveness did not increase with level of protection; informal PLCAs with no legal protection had comparable natural land cover and biodiversity intactness retention to strictly protected PLCAs, with most losses recorded among PLCAs with moderate protection. This study provides the first national-scale evidence that PLCAs can be an effective mechanism for conserving natural land cover and biodiversity intactness, which is highly relevant given current discussions around their likely long-term biodiversity conservation capacity.
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    Impacts of a trophy hunting ban on private land conservation in South African biodiversity hotspots
    (Wiley, 2020-04-22) Parker, Kim; De Vos, Alta; Clements, Hayley S.; Biggs, Duan; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-
    Private land conservation areas (PLCAs) have become critical for achieving global conservation goals, but we lack understanding of how and when these areas respond to global pressures and opportunities. In southern Africa, where many PLCAs rely on trophy hunting as an income-generating strategy, a potential ban on trophy hunting locally or abroad holds unknown consequences for the future conservation of these lands. In this study, we investigate the consequences of a potential trophy hunting ban in PLCAs in two biodiversity hotspots in South Africa's Eastern and Western Cape provinces. We used semistructured interviews with PLCA managers and owners to elicit perceived impacts of an internationally imposed trophy hunting ban on conservation activities in PLCAs, and to probe alternative viable land uses. The majority of interviewees believed that both the economic viability of their PLCA and biodiversity would be lost following a hunting ban. Owners would primarily consider transitioning to ecotourism or livestock farming, but these options were constrained by the social-ecological context of their PLCA (e.g., competition with other PLCAs, ecological viability of farming). Our results suggest that a trophy hunting ban may have many unintended consequences for biodiversity conservation, national economies, and the livelihoods of PLCA owners and employees. Along with similar social-ecological studies in other areas and contexts, our work can inform policy decisions around global trophy hunting regulation.
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    The influence of biophysical and socio-economic factors on the effectiveness of private land conservation areas in preventing natural land cover loss across South Africa
    (Elsevier B.V., 2021-06-09) Shumba, Tafadzwa; De Vos, Alta; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Esler, Karen J.; Clements, Hayley S.
    There is increasing interest in the potential of private land conservation areas (PLCAs) as a complementary biodiversity conservation strategy to state-owned protected areas. However, there is limited understanding of how the diverse social-ecological contexts of PLCAs influence their effectiveness in conserving biodiversity. Here, we investigated how the effectiveness of South African PLCAs in conserving biodiversity varied across social-ecological contexts, using natural land cover as a proxy. Social-ecological contexts were represented by biophysical and legal factors (distance to towns and roads, elevation, slope, terrain ruggedness, rainfall, PLCA size, distance to state-owned national parks, and presence of legal protection) and, for a subset of commercially-operated PLCAs, management factors (adopted business model, and profitability). Biophysical and legal contextual factors had low explanatory power in the best model for the nationwide analysis (n = 5121 PLCAs). For a subset of PLCAs (n = 72) we found that effectiveness depended on the strategy they adopted to generate an income, as opposed to the amount of income itself. PLCAs that attracted high volumes of visitors to small properties to view charismatic “Big 5” wildlife were less effective in conserving natural land cover than larger, more exclusive “Big 5” PLCAs and those focused on hunting. Overall, site-specific management factors were better at explaining the effectiveness of PLCAs than biophysical factors. Our findings indicate that conservation practitioners and policy makers need to recognise the diverse goals, motivations and management models of PLCAs when considering how to support them in conserving biodiversity. Future studies could explore whether these trends hold for other proxies of biodiversity conservation, beyond land cover change.
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    Social-ecological systems as complex adaptive systems : organizing principles for advancing research methods and approaches
    (Resilience Alliance, 2018) Preiser, Rika; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; De Vos, Alta; Folke, Carl
    The study of social-ecological systems (SES) has been significantly shaped by insights from research on complex adaptive systems (CAS). We offer a brief overview of the conceptual integration of CAS research and its implications for the advancement of SES studies and methods. We propose a conceptual typology of six organizing principles of CAS based on a comparison of leading scholars’ classifications of CAS features and properties. This typology clusters together similar underlying organizing principles of the features and attributes of CAS, and serves as a heuristic framework for identifying methods and approaches that account for the key features of SES. These principles can help identify appropriate methods and approaches for studying SES. We discuss three main implications of studying and engaging with SES as CAS. First, there needs to be a shift in focus when studying the dynamics and interactions in SES, to better capture the nature of the organizing principles that characterize SES behavior. Second, realizing that the nature of the intertwined social-ecological relations is complex has real consequences for how we choose methods and practical approaches for observing and studying SES interactions. Third, engagement with SES as CAS poses normative challenges for problem-oriented researchers and practitioners taking on real-world challenges.