Grasslands of the World.pdf - Disasters and Conflicts - UNEP

Grasslands of South Africa 93
wool clip was 52 671 t and South Africa produced 25 percent of Africa’s wool
crop. Approximately 80 percent of the South African wool crop is processed
locally to “tops” level, making it suitable for export to the European market.
Beef and mutton marketing has also recently been released from the controlled
marketing environment of the previous regime. In 2000, South Africa’s mutton
production amounted to 114 000 t, most of which was consumed locally.
Landforms and agro-ecological zones
The country has five main physiographic regions, as discussed earlier.
Based on bioclimatic and growth form information, Rutherford and
Westfall (1986) defined six biomes in South Africa . An improvement has been
suggested by Low and Rebelo (1996), who further subdivided the savannah
biome to include the category “Thicket ”, which occurs predominantly in the
river valleys of the eastern and southeastern coastal region (Figure 3.6).
BIOMES
The areas of the various biomes are given in Table 3.6.
Figure 3.6
The biomes of South Africa .
SOURCE: After Rutherford and Westfall, 1986; Low and Rebelo, 1996.
TABLE 3.6
Area occupied by each of the biomes in South Africa (excluding Lesotho and
Swaziland).
Biome Area (km2 ) As a percentage
Grassland 295 233 24.27
Savannah 419 009 34.44
Nama-karoo 297 836 24.48
Succulent Karoo 82 589 6.79
Thicket 41 818 3.44
Fynbos 78 570 6.46
Forest 1 479 0.12
Total 1 216 536 100