NEWS
Groundbreaking study
maps and values South Africa's
wild spaces
United Nations Environment Programme
From its vast savanna to its rugged
coastlines, to its flower-rich montane
grasslands, South Africa’s
KwaZulu-Natal province is rich in natural
beauty.
But those ecosystems are more than
just alluring – they provide services
to people by trapping carbon, filtering
water, and performing a host of
other essential functions. Now, for the
first time, a study has mapped a suite
of the services provided by KwaZulu-
Natal’s natural systems and placed
a monetary value on them. It’s a key
step, experts say, in helping to protect
the province’s wild spaces.
Reprinted from: https://bit.ly/320TvEv
“The services provided to humanity
by nature are often undervalued, or
not valued at all,” said Salman Hussain,
the coordinator of the Economics
of Ecosystems and Biodiversity initiative,
which is hosted by the United
Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP). “But by showcasing the services
that natural systems provide to
our economies and societies, we can
further the argument for protecting
habitats and restoring ecosystems
that have already been impacted by
development.”
KwaZulu-Natal has the second-largest
economy of South Africa’s provinces,
contributing around 15 per cent of
the country’s gross domestic product.
It also has a broad array of ecosystems
and a wealth of biodiversity. The new
report found those ecosystems played
an important role in storing carbon,
retaining soil, preventing floods, improving
water quality, promoting pollination,
and providing recreational
value. In 2011, the combined value of
those “essential ecosystem services”
was 33.4 billion South African Rand,
equivalent to 7.4 percent of the province’s
economic output. But values of
many of the services have decreased
Figure 1: Drakensberg, KwaZulu
Natal, by Margy Sneeden/Pixabay
The report’s findings are based
on what’s known as natural capital
accounting, which measures the
often hidden services that ecosystems
provide to the economy and society.
This allows governments and
businesses to take into account
the benefits of these services when
making decisions about things like
where to locate industry, what
agricultural systems to emphasize,
and which areas to protect.
over time, particularly in the grassland
and savanna biomes, partly as a result
of their conversion to intensive land
uses, such as cultivation.
"Natural capital accounting helps
decision-makers to go beyond gross
domestic product and traditional
economic measures, to gain a finer
perspective on the environmental
impacts of development, and the implicit
trade-offs being made,” says
Hussain.
South Africa has long been at the
forefront of this movement. The coun-
Grassroots Vol 20 No 3 September 2020
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