Mpumalanga Biodiversity Conservation Plan Handbook - bgis-sanbi

MPUMALANGA BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION PLAN HANDBOOK
A measure of the Conservation Importance of each PA was determined by calculating the proportion of all planning units within
the PA with an irreplaceability value of greater than 50%. This provided a simple method for quantifying a PA’s contribution to
meeting biodiversity targets. Conservation Importance was determined for the entire PA network, for Group 1 vs. Group 2 vs.
Group 3 areas, for each of the 12 types of PA, and finally for each individual protected area in the Province (see Appendix 3).
Other information may be obtained, such as a PA’s representativeness and the number of features whose targets are fully
achieved within it. Representativeness indicates the number of biodiversity features found within the PA, while target achievement
indicates the number of known biodiversity features, that have 100% of their targets met within that PA alone. By
compiling all this information, a quantified profile is produced for each of the Province’s 160 protected areas, indicating its size,
status, conservation importance, sum of target achievement as well as other statistics.
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a) b)
c) d)
FIGURE 5.2: a) C-Plan derived irreplaceability map of
Mpumalanga with b) Group 1 conservation areas c) Group
2 conservation areas and d) Group 3 conservation areas
overlaid. The red areas indicate those areas that must be
conserved if biodiversity targets are to be met. Any planning
unit with an irreplaceability score >0.5 (depicted as orange,
maroon, or red on the map) was deemed an ‘important’ site
for meeting biodiversity targets.
LEGEND