Animal Diversity and Systems II Vertebrates (BCB 221)

Bdc 332: Conservation Planning– 2014

Biodiversity and Conservation Biology department, UWC
Dr Rich Knight; Tel: 9593740;
WEEK / DAY / LECTURE / PRACTICAL
1 / 8-Sep-14 / Mon / Conservation: Non-equilibrium
1 / 9-Sep-14 / Tue / Biomes, Eco-regions, Hotspots / Global Classification Systems
1 / 11-Sep-14 / Thu / IUCN species and Habitat Systems / IDRISI how to produce a Landcover classification
1 / 12-Sep-14 / Fri / Completion of Digital Stories
2 / 15-Sep-14 / Mon / Habitat Loss & Fragmentation
2 / 16-Sep-14 / Tue / Introduction to South African Vegetation Maps and what data is needed. / Data Sheets for SA examined. Students to make BGIS accounts.
2 /
18-Sep-14 / Thu / Second Life Film presentations / Felix Film Awards
Loaded Locally
2 / 19-Sep-14 / Fri / Reserve Design Principles / Will use Second Life to do an exercise
3 / 22-Sep-14 / Mon / Reserves & Resources
3 / 23-Sep-14 / Tue / SA Biomes and Vegetation types and maps / BGIS – List vegetation types for Municipality and download and extracting using ArcView.
HANDOUT Take-home test
3 / 24-Sep-14 / Wed / HERITAGE DAY
3 / 25-Sep-14 / Thu / Iziko Museum for film review / ESS Third Year Films
3 / 26-Sep-14 / Fri / Getting South African
Protected Areas by Municipality / BGIS List of Protected Areas and extract using ArcView
4 / 29-Sep-14 / Mon / Biodiversity Impact Assessment
4 / 30-Sep-14 / Tue / What are Bioregional plans?
Develop Ecosystem status based on Land Cover and vegetation map / Remaining vegetation to be extracted from the original vegetation using ArcView for their municipality
4 / 2-Oct-14 / Thu / Overstrand developing a Landuse Map using IDRISI / Students will attempt to prepare their own classification using Fused datasets
4 / 3-Oct-14 / Fri / Biodiversity Summaries calculated from the national maps and compared to their own municipal calculations / SUBMIT TAKE-HOME TEST
5 / 6-Oct-14 / Mon / Biodiversity Offsets
5 / 7-Oct-14 / Tue / Conservation Plans for their Municipality / Using BGIS to look at the overall conservation plan (identifying suitable attribute fields) and use the planning documents and metadata to refine.
5 / 9-Oct-14 / Thu / Using of BGIS – and Introduction to Landuse Decision Support / Use of “Area of Interest” and examine all relevant layers w.r.t and identified development
5 / 10-Oct-14 / Fri / ProposedField trip (Monitoring and Restoring Biodiversity)
6 / 13-Oct-14 / Mon / Making Second Life Skyboxes
6 / 14-Oct-14 / Tue / LUDS report feedback in preparation for World Food Day / Six minutes to present what they are going to show on Thursday
6 / 16-Oct-14 / Thu / World Food Day / Second Life Ambassadors for CoE Food Security
6 / 17-Oct-14 / Fri / Introduction to Systematic Conservation Programs Marxan/CLUZ / HAND-IN CONSERVATION REPORT
7 / 20-Oct-14 / Mon / Cape Town’s Protected Area Network
7 / 21-Oct-14 / Tue / Marzan/CLUZ Practical 1
7 / 23-Oct-14 / Thu / Marzan/CLUZ Practical 2
7 / 24-Oct-14 / Fri / HANDOVER WEBLOGS / Ensure you printout a hard copy of all your weblog reflections and submit.

Module description:

Illustrate the application of the following:

concepts such as South African vegetation types and biomes; disturbance ecology; fragmentation and use of corridors for developing biodiversity networks; Non-equilibrium ecosystem dynamics (chaos models; state and transition models and tipping points); Biodiversity Impact Assessments; Bioregional Planning which is based on a Systematic Biodiversity Plan and Critical Biodiversity Areas; Restoration Ecology; environmental monitoring.

Main outcomes:

Prepare management reports reflecting the required structures for a Bio-regional plan, a Biodiversity Impact Assessment, and a Biodiversity Offset alternative;

Engage with the practical components and take responsibility for organising and managing the workload for completing the conservation case study;

Analyse data using a personal computer and confidently present their analysis orally to an audience.

LecturesBCB: Monday: 08:30; Thursday: 9:40; Friday: 08:30

Practicals:BCB: Tuesday 14:00 – 16:30, Thursday 10:40 – 13:00

Lecture venues: All lectures to be held in the BCB labs, 5thth floor, Core 2, New Life Sciences building

Evaluation:

Conservation Planning Counts (50% of BDC332)

Year mark = Practical mark based on a Conservation Presentation for a Municipality with report (25%) + Blog Reflections (25%) + Take-home Test (50%)

Theory mark = Take Home Test

Practical Mark = Conservation Planning Report plus Blog Reflections

Year Mark = 60-% and Exam Mark = 40%

Examination Two Papers: Paper 1 theory covering all material in Landscape Ecology and Conservation Planning. Paper 2 an Practical paper requiring using of the computers in the 5th Floor BCB computer lab. Both exams are three hours in length.

Dates for Submission (note times!)

18 September / 9h00 all presentations must be loaded onto the Lecture into desktop folder “Felix Film Awards”
19 September / 17h00 All films (plus hard copies of digital stories and full accreditation ) must be submitted onto the YouTube account name carboncampus password dolphin@123 – Your film cannot be marked if it is not loaded onto this YouTube channel – please note if you use copyright material (music or images) and there is a dispute your video material will be deleted from the YouTube and we risk losing our carboncampus account and the Qarbon Qampus channel!!!!!!
23 September / Take home test handed out in class (= theoretical mark = 50% of term mark)
3 October / 17h00 Hard copies of take-home test handed in
14 October / 14h00 LUDS and Conservation Project Verbal feedback (counts 20% of conservation project)
17 October / 17h00 Submit hardcopy 2000 Municipal Conservation Planning Report (60%) and the SLURL for your Skybox that you presented to World Food Day.
24 October / 9h00 completion of ALL weblog reflections submitted onto the Course Weblog and a hard copy submitted (so we don’t have to search for your postings).
ALL ASSIGNMENTS must be clearly labelled with the assignment name, your name and your student assignment.

Web Resources (Main Portals only)

(course material loaded here including Power Point Lectures)

(Main source of information for your conservation reports)

(useful resource for defining terms and understanding certain procedures)

(Course weblog … to book your municipality and to publish your FIVE web blog reflections).

Second Life URL for Maldives course site

Course Description

•This course will introduce you to some of the basic concepts surrounding conservation biology and planning. This is an extensive field, and there is a considerable amount of theory to get under your belt, so we will have to move fairly quickly through the content. For the first couple of weeks we will look at issues causing loss of biodiversity – for some of you this is revision. We will consider some global issues, and look at reserve design and management, as well as the legal framework through which conservation is run within South Africa. We will also touch on sustainable development and the concept of sustainability, consider community interactions with conservation, and examine ecological restoration and environmental monitoring.

•Each week you will be presented with a reading list of at least two papers, with additional recommended papers. The papers will be included in tests and exams, and the additional texts will flesh out your understanding of the subject, so you should do your best to read as much of the additional reading as possible. The final coursework assessment will include four tests and two assignments which will be administered through the course, as well as your practical write-ups.

•The practical programme will progress mostly independently from the lectures. This programme will focus on the modern tools used for conservation planning on a landscape level. The primary theme of the practical programme is “Conservation Planning in Practice”, and we will consider both local and international examples. We will cover as much of the following as time allows:

•Constructing surrogate data for conservation planning. When carrying out conservation planning it is rare to have sufficient biological data to make an informed decision. Hence, planners need to model or simulate this data on the basis of some field sampling.

•Conservation resources. There are a large number of available resources for conservation planning on various scales in South Africa, primarily prepared by the South African National Biodiversity Institute and use the and the

•Conservation planning software. Deciding which areas are a conservation priority is a very challenging process: when there is too little data it can be compared with blind guesswork, but when there is sufficient data it becomes hard for a person to assimilate it all and to make sense of conflicting priorities. Conservation planning software such as C-Plan and Marxan/CLUZ allows a planner to attempt to look at different theoretical solutions and to weigh priorities in varying manners to attempt to find this optimal solution. We will briefly look at such programs in order to understand how it works.

•NEMA. We will briefly examine the NEMA legislation, a comparison of environmental impact assessment and basic assessment reports, and the use of incentives (offsets) to improve biodiversity conservation measures.

Weblog Reflections (25%)

Topic 1: Collecting Data for the National Vegetation Database and the status of mapping vegetation in South Africa.

Topic 2: What is conservation planning: A literature review and reflections on its development?

Topic 3: Preparing a Landcover Map for the Overstrand Municipality (Hermanus Area): Methods, results and interpretations. Put this into the context of the global land cover mapping that has been undertaken and that you have used in your Landscape Ecology course.

Topic 4: Is Cape Town’s Conservation Plan scientifically rigourous and given the need for economic development realistic in terms of its conservation goals?

Topic 5: Reflections on the use of Second Life in education generally and landscape ecology and conservation planning specifically.