New SAEON Fynbos Node gears up for action

In February Dr Nicky Allsopp, Manager of the newly established SAEON Fynbos Node attended a workshop of the Evidence-Based Policy Biosoc project “Validity of scientific knowledge and public intervention: the case of agriculture in sustainable development”.

The project, which is funded by the French National Association of Research (ANR), examines how scientific evidence is used by policy makers in three countries - France, Brazil and South Africa - when developing policy around the interface of agriculture and biodiversity. 

Results show that major constraints face policy developers in accessing and reviewing evidence systematically.  Initiatives such as SAEON show commitment in South Africa to managing data around environmental change so that policy can be supported by evidence as well as social and political considerations.

The workshop, which was held in France, also offered the opportunity to discuss environmental observation with one of the participants of the Evidence-Based Policy project, Jacques Baudry, who is coordinator of the French LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) network. 

A major feature of the French LTER programme is the emphasis on economic and political drivers of land use and how these interact with climate change to influence biodiversity.  The French LTER teams have chosen landscapes with various types and scales of land use and vegetation cover as their sites for intensive monitoring.

Back in South Africa, the Fynbos Node has been exploring the possibility of relocating the 100 vegetation plots in the southern Peninsula of the Table Mountain National Park initially surveyed in 1966 by Hugh Taylor and resurveyed in 1996 by Sean Privett and Richard Cowling. 

Accurate location of these plots before markers on the ground disappear will allow for future analysis of trends in vegetation.