UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY
PROPOSAL FOR PDF B FUNDING
Country South Africa
Focal Area Biological Diversity, with relevance to the cross cutting theme of land degradation
Strategic Priority Strategic Priority 1: Catalyzing sustainability for protected area systems
Operational Programme OP 2: Coastal, marine and freshwater ecosystems
Project Title Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity on The South African Wild Coast
PIMS 1767
Duration PDF B 12 months
Full Project 5 Years
Funding Requested
PDF B US $ 340,000 GEF
US $55 000 from European Union
US $133 000 from DEA&T
US $528,000 Total
Full Project (Estimates)
US $ 15 million - Total
US $ 5- million - GEF
US $ 10 million in co-financing from DEAT, DEAET, DWAF, NRA
Requesting Agency UNDP
Executing Agency Department for Environment and Tourism (DEAT)
Country Eligibility South Africa Ratified the CBD in 1997
Block A Grant Awarded Not requested Concept Approved (GEF Pipeline May 17: 2001)
Council Submission November 2004
SUMMARY
1. The Wild Coast, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, contains a rich and globally significant storehouse of biodiversity. Acclaimed for its species richness, habitat diversity and biological distinctiveness, it has been identified as one of WWF International’s Global 200 Ecoregions of global significance, and is an important centre of endemism. The region houses several globally important coastal and marine ecosystems, including mangrove forests and the Maputaland-Pondoland coastal forest.
2. Although South Africa has made great efforts in conserving biodiversity from human induced threats in recent years, it faces numerous challenges. Many of its globally important habitats are home to poor communities who rely on natural resources to sustain their livelihoods and further action is needed to integrate biodiversity conservation efforts into sustainable development initiatives designed to abate poverty.
3. The proposed project will assess, plan and implement a strategy for conservation and sustainable land use management of the Wild Coast, which will strengthen the sustainable development initiatives underway in the region whilst at the same time protecting globally important biodiversity. Interventions will support the development and implementation of an integrated landuse plan for the Wild Coast, aimed at nesting biodiversity conservation objectives into the regional sustainable development framework. The land use plan would provide for the management of a mosaic of land uses, focusing on a network of protected areas as nuclei for biodiversity conservation allowing for the pursuit of conservation compatible livelihoods, and development zones, managed to mitigate negative environmental externalities. GEF funding will be drawn upon to finance the incremental costs of operationalising this representative protected area network, through various co-management arrangements and removing barriers to the sustainable utilization of biological resources. These activities will be supported by capacity development initiatives at the provincial, local government and community levels in support of the integrated programme. Institutional arrangements will be fine-tuned to assure effective delivery of the programme. An accompanying monitoring and evaluation programme will provide information to facilitate adaptive management.
4. The project is eligible under the GEF Strategic Priority 1 ‘Catalyzing sustainability for protected area systems’ and, in particular, the sub activity; ‘to improve opportunities for sustainable use, benefit sharing and broad stakeholder participation among communities – indigenous groups and private sector’. South Africa is currently seeking alternative ways to expand the area under its protected area estate as the traditional purchase of land for the estate from private land owners cannot continue indefinitely. New approaches are necessary; in particular, there is a need to pursue conservation on communal lands, many of which are important repositories of biodiversity. However there is a gap in knowledge and readily demonstrable models to assist this process. This project will be instrumental in providing lessons for establishing non traditional protected areas on communal lands. Workable and cost effective models for co-management of such areas will be developed and adapted to this end. Replication will be encouraged across the protected area network through the distillation and dissemination of best practice and lessons to conservation authorities and through policy instruments thereby contributing to a strengthened national system of protected areas.
Links to national priorities, action plans and programs
5. The Government of South Africa is committed to protecting biodiversity. The Constitution of South Africa guarantees the right to a healthy environment and environmental protection through conservation, pollution control and sustainable development. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) published a White Paper on Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of South Africa’s Biological Diversity in 1997 and is in the process of developing the National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan (with funding sourced through GEF/ UNDP). The country has ratified several international treaties, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ramsar Convention, World Heritage Convention, and Convention on International Trade with Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna.
6. The Wild Coast has been identified as a national conservation priority as reflected in the prioritization framework for GEF investment, prepared by the GEF Operational Focal Point. It is also identified as a national priority in the Subsistence Fishing Policy. The Pondoland area, at the heart of the Wild Coast, is identified as a national priority in the Bioregional Approach/Strategy to South Africa’s Protected Areas which forms part of DEATS’s Environmental Management Plan (Government Gazette no 23232, vol 441, 2002). The project also reflects a number of new policy initiatives, codified through legislative reforms – i.e: National Environmental Management; Biodiversity and Protected Areas Bills and National Environment Management Act amendments.
Furthermore, the project specifically addresses the following national policies and programmes:
· National Environmental Management Act (No 107 of 1998)
· Marine Living Resources Act (1998)
· National Water Act (No.36 of 1998): DWAF is in the process of forming Catchment Management Agencies that are tasked, among others with developing management strategies for protection, conservation and control of water resources.
· White Paper on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s Biological Diversity, Dept of Environmental Affairs & Tourism (July 1997)
· White Paper for Sustainable Coastal Development in South Africa, DEA&T (April 2000)
· White Paper Development & Promotion of Tourism in South Africa, DEA&T (June 1996)
· Policy on subsistence fishing in South Africa, DEA&T (1999)
The project has alignment with a number of provincial plans and programmes such as the Sustainable Coastal Livelihoods Programme and the Eastern Cape Estuaries Management Project. The province is also in the process of developing provincial environmental legislation which will be of direct relevance.
7. The project is being proposed by the Eastern Cape Department of Economic Affairs, Environment and Tourism (DEAET) through the Eastern Cape Tourism Board (ECTB). The Project will seek to integrate conservation objectives into two sustainable development initiatives in the area: the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) and the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP). The Eastern Cape DEAET established the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative (SDI) in conjunction with the National Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism. The SDI is nationally driven and constitutes one of the mechanisms for engendering poverty alleviation nationally. Under the SDI a tourism development plan for the Wild Coast has been developed and gazetted by the Eastern Cape government. This constitutes a zonal plan allowing for different forms of development along the Wild Coast. The initiative is being assisted by the European Union Support Programme to the Wild Coast SDI. This is a community-based enterprise programme which aims to improve the livelihoods of disadvantaged communities within the Wild Coast through the development of tourism based enterprises and services. The Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme aims to take a well co-ordinated, bottom up approach to rural local economic development with the objective of ensuring by the year 2010 that rural areas have attained the internal capacity for integrated and sustainable development. Under the ISRDP and the Local Municipalities Planning Act, District Municipalities have been made responsible for producing and implementing Integrated Development Plans (IDP’s). There are two District Municipalities covering the Wild Coast; O.R. Tambo and Amatola, encompassing a number of local councils. While this programme will make a considerable contribution to sustainable development it will, however, not significantly improve biodiversity conservation in the Wild Coast and GEF funding assistance is urgently required to ensure that biodiversity conservation is mainstreamed into this poverty alleviation mechanism.
PROJECT CONTEXT
Global Significance of Biodiversity
8. The Wild Coast is part of the Eastern Cape Province, which stretches 250Km from the Kei River in the south, to the Umtamvuna River in the north. The topography of the region is very diverse, consisting of dunes along the coast, low-lying plains, mountain ranges and series of rugged terraces incised by deep river valleys. The landscape of the region was shaped by the rifting and break-up of east and west Gondwanaland and subsequent uplift and erosion cycles. These processes formed the Great Escarpment, which receded from the coast after the establishment of an effective drainage system. To the South of Port St. Johns the land is gently undulating, with interspersed forest and grassland, with long sandy beaches interspersed with rocky points. This region is densely populated, with people living close to the shore. North of Port St Johns the shores are mostly rocky, with a high platform, incised by larger rivers, and spectacular waterfalls, created by smaller streams falling straight down to the sea. This coastal platform is derived from sandstone and is of very low nutrient status. Therefore, it is largely unsuitable for agriculture and only good for grazing in summer. The majority of local inhabitants live further inland.
9. The Wild Coast has been identified as one of WWF International’s Global 200 Ecoregions of global significance. Davis et al. (1974) has identified a Centre of Plant Endemism in the region, known as the Pondo Land Centre, within the Maputaland-Pondoland Endemic Region, along the sandstone belt north of Port St Johns. This is a principal centre of plant diversity in Southern Africa and one of only 235 sites on Earth recognised as being of global importance to floral biodiversity (Davis et al., 1994). Although limited surveys have been carried out, Davis et al. (1974) recorded more than 130 endemic vascular plants, including one monotipic family and six monotipic genera, with a remarkable 34 endemic tree species (see initial list in Annex 5). In addition to interesting coastal forests, at least 80 grassland associated endemics have been recorded (van Wyk 1990). In the Umtamvuna Nature Reserve, only 3,260 ha in extent, more than 1300 vascular plant species have been found; this is approximately the same number of plant species as the whole of the Kruger National Park, and even the whole of Great Britain.
10. The coastal region consists mainly of grassland with a few isolated forest patches confined chiefly to protected riverine gorges. Forest patches are more extensive and exposed in the south, particularly on the Karoo sediments of the Egossa Interval. They are exceptionally rich floristically and different plant communities are frequently found within single forest stands. Many of these forest areas are heavily utilized for firewood, medicinal barks and poles for domestic use. The Pondoland Coastal Plateau Sourveld, the smallest of the 70 veld types distinguished by Acocks (1953) in South Africa, is naturally floristically very rich, but management practices of the rural population have degraded most of the grasslands leading to a loss of floristic diversity and an increase in the unpalatable grass Aristida junciformis.
11. The region supports a rich marine environment. Turpie et al (2000) identified the Wild Coast and KwaZulu-Natal South Coast together as a separate marine biogeographic province, with a high number of endemic species. Southern Africa has a total of 227 endemic coastal fish species, with the number reaching a peak in the Eastern Cape. The most important endemics are for the three families the Clinidae (klipfishes), the Gobidae (gobies) and the Sparidae (seabreams e.g. stumpnoses, red steenbrass). Nearly 80% of the world’s seabream species occur in South African waters, half of them endemics. The Wild Coast is central to their distribution, but recent findings place most of them in the critically overexploited category (Mann 2000). Among marine invertebrates there is also a unique transition zone along the Wild Coast between East London and Durban which contains a high number of endemic species (Emanuel et al 1992).
12. The Wild Coast is fed by three major catchments (Umzimvubu, Mbashe and Kei Rivers), two medium-sized catchments (Mtata and Mtamvuna Rivers) and nearly 100 minor catchments that stretch no more than 60 km inland. It is these smaller coastal rivers and their estuaries that give the Wild Coast much of its unique character. There has been little research on the freshwater aquatic systems of the Wild Coast, but they are also likely to show important endemism and biodiversity. For example, two new Barbus fish species have recently been discovered. The Wild Coast has the most southerly distribution of mangrove forests, linked to the warm sub-tropical marine currents. There are 16 mangrove forests, covering nearly 300 ha (Ward & Steinke 1982), with the most southerly forest in the Nxaxo River area.
Existing Protected Areas
13. Five Nature Reserves already exist in the Wild Coast; Mkambati is situated on the coast of North-Eastern Pondoland forming one of the anchor nodes of the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative. It covers an area of 7720 ha, bounded by the Mtentu river to the north and the Msikaba river in the south, with approximately 12 km of coastline forming the eastern limit. The Dwesa and Cwebe Nature Reserves form another anchor node of the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative and are located on either side of the estuary of the Mbashe River, and approximately 250 km north-east of East London. Dwesa Nature Reserve is approximately 3500 ha in extent and Cwebe 2200 ha. Hluleka Nature Reserve, located approximately 45 kms. south of Port St. Johns, also forms an anchor project area for the Wild Coast SDI. It has a terrestrial area of 400 hectares. Silaka Nature Reserve is located approximately 4km south of Port St. Johns and is 336 hectares in extent. These reserves, whilst offering some protection to biodiversity, are still under threat and efforts are necessary to improve their management effectiveness by involving local communities. Further details of these Nature Reserves are provided in Annex 2.