SAEON student to develop sustainability indicators for Cape Floristic Region

View of the core zone of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve with the buffer zone in the distance (Photo by Tessa Oliver) The Biosphere project team. From left: Dr Andrew Knight - supervisor, Jaco Venter - SAEON student, Alison Dehrman - co-ordinator for the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve Company and Ruida Stanfliet - CapeNature Biosphere advisor (Photo by Dr Nicky Allsopp)

SAEON is co-funding Jaco Venter — an MSc student in the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University — to develop sustainability indicators for two Western Cape Biosphere reserves.

SAEON’s objective is to see if high-level indicators such as the ones to be developed in this project can be used to monitor global change more generally.

Biosphere reserves aim to promote and demonstrate a balanced relationship between humans and the biosphere towards achieving a sustainable living environment. Unlike many other conservation areas biosphere reserves do not focus exclusively on the conservation area, but aim to ensure conservation and sustainable development on a regional or landscape scale.

The landscape is divided into a core area (high conservation), and buffer and transition zones which promote sustainable human activities. Land use intensifies as one moves from the buffer into the transition zone where urban and other cultural landscapes may occur. Venter intends examining both the terrestrial and marine environment from this perspective.

Venter will be working collaboratively with local stakeholders to develop appropriate sustainability indicators for the Kogelberg and Cape West Coast Biosphere Reserves. Sustainability indicators provide a measure of progress towards ensuring that the various capitals comprising the biosphere reserves (natural, human, social, financial) are managed in an integrated way to ensure their persistence and enhancement in the long term. The indicators should be sensitive enough to detect early signs of reduced sustainability, but robust enough to cope with natural variability or noise.

A practical number of relevant and accessible indicators will be developed to inform and measure management progress towards achieving sustainability for the biosphere core, buffer and transition zones.

Venter worked previously on various conservation projects including being coordinator on the Greater Cederberg Biodiversity Corridor and technical advisor to CapeNature.