THE BIODIVERSITY ECONOMY CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ECONOMIC GROWTH

Biodiversity is an economic sector in South Africa that can be tapped into to contribute to radical socioeconomic transformation in South Africa.

This is evident from the growth shown by South Africa biodiversity economy in recent years. This increasingly important economic sector, which focuses on the development and transformation of the wildlife, biotrade and eco-tourism industries, is a key contributor to job creation.

Until 2015, it had shown a constant annual growth of six percent. There is new hope that growth in the biodiversity economy will increase to 10% annually in the coming years.

Transformation of the biodiversity sector, in particular, is a necessity in a changing world.

This is more so in the context of South Africa, where policies of the past were exclusionary, thus depriving the majority of our people from actively participating in sectors of the economy.

Government, has in response to this anomaly developed, and implements, the 14-year National Biodiversity Economy Strategy, which promotes a new generation of partnerships between communities, industry and the public sector.

This is being done to realise the access to, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of biological resources.

In order to ensure a coherent approach in the implementation of this strategy, detailed plans at a three feet level were developed through the Operation Phakisa Model, organised in the form of the Biodiversity Economy Lab.

Among the outcomes of the Biodiversity Economy Lab held in 2016 were 15 key initiatives identified in the wildlife sector aimed at delivering a thriving and inclusive wildlife economy for the benefit of all South Africans.

This included the identification and prioritisation of land for transformation, operationalisation of biodiversity economy nodes, capacity building for community structures, and unlocking the economic potential of protected areas.

The wildlife economy is centred on game and wildlife ranching activities that relate to the stocking, trading, breeding, and hunting of game, and all the services and goods required to support its value chain. The commitment is that the wildlife economy should have contributed R5.7 billion to the economy in the form of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and created 125 000 jobs with an expansion of 10 million hectares.

The South African bioprospecting sector encompasses organisations and people that are searching or collecting, harvesting and extracting living or dead indigenous specimens, or derivatives and genetic material for commercial and industrial purposes.

The bioprospecting industry is able to create a sustainable, inclusive and commercially viable sector adding 10 000 new jobs and contributing R1.7 billion to GDP at 10% p.a. by 2030.

Wildlife ranching or game farming in South Africa encompasses more than 9 000 wildlife ranches mostly privately owned and managed.

Commercial wildlife ranches cover 16.8 % of the country’s landmass, with an estimated 20 million head of game of which 16 million are found on private land and four million on state-owned land. One of the major contributors to wildlife tourism and the South African economy is the hunting industry.

The wildlife economy has created over 800 jobs and has donated over 1 000 heads of Game as part of transformation, through various wildlife economy projects led by the previously advantaged, across the country.

Until March 2018, the wildlife economy had secured R138 million in private sector investment, whilst government has invested a further R66.6 million in the wildlife economy sector, though the Expanded Public Works Programme funding streams.

The Department has trained 25 Community Property Associations, and a total of 587 people have been capacitated in the form of skills, training and youth programmes.

Bioprospecting and Biotrade activities have supported local livelihoods through sustainable utilisation of indigenous biological resources as informed by the associated local traditional knowledge. Since then, we have seen a steady growth of the bioprospecting industry in the country driven by the increase in the demand of indigenous plants by various industries.

Through the inclusion of eco-tourism in the development of the biodiversity economy, it is hoped to expand the economic activities in this subsector.