Succulent Karoo 

Stretching along the Atlantic coast of Africa, from southwestern South Africa into southern Namibia, the Succulent Karoo biodiversity hotspot covers 116,000 square kilometers of desert. It boasts the world's richest variety of succulent flora, as well as high reptile and invertebrate diversity.

The hallmark of the Succulent Karoo is its exceptionally diverse and unique flora, especially succulents and bulbs. The hotspot is home to 6,356 plant species, 40 percent of which are found nowhere else. More than 900 are also threatened with extinction.

The hotspot’s biodiversity is under pressure from a range of human impacts, especially mining, crop agriculture, ostrich farming, overgrazing, illegal collection of fauna and flora, and anthropogenic climate change. Most of the region, an estimated 100,000 kilometers, is used for communal or commercial grazing. Although this land use can be compatible with the maintenance of natural resources, overgrazing has severely degraded much as this area.

Our support focuses on seven of the highest priority areas for conservation: Bushmanland Inselbergs, Central Namaqualand Coast, Namaqualand Uplands, Knersvlakte, Hantam-Roggeveld, Central Little Karoo and Sperrgebiet.

Our strategy for this hotspot is based on the results of the Succulent Karoo Ecosystem Planning (SKEP) process. SKEP, which means "to serve" or "to create" in Afrikaans, developed a 20-year strategy for conservation and sustainable development in the hotspot as part of our preparation for investment.

SKEP, now the Succulent Karoo Ecosystem Program, developed an overarching framework for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development in the hotspot from which the best niche for CEPF investment could be determined. The SKEP vision is one we share: “The people of the Succulent Karoo take ownership of and enjoy their unique living landscape in a way that maintains biodiversity and improves livelihoods now and into perpetuity.”

The specific niche for CEPF in the hotspot has been to catalyze key activities in under-funded geographic priority areas using innovative mechanisms to achieve biodiversity conservation by involving specific land users such as the agriculture sector, mining companies and communal authorities. Six strategic directions guide CEPF's approach in the Succulent Karoo as outlined in the ecosystem profile for this region:

1. Expand protected area corridors through public-private-communal partnerships in the priority areas of Bushmanland Inselbergs, Central Namaqualand Coast, Namaqualand Uplands, Knersvlakte, Hantam-Roggeveld, Central Little Karoo and Sperrgebiet.
2. Engage key industrial sectors in meeting conservation objectives identified by SKEP.
3. Retain and restore critical biodiversity in areas under greatest land-use pressure.
4. Mainstream conservation priorities into land-use planning and policymaking.
5. Increase awareness of the Succulent Karoo Hotspot.
6. Create the capacity to catalyze the SKEP program.

We recently completed an assessment of our initial investment, including monitoring of final project reports compiled by the many civil society groups supported and a workshop with stakeholders to contribute to the findings.