State of the Environment Report — biodiversity across the Western Cape in decline

The Western Cape is home to two global biodiversity hotspots, the Cape Floristic Region and the Succulent Karoo, but biodiversity and ecosystem health is declining across the province with about 102,057 hectares of habitat lost over just five years.

These are the findings in the biodiversity chapter of the Western Cape Government 2024 State of the Environment Report, which was released during a media briefing this week.

The report found that the province had experienced an overall worsening in the ecosystem threat status of vegetation types, primarily due to the loss of habitat between 2017 and 2023.

However, there are positive increases in total conservation area, but although the total level of protection is increasing, the authors said that it did not yet apply to all ecosystems with many remaining poorly or not protected at all.

(Image: CapeNature, 2023)

More species are deteriorating in their threat status as opposed to those improving in threat status, especially already threatened species moving into higher threat categories.

The African penguin is one case of this, which last week moved from being categorised as “endangered” to “critically endangered” on the Red List, and is expected to be extinct in the wild within the next 10 years.

Since 2016, up to 64 species were uplisted to more threatened categories on the South African Red List, including 53 plants, nine butterflies and two reptiles.

However, there has been some improvement in the ecosystem protection level of specific vegetation types in the province as a result of the establishment of new protected areas or the expansion of existing ones.

The increase in protection of priority biodiversity areas in the Western Cape Conservation Estate between 2017 and 2023. (Image: CapeNature, 2023)

Active management of invasive alien plant species is also taking place through invasive alien plant programmes being implemented in the province by various entities, but the overall funding available to address this issue was found to be inadequate with invasive alien plant species densities increasing despite alien clearing programmes.

Change in invasive alien plant density in CapeNature protected areas from 2018-2023. (Image: Cape-Nature, 2023).

The report and its findings

Dr. Francini van Staden, project lead of the report and director of sustainability and environmental control at the Western Cape Government, told Daily Maverick that the report was produced every five years, as stipulated by the National Environmental Act.

The first report for the Western Cape Government was produced in 2000. The 2024 report is the document through which the Department of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, will make its decisions over the next five years.

“Even though the picture is looking worse, we do have a population that has expanded significantly in 20 years. We’ve got a lot more going in the socioeconomic context and it’s making the environmental pressures pop faster. Twenty years ago, the economy was different, the population much smaller. We had a lot more wildlands whereas now the human-wildlife interface (interaction between people and wild animals) is popping. The pressures are abrupt, and that’s why we are talking about climate change, smart agriculture and environmental protection,” Van Staden told Daily Maverick.

The state of biodiversity and ecosystem health is tracked in the Western Cape using data on ecosystem threat status, ecosystem protection levels (whether ecosystems are adequately protected or under-protected), species threat status, biodiversity priority areas, habitat degradation and invasive alien species.

Gains, losses and concerns have been noted in this chapter but the overall outlook shows that the biodiversity and ecosystem health is declining in the province. This is being driven by population growth, land degradation and habitat loss, biodiversity crime and climate change.

The key trend is that the impact on Western Cape biodiversity resources due to degradation continues, with safeguarding and restoration efforts not able to mitigate the overall decline.

Ecosystem protection levels in the Western Cape as of March 2023. (Image: CapeNature)

According to the report, this continued loss of natural habitat, particularly in Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBAs) and Ecological Support Areas (ESAs), undermines not only the natural heritage of the province, but livelihoods and quality of life, water security, and resilience in the face of a changing climate.

“It is vital that unlawful habitat destruction in CBAs is stopped with effective action taken against transgressors,” the authors said.

They also said that greater effort is required to mainstream and safeguard biodiversity priorities in all sectors.

“Action must be taken to achieve the GBF 30x30 target; however, without adequate resource allocation, overextended biodiversity management entities within the province are unlikely to meet targets,” the report said.

Terrestrial threatened ecosystems threat status and areas where no natural areas remain. (Image: CapeNature, 2023).

Responses

To address this decline, a multifaceted approach is being undertaken at the international, national, provincial and local levels involving policy implementation, community engagement, ecological restoration, and adaptive strategies to try to foster a sustainable future for biodiversity in the Western Cape.

Some of these are the signing of international treaties; development and implementation of national and provincial legislation, policies, strategies and assessments; the development of local policies, strategies, plans and municipal by-laws; as well as work done by non-government and civil society organisations.

One mechanism is strengthening the province’s ecological infrastructure. Dr Ashley Naidoo, CapeNature CEO, said:

“Economy and environment are now tied… The term you will be hearing more and more from the Department and CapeNature over the next one to five years is ecological infrastructure.”

Naidoo said that was because ecological infrastructure would strengthen the ecosystem services needed by all communities: water, flood protection, disease protection, heat protection, and a healthy and smart agriculture sector.

The Western Cape Government is investing in ecological infrastructure through the Western Cape Ecological Infrastructure Investment Framework (EIIF), but fiscal constraints are proving to be significantly hampering this implementation.

The report breaks this down as follows: to eradicate invasive alien plants from surface water Strategic Water Source Areas within the province would require R10-billion over 30 years.

Applying the same thought process, a total spend of R16.5-billion over 30 years was calculated as the total cost of invasive alien plant eradication in the province.

Unfortunately, due to fiscal constraints, according to the report, the EIIF has not received any additional human resource allocations, and the Western Cape has allocated about R40-million for the 2023/24 financial year as opposed to the about R1.5-billion that would be required in the abovementioned 30-year eradication plan.

But the EIIF continues to be implemented through the Implementation and Monitoring Plan by:

• Continually exploring funding options (both public and private) and making the case for large-scale investment in ecological infrastructure;


• Unlocking funding streams for ecological infrastructure, such as elevating ecological infrastructure as an equivalent to built infrastructure in conventional infrastructure funding streams; and


• Partnering with other government, non-government and corporate partners to explore shared objectives and the facilitation of efforts that progress the EIIF.

DM

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