The Western Cape Nature Conservation Board in conjunction with Cape Action for People and the Environment (C.A.P.E.), recently launched the Greater Cederberg Biodiversity Corridor (GCBC).
The new corridor will cross the Cape Floristic Region hotspot in South Africa and extend into the South African portion of the Succulent Karoo hotspot.
“This groundbreaking initiative developed from a conservation ethic that uniquely recognizes the lived in, worked in nature of an extended landscape,” said Jaco Venter, project coordinator for the corridor initiative. The biodiversity corridor is a first for South Africa. It incorporates a variety of land uses, and places emphasis on both the natural and cultural resources of the Cederberg area.
C.A.P.E., which aims to promote social and economic development through conservation and wise use of the region’s extraordinary natural resources, recognizes that efforts to conserve life-supporting processes should include natural corridors that stretch across habitats and climatic regions. The hope is that this will ensure conservation of critical habitat types and support holistic conservation versus protection of individual species.
As a result of large-scale habitat transformation, there are only three opportunities to create these land linkages in the Cape Floristic Region, of which the GCBC is one.
According to Moshall Mouton from the Wuppertal community, the Greater Cederberg initiative is not merely a planning exercise but rather an integral part of helping the community develop its ecotourism business plan.
Tourism in the corridor is expected to bolster social and economic development of local communities. A few projects currently supported by GCBC include soon to be established ecotourism donkey cart treks by the Wuppertal Conservancy; surveys of the plant, reptiles and amphibians of the Tankwa Karoo; and an area-wide planning process for resource conservation in the Sandveld.
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund funded a planning process initiated for the GCBC by the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board last year. As a result of the planning phase’s success, the Global Environment Facility, a CEPF donor partner, will fund the implementation phase over the next 5 years. In excess of R l.5 million (approximately $279,240) has been committed by foreign funds for various projects within the GCBC.
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