The Central Karoo District Municipality is the largest, least developed and most sparsely populated district in the Western Cape Province. It is unique in that it falls almost completely outside of the Cape Floristic Region which makes the biodiversity of the Province so note worthy. As a result the Central Karoo District has not benefited from the ground breaking conservation planning projects that focused on the CFR in 2000, or the state of the art fine scale conservation planning that has taken place in the lowlands of the CFR since 2004.

In an attempt to fill this gap in biodiversity planning the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) in conjunction with the Central Karoo District Municipality (CKDM) commissioned this district-wide biodiversity assessment to inform Spatial Development Frameworks (SDFs), Biodiversity Sector plans, Environmental Management Frameworks (EMFs), Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. This biodiversity assessment, through the development of a critical biodiversity area (CBA) map for the district, is aimed at assisting biodiversity and land use managers and decision makers in this demanding task.

Biodiversity data

• The habitat map developed is a biodiversity proxy map (i.e. not a true fine-scale vegetation map) and is based on the refinement of the national vegetation map on the basis of landscape units. In total 136 habitat types were delineated in the district, compared to the 29 vegetation types described by the National Vegetation map (2006).
• Limited expert-mapped information was collected, but the potential of this excellent information resource has not been fully realized. Expert mapping included the areas of special botanical interest collected in the Leslie Hill Succulent Karoo Project, and ecological process related corridors.
• Priority areas and critical biodiversity areas identified by other projects were incorporated into the analysis where possible. All CBA outputs from this study were aligned with outputs from adjoining studies to aid in implementation.
• Existing aquatic biodiversity data from various sources was combined for the analysis.
• Additional process related features were modeled from the landscape, describing areas likely to be important in terms of climate change adaptation and connectivity.
• Special species data such as distribution of endangered species (e.g. Riverine Rabbit), and special habitats know to have high biodiversity (quartz patches) were included in the analysis.
• The current conservation assessment relies very heavily on coarse-scale biodiversity surrogates such as habitat models that have not yet been ground verified. Data limitations need to be kept in mind when applying the information such as the critical biodiversity areas map, to on-the-ground land use decision making.

Land cover data

• A composite land cover map was produced for this study. The National Land cover 2000 was used as the base land cover and to this selected additional information was added, such as roads, railways and built up areas and fields. A basic, unverified habitat degradation model was developed based on six consecutive years of MODIS satellite NDVI data (2001-2007), and added to the land cover data. This model attempts to identify areas which have highly reduced cover (and hence NDVI) due to overgrazing.
• According to the model, the majority of the district is still natural vegetation (88%), while 1.5% is transformed by cultivation, mining, dams and urbanization, and 10.4 % can be considered degraded.

Ecosystem status and threats

• Mining, agriculture and urbanization are likely to be the principal drivers of biodiversity loss in the district, at present about 12% of the district‟s ecosystems are transformed or degraded. Information on potential uranium mining areas was obtained from Council for Geosciences as mining is seen by the district as a potential economic development driver. No information on agricultural developments and urban developments was obtained.
• Currently only one of the 136 vegetation types described in the study is classified as vulnerable. However, 39% of the important river reaches are classified as endangered, and 26 % wetlands and pans are considered to be in a poor ecological state.

Protected area network

• The provincial protected area (PA) network is not fully representative of the biodiversity in the district. At present only 5.35% of the district is in formal PA‟s. Almost three-quarters of the district‟s 136 vegetation types do not occur within any protected area. Over the long term this figure will need to be doubled for the PA network to be representative of the district‟s biodiversity and for national targets for vegetation types to be achieved.
• The PA registry for the District is incomplete. It is important that numerous informal conservation areas be captured in the registry.

Critical biodiversity areas

• The biodiversity assessment for the Central Karoo District is designed to identify an efficient set of Critical Biodiversity Areas ( and Ecological Support Areas) that meet the targets for the underlying biodiversity features in as small an area as possible and in areas with least conflict with other activities. Of fundamental importance is that these areas are identified in a configuration that deliberately facilitates the functioning of ecological processes (both currently and in the face of climate change) which are required to ensure that the biodiversity features persist in the long term.
• A critical biodiversity area (CBA) map has been developed for the district.
• This CBA map is intended to act as the biodiversity sector‟s input into multi-sectoral plans and assessments (e.g. SDF, EMF EIA, IDP, etc.).
• The CBA map product is aligned with national standards for bioregional plans in terms of terminology and methods.
• The CBA map should be integrated into the district SDF.
• Land use guidelines have been developed for each CBA category and aligned with land use categories commonly used in SDFs.

Critical Biodiversity Areas in the Cape Winelands District Municipal Area (DMA02)

The Cape Winelands District Municipal Area (DMA02) is 1,088,666 ha (10,086 Km2) in extent and is situated in the western section of the Cape Winelands District Municipality. The DMA lies to the east of the Cape Floristic Region (Fynbos Biome) and as a result has not benefited from the ground breaking conservation planning projects that focused on the CFR in 2000, or the state of the art fine scale conservation planning that has taken place in the lowlands of the CFR since 2004.0

In an attempt to fill this gap in biodiversity planning the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEADP) in conjunction with the Central Karoo District Municipality (CKDM) expanded a district-wide biodiversity assessment aimed at the Central Karoo to included the Cape Winelands DMA02. This Biodiversity Assessment aims to inform Spatial Development Frameworks (SDFs), Environmental Management Frameworks (EMFs), Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. Through the development of a critical biodiversity area (CBA) map for the DMA, this project aims to assist biodiversity, land use managers and decision makers in this demanding task.