Mpumalanga Biodiversity Conservation Plan Handbook - bgis-sanbi

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N VEGETATION TYPES LEGEND FIGURE 3.1: Distribution of three biomes and 68 vegetation types in Mpumalanga. CHAPTER 3 - MPUMALANGA’S ECOSYSTEMS BIOMES BIOMES Forest Grassland Savanna 13 ECOSYSTEMS
MPUMALANGA BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION PLAN HANDBOOK 14 Painted reed frog Hyperolius viridiflavus Amphibians––frogs and toads––comprise about 130 species in South Africa. Many of them play a crucial role in the control of a variety of insects including mosquitoes. In recent years numbers of amphibians are believed to have decreased drastically. The reason for the decline is uncertain but it is believed to be largely a result of climate change and increased exposure to ultra violet radiation. 3.2 VEGETATION TYPES Vegetation types provide a good representation of terrestrial biodiversity because most animals, birds, insects and other organisms are associated with particular vegetation types (Rouget et al. 2004). In 2005 SANBI produced an extensively revised vegetation map for South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland (Mucina et al. 2005), with 441 vegetation types. Each vegetation type in the South African vegetation map has a biodiversity target set by the National Spatial Biodiversity Assessment. This vegetation map, with minor refinements, was used to define 68 vegetation types for Mpumalanga, shown in Figure 3.1. With vegetation types defined and mapped, it is possible to assess their ecosystem status. Ecosystem status reflects the ecosystem’s ability to function naturally, at a landscape scale and in the long term. The single biggest cause of loss of biodiversity in South Africa is the loss and degradation of natural habitat. As the natural habitat in an ecosystem is reduced and degraded, its ability to persist is compromised. The degradation process is characterised by: loss of ability to deliver ecosystem services; loss of biodiversity, including local species extinctions; and irreversible damage to ecological processes. All these combine, eventually leading to ecological collapse (Rouget et al. 2004). LISTING OF THREATENED ECOSYSTEMS IN TERMS OF THE BIODIVERSITY ACT The Biodiversity Act provides for listing threatened and protected ecosystems as follows: 52 (1) (a) The Minister may . . . publish a national list of threatened ecosystems in need of protection. (b) An MEC for environmental affairs may . . . similarly publish a provincial list of threatened ecosystems. 52 (2) The following categories of threatened ecosystems may be listed in terms of subsection (1): ‘Critically endangered’ ecosystems – that have undergone severe ecological degradation and are at an extremely high risk of irreversible transformation; ‘Endangered’, or ‘vulnerable’ ecosystems – being categories of reduced degradation and risk, each less than the previous category above; ‘Protected’ ecosystems – being ecosystems that are not threatened but nevertheless are worthy of special protection. NOTE: DEAT and SANBI are in the process of developing criteria for identifying and listing threatened and protected ecosystems. Systematic biodiversity plans such as the MBCP will provide an important basis for identifying these ecosystems. The purpose of defining vegetation types in terms of their ecosystem status is to identify ecosystems at risk. The ecosystem status categories are similar to those used by the IUCN for species: Critically Endangered (CR), Endangered (EN), and Vulnerable (VU). These categories are also used in the National Spatial Biodiversity Assessment (Driver et al. 2005). A vegetation type is allocated an ecosystem status based on the proportion of its original natural M P U M A L A N G A habitat that remains. The classification system and categories used here are illustrated in Biodiversity Figure 3.2. In the MBCP analysis the endangered category is split in two in order to identify those ecosystems closer to critically endangered status. CONSERVATION PLAN HANDBOOK
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