Eco-Logic Awards 19: The Biodiversity Award

The Biodiversity Award at the #EcoLogicAwards19 was awarded to the City of Cape Town for Biodiversity Management in the City of Cape Town. @EcoLogicAwards @CityofCT

City of Cape Town: Biodiversity Management in the City of Cape Town

Plans for conserving Cape Town’s unique biodiversity began in the early 1980s. Many of these plans such as the Biodiversity Strategy and the Biodiversity Network (BioNet) were visionary documents and a first for a South African municipality.
However, implementation was slow with pockets of activities around some of the established reserves as well as a people-centered project called Cape Flats Nature.
This all changed when in 2005, the City formed the Biodiversity Management Branch (originally the Nature Conservation Branch), within the Environmental Management Department.
Areas formally secured for conservation have doubled from 34% of the BioNet in 2009 to over 64.8% by 2018, a doubling in less than a decade. The conservation effort has been further supported by: formalising protected area boundaries and management plans; setting up protected area advisory groups; management effectiveness; people and conservation programmes; establishing baseline ecological data; monitoring and evaluating, and Increasing the staff component from approximately 40 in 2005 to over 210 by 2018.
The functions of Biodiversity Management have also grown through this period to include: protected area expansion; management of 20 protected areas; conservation stewardship programmes; conservation services programmes; invasive species management; people and conservation; and significant job creation and skills development.