MEASURING THE STATE OF SOUTH AFRICA’S NATURAL WORLD – THE NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY ASSESSMENT
South Africa is home to an amazing array of animal and plants, making up world-renowned natural ecosystems. The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) is a custodian of this life, appointed in terms of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act to monitor and report regularly on the status of our biodiversity to ensure that this rich heritage is managed to the benefit of all South Africans.
SANBI brings together the latest science to provide an overview of the state of this natural world in the National Biodiversity Assessment (NBA). Released every seven years, the NBA is one of the most important bodies of work to help steer policy and decision-making concerning environmental management and national development priorities such as economic growth and service delivery.
Work on the 2018 NBA is currently underway and seeks to answer the following key questions:
How is South Africa’s biodiversity doing at the ecosystem, species and genetic level across all environments (terrestrial, freshwater, estuarine, coastal and marine)?
Is it better or worse off than before?
Are we responding effectively to the challenge of
managing and conserving biodiversity?
How is society benefiting from biodiversity?
The best minds applied
The NBA is a multi-author project led by SANBI in partnership with a range of biodiversity scientists and practitioners representing civil society, research institutions and state organisations. Pulling together the best minds is not just necessary to produce a robust, evidence-based overview of the state of the country’s biodiversity, but also to ensure the collective ownership of the NBA by the biodiversity science community in South Africa.
What is the NBA used for?
• To inform policy in the biodiversity sector, such as the National Protected Area Expansion Strategy, as well as informing policies of a range of other sectors that rely or impact on natural resources, such as the water, agriculture and mining sectors.
• To provide information to help prioritise the often limited resources for managing and conserving our biodiversity – actions can focus on preventing further loss and degradation of ecosystems and ecological infrastructure, on consolidating and expanding the protected area network, and on interventions required to restore areas in poor condition so that they become healthy, functioning systems of benefit to people.
• To provide context and information that feeds into strategic planning processeses, such as Strategic Environmental Assessments and Bioregional Plans.
• To provide information for a range of national level reporting processeses such as the South Africa Environment Outlook, and ensure that the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) has the necessary biodiversity information to meet our international reporting commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
• The NBA is a key reference and educational product relevant to scientists, students, consultants and decisionmakers.