Ground, Lyle E. and Slotow, Rob and Ray-Mukherjee, Jayanti
(2016)
The value of urban and peri-urban conservation efforts within a global biodiversity hotspot.
African Biodiversity & Conservation., 46 (2).
pp. 1-10.
Abstract
Conservation planning and sustainable environmental management have limited resources for implementation owing to competition with other socio-economic imperatives (Heywood & Iriondo 2003; Shankaran 2009; Schneider et al. 2011). Prioritisation of areas for conservation, through systematic conservation planning (SCP), has become a key tool in conservation resource
allocation (Heywood & Iriondo 2003; Margules & Pressey, 2000; Pressey, Cowling & Rouget 2003).
These algorithm-based planning tools use available data on habitats, species and ecosystem
services to select priority sites based on important criteria (Margules & Pressey 2000). However,
SCP outputs are only as good as the input data (Heywood & Iriondo 2003; Margules & Pressey
2000; Smith, Goodman & Matthews 2006), and conservation plans are often based on limited
data, which requires conservation planners to define different environmental features by using
environmental breaks or changes (termed mesofilters; Crous, Samways & Pryke 2013). These ‘surrogate’ habitats are then assumed to be representative of a set of species known to occur within them (Crous et al. 2013; Smith et al. 2006). Incorrect selection of surrogates may result in inaccurate SCP that does not sufficiently represent reality, leading to potentially wasted resource
expenditure on marginal areas (Crous et al. 2013) and inappropriate protection for the species that need it most (Coppolillo et al., 2004). The eThekwini Municipal Area (EMA), which
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