Browsing by Subject "Conservation"
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- ItemOpen AccessBook review of Shaping the African Savanna by Michael Bollig(2022-03-01) Hoffman, M TBook details Bollig, M, Shaping the African Savannah: from Capitalist frontier to Arid Eden in Namibia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2020. 404 pages, hardback, ISBN 9781108488488
- ItemOpen AccessConservation of private land by means of compensatory mechanisms and incentives(1986) Glazewski, Jan; Fuggle, Richard FrancisThis report reviews the potential of financial incentives and compensatory mechanisms for achieving conservation goals on privately owned land in South Africa. Legal concepts, such as the notion of absolute ownership of property, are examined in the context of South Africa's historical and political circumstances to highlight how they have contributed to a highly individualistic attitude to land ownership in South Africa. The achievement of environmental objectives has relied largely on outright control of, and prohibitions on, the use of land. Incentives and compensatory mechanisms offer complementary methods of encouraging the diminution of ownership rights in private land for the public interest. A review of some foreign legal systems shows that compensation for the diminution of private rights in land is a grossly neglected area of South African law. It is found that attention should be given to the development of satisfactory principles of compensation as well as to the incorporation of incentives into South African legislation. It is concluded that the success of such recommendations is dependant on the fulfilment of certain administrative prerequisites, including the formulation of a national strategy for the conservation of private land in South Africa and the constitution of a formal body of experts to advise on compensation and incentive schemes.
- ItemOpen AccessDistrict 1: Mapping memories of an erased space in a transforming post-apartheid city(2022) Collier, Mishkah; Thipe, ThutoThis study examines District One, an area of racial dispossession located within the inner-city of Cape Town in South Africa, to establish the heritage value of the area and how it can be safeguarded. The area was desecrated because of the Group Areas Act, with a large portion of the historic urban landscape demolished and the community displaced to various parts of the Cape Flats1 . Intangible and tangible heritage will be used to establish how heritage mechanisms can facilitate dialogue pertaining to memory and displacement for redress and spatial justice to occur. Heritage is essential to both collective and individualised identity. It holds the power of bestowing value to things that have great significance to people, both tangible and intangible (Labadi, et al., 2021). Given the layered history of District One as both a burial ground and an area of forced removals, the area is clearly one of great heritage significance. Heritage discourse in South Africa has always been geared towards the tangible Eurocentric built environment, which with South Africa's history of colonialism, explicitly privileged whiteness. Since 1999, with the birth of the National Heritage Resources Act, there has been a shift towards the inclusion of intangible cultural heritage or living heritage, as it is referred to in South Africa's heritage policies. Twenty years on, intangible cultural heritage/living heritage is still a difficult element for heritage practitioners to grapple with but there seems to be a newfound realisation in its ability for inclusion and redress for marginalised communities of colour. District One has been sparsely acknowledged in the public history of Cape Town, giving way to a forgotten community who continue to be ignored in present society. This study, therefore, draws substantially from interviews with dispossessed former residents and various historic maps and aerial images.
- ItemMetadata onlyEvaluating the prospects of benefit sharing schemes in protecting mountain gorillas in Central Africa(Natural Resource Modelling, 2015-05-28) Mukanjari, Samson; Birgit, Bednar-Friedl; Muchapondwa, Edwin; Zikhali, Precious
- ItemRestrictedExchange of the wandering albatross Diomedea exulans between the Prince Edward and Crozet Islands: Implications for conservation(2003) Cooper, J; Weimerskirch, HExchange of 61 wandering albatrosses Diomedea exulans has been recorded between the French Crozet Islands and the South African Prince Edward Islands, 1 068 km apart in the Southern Ocean. Most movements of banded birds (57) have been westwards, from the Crozets to the Prince Edwards. In all, 18 fledglings banded at Possession Island, Crozets, have bred at Marion Island, Prince Edwards, but only one fledgling from Marion Island has been recorded breeding on Possession. The wandering albatrosses of the two island groups form a metapopulation that ideally should be conserved as a single unit. It is suggested that France and South Africa collaborate through the Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels to effect an improved conservation status for the wandering albatrosses of the two island groups.
- ItemOpen AccessFOURTH SPACE: Sonic & /aural dimensions of Cape Town's historic urban landscape(2022) Lehloenya, Mahoati Arthur; Jethro, DuaneFocusing on the urban enclave of Cape Town, informally known as the City Bowl, this thesis examines the significance of historic city soundscapes that give shape to its urban heritage. At the levels of international, national, and local governance and in policy documentation, little attention is given to the ‘immaterial', with sound especially not seen as inherently significant to cultural heritage. The study draws on Sabine Marshall's concept of ‘Official' and ‘Vernacular' forms of heritage as its conceptual framework of ‘Sound' and ‘Noise' as a way of gauging public perception of sound that matters versus sound as noise. Further, it evaluates the relationships people have with Eurocentric forms of sonic representations that are imbued with monumentality alongside those of African traditions and practices. The two divergent frameworks in sound studies, that of sound versus that of noise, illuminate the tensions of colonialism and coloniality, and the reinforcement of systems of inequality and imbalances of legislation in heritage preservation. In this thesis, I use ethnography in combination with qualitative research methods such as interviews and survey data as my research methods. Two urban heritage sounds are studied comparatively: the Noon Gun, located on Signal Hill (Lion's Rump), and the Adhan call-to-prayer that sounds from the mosques of Cape Town. The significance of the case studies are assessed using a physical, historical and social (PHS) model of the cultural value of soundscapes for cultural heritage. The interdisciplinary approach of sound theory and heritage studies is used to probe the production of sound and its consumption by its listeners. This thesis therefore offers insight into how the city and its residents mediate heritage claims and how the city residents interpret and understand them. This dissertation is an invitation for an alternative mode of perception, that of hearing, as a methodological response to the heritage canon. More specifically, I analyse the meaning of sound and its physical, historical, social and political facets in production, consumption, politicisation and contestation in the city of Cape Town. A study of sound I argue is therefore crucial to the body of knowledge on heritage significance in Cape Town and beyond.
- ItemRestrictedFrom both sides: dire demographic consequences of carnivorous mice and longlining for the critical endangered Tristan albatrosses on Gough Island(2009) Wanless, Ross M; Ryan, Peter G; Altwegg, Res; Angel, Andrea; Cooper, John; Cuthbert, Richard; Hilton, Geoff MThe IUCN recently uplisted the Tristan albatross (Diomedea dabbenena) to Critically Endangered. Here we present new data indicating negative population trends on Gough Island arising from low adult survival (∼91%, ascribed to accidental mortality on fishing gear) and low breeding success (averaging 32%, due to mouse predation). Fledgling production from 1979 to 2007 and numbers of incubating adults from 1956 to 2007 have both decreased by ∼1% p.a. Consecutive annual counts of incubating adults and a population model permit the first reliable estimates of the Tristan albatross population, presently 5400 breeding adults and 11,300 birds in all age- and stage-classes. Population models explore scenarios of likely demographic trends using combinations of hypothetical best-case estimates vs. observed estimates for two key parameters: adult survival and breeding success. These scenarios highlight the relative benefits to the species of eradicating mice or mitigating bycatch. The model scenario using observed estimates predicts annual growth rate at −2.85%. Adult survival rates have probably decreased in recent years, concomitant with increased longline fishing effort, which might explain the discrepancy between counts and modelled trends. Negative trends cannot be reversed by improving breeding success alone, and adult survival must exceed an improbable 97% to balance the current chick production. A worst-case scenario including a fixed number of adult deaths annually predicted a catastrophic 4.2% p.a. decrease and extinction in ∼30 years. Population growth was most sensitive to adult survival, but even using an adult survival estimate without fishery mortality, current breeding success is insufficient to maintain the population. These findings do not support the ‘compensatory mitigation of bycatch’ model (offsetting bycatch impacts by eradicating invasive species), and the impacts of both fishery mortality and mouse predation must be addressed to improve the conservation status of the Critically Endangered Tristan albatross.
- ItemOpen AccessHow to create a species list from the Virtual Museum projects(2014-07-02) Loftie-Eaton, MeganA this resource is a PowerPoint slide presentation showing how to create a species list for any area, as defined by the user, based on data held in the Animal Demography Unit's Virtual Museum. This resource covers the practical stepes needed to create a species list, and includes tutorials on the software and data tools used in this process. This resource is useful for citizen scientists interested in contributing to animal demography in South Africa.
- ItemRestrictedPicobryum, a new genus of Pottiaceae (Bryophyta) from South Africa, and an erratum for Acaulonopsis.(Maney Publishing, 2011) Zander, Richard H; Hedderson; Terry AA new genus, Picobryum (Pottiaceae, Bryophyta), including one new species, Picobryum atomicum, is described from the western Cape Province of South Africa. The new taxon is somewhat similar to Syntrichia gametophytically but differs in the trait combination: stem very short, central strand absent; leaves strongly reflexed to squarrose when moist, usually folded longitudinally on one side, bases sheathing, margins plane throughout, irregularly and weakly bordered in 1(–2) rows with somewhat thick-walled, less papillose cells; papillae large, simple to bifid, 1–2 per lumen; paroicous; seta essentially absent; capsule cleistocarpic, globose, and short-apiculate; calyptra mitrate. Locality data for the type of Acaulonopsis fynbosensis R.H.Zander & Hedd. are corrected in an erratum.
- ItemRestrictedSightings of killer whales Orcinus orca from longline vessels in South African waters, and consideration of the regional conservation status(Taylor & Francis, 2009) Williams, A J; Petersen, S L; Goren, M; Watkins, B PKiller whales Orcinus orca are seldom reported from South African nearshore waters but, allowing for the bias of vessel attraction, observations from longline vessels suggest there is a resident offshore population of fish-eating killer whales. We present reports of killer whales made by observers on pelagic longline vessels fishing for tuna Thunnus spp., swordfish Xiphias gladius and sharks off South Africa, and on demersal longline vessels fishing for Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides off the Subantarctic Prince Edward Islands. Off South Africa, observers reported 689 occurrences of killer whales during the period January 2002 to December 2006. Observations off South Africa peaked in January and were minimal in April–May. Most killer whale pods comprised 1–4 individuals and few were more than six. Observations were largely over the shelf edge between the Agulhas Bank and Port Elizabeth on the south-east coast of South Africa. In all, 1 843 line sets, using 3.8 million hooks, were monitored and killer whales occurred at an overall rate of 0.18 per 1 000 hooks. Killer whales depredated at an overall rate of 0.5% of the total catch. A small (maximum 12 individuals) population was recorded at longline vessels off the Prince Edward Islands, but observations were limited to August–September, October–November and May–June. We consider the conservation status of killer whales in southern African waters to be 'vulnerable', because the populations are very small and are subject to both short- and long-term impacts from the longline fisheries.
- ItemOpen AccessSummer at the beach: spatio-temporal patterns of white shark occurrence along the inshore areas of False Bay, South Africa(BioMed Central, 2018-05-22) Kock, Alison A; Photopoulou, Theoni; Durbach, Ian; Mauff, Katya; Meÿer, Michael; Kotze, Deon; Griffiths, Charles L; O’Riain, M JustinBackground Understanding white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) habitat use in coastal areas adjacent to large cities, is an important step when formulating potential solutions to the conservation conflict that exists between humans and large predatory sharks. In this study, we present the findings of a 2.5-year study of white shark occurrence and movement patterns adjacent to the City of Cape Town in False Bay, South Africa, with a focus on spring and summer months. Fifty-one white sharks were monitored annually at three offshore and twelve inshore sites by VR2 acoustic receivers, over 975 days from 1 May 2005 to 31 December 2007. Results Occurrence patterns at inshore sites during spring and summer were analysed using a generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) with a spatial term (longitude, latitude), time of day and year included as explanatory variables for site use. We found that sharks occurred more frequently at inshore sites along the northern and northwestern shores, compared to the rest of the bay, and they transitioned most frequently between four adjacent beach sites that encompass the most popular recreational water use areas in Cape Town. There was significant diel variation, with higher shark occurrence around midday, and a peak in shark occurrence in 2005, when human-shark interactions also peaked. However, we found no effect of shark size on occurrence patterns at inshore sites. Conclusions White sharks showed the highest levels of occurrence at specific inshore sites between Muizenberg and Strandfontein beach, and thus inclusion of these sites within False Bay’s marine protected area (MPA) network or recognition as Ecological or Biological Significant Areas (EBSAs) should be a future consideration. These insights into white shark habitat use at inshore sites in False Bay are important for successfully applying the principles of marine spatial planning (MSP) and for making science-based policy decisions. Furthermore, this information can be used to reduce potential shark-human conflict by incorporating it into future shark safety education campaigns.