The Landmark Foundation is currently contracted in a tender with the Amathole District Municipality to formulate a feasibility study / project concept document for the Amathole Mountain Biosphere Reserve. The idea of this biosphere reserve has been formally promoted, amongst others through the Eastern Cape Provincial Department of Economic Affairs, Environment and Tourism, since the 1990s.
The concept of a biosphere reserve is particularly well suited to the region in question. Of an area that involves in excess of 100 000 hectares, more than a third of the area is already under some form of statutory conservation. Much private and community land is also conservation-worthy and thus suites the concept of a Biosphere reserve well.
The ultimate challenge of establishing a biosphere reserve is to establish systems and structures to enable the conservation of biodiversity patterns and processes, cultural and historical assets and the living landscapes contained in the area of focus, while meeting the material needs and desires of the people that live in the region. The biosphere reserve concept is an attempt to address the sustainable development of an area through a land-use zonation that sets aside areas defined as the core area, the buffer zone and transition areas where different forms of land uses are promoted and tolerated.
Biosphere reserves aim to reconcile apparently conflicting ambitions of the conservation of biological and socio-cultural diversity, while promoting economic and social development. The concepts of Biosphere Reserves originated in the 1960s & 1970s and emanated from the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) Conference on the Conservation and Rational Use of the Biosphere. The conference resulted in the launching of the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, and the promotion of the biosphere reserves grew from this initiative. Biosphere reserves have to meet set criteria and are nominated by governments for admission to UNESCO’s “World Network” on qualification. This is the ultimate objective of the feasibility study, which is to develop a feasibility of establishing, managing and developing a biosphere reserve in the Amathole Mountain Complex.
The core functions as a dedicated conservation area, which is not dominated by human activity and as such is under formal conservation management and monitoring. The Amathole Mountain Biosphere is likely to have several core areas, some linked and some separate.
The buffer zone is clearly delineated and activities permitted augment the conservation objectives of the core areas. It is an area where research, training, education and tourism are likely to be the major activities. A buffer zone may even have non-core conservation activities, like agriculture and forestry, but efforts are made to conserve the natural assets or impacts on the natural assets. Typically ecological restoration and conservation actions could and should be promoted in this zone, and conservation economy developments should be actively explored.
The transition zone is the area where most of the economic activities occur. This is the zone in which most of the communities, farmers and other commercial activities are currently active. In this zone cooperative strategies are to be developed to utilise natural resources sustainably. In the Amathole Mountain Biosphere Reserve this would entail conservancies, community projects, e.g. the commercial utilisation of wattle infestations as a means to control the alien plant problems.
The biosphere must function to effectively conserve the biodiversity and cultural assets of the area, it must provide for economic and social development opportunities that are sustainable, and it must logistically provide for management, educational, research, monitoring and information sharing that enables to conservation estate’s development locally and internationally.
The Biosphere concept has several benefits. Communities will benefit through enhanced local economic development opportunities and a better-managed environment. The statutory agencies and local governments will improve cooperation and shared objectives in managing areas, and have a governance structure in which to operate collectively. Private enterprise will benefit from a structure that creates opportunities from tourism and resource use that is sustainable. The conservation community will benefit from an area that is effectively conserved.
Biologically the Amatholes is an important area. It is a convergence zone of important biomes and represents a fantastic opportunity to capture landscape conservation opportunities.
The area represents a convergence of the Nama Karoo, Afro-montaine forests, Grasslands, the Pondoland coastal flora, and elements of the Fynbos biome. It has species diversity of spectacular proportions with more than 1200 species identified, and in particular the forests of the region are especially species diverse. The tender team will integrate the bioregional programmes such as STEP, the grasslands programme and relevant issues from the Wild Coast Project and the Drakensberg initiatives, and should it be relevant, the CAPE programme. This project will be completed in the third quarter of 2007. |
