Biodiversity Planning

The Biodiversity Planning Forum is an annual Forum providing an opportunity for individuals, agencies and departments involved in spatial biodiversity planning to share and synthesise valuable lessons from biodiversity planning projects across South Africa.

The Forum is intended primarily for those involved in the technical aspects of biodiversity planning and the production of biodiversity planning products. This includes people from conservation agencies, provincial environmental and conservation departments, conservation NGOs, universities and research institutes (national and international), and bioregional programmes, as well as independent biodiversity planning consultants. The core focus of the Forum is on systematic biodiversity planning, with a key theme being ‘planning for implementation' or planning that lays the basis for implementation of the planning outputs.

The Biodiversity Planning Forum was initiated in 2004. Each year the Forum is held in a different province and co-hosted by SANBI and the relevant provincial conservation authority and/or agency.

2005 Forum

The 2005 Forum was held in the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park World Heritage Site and was co-organised by the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Project, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and SANBI. The forum focused on national, provincial and local spatial biodiversity planning initiatives; the challenges experienced in conservation assessments; capacity requirements for biodiversity planning; and provincial and municipal products for land use planning and decision

Forum 2005 Proceedings ( .pdf 324 KB)

Participants of the Didima Forum 2005

2006 Forum

The 2006 Biodiversity Planning Forum was held at Forever Resorts Aventura Blyde Canyon in Mpumalanga . It was co-hosted and co-sponsored by SANBI, the Mpumalanga Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs (DALA) and the Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB). The main themes of the 2006 Forum were freshwater conservation planning; the integration of terrestrial and freshwater assessments; publishing of bioregional plans in terms of the Biodiversity Act; mapping ecosystem services and ecological corridors. Three issue group discussions were held on biodiversity targets, biodiversity offsets and the National Land Cover data.

Forum 2006 Proceedings ( .pdf 344 KB)

Participants at 2006 Forum

2007 Forum

The 2007 Biodiversity Planning Forum was held at Pilanesberg National Park in the North West province. The Forum was co-hosted by the North West Parks and Tourism Board, the North West Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, DEAT and SANBI. The main themes for the 2007 Forum were marine conservation planning, listing of threatened ecosystems in terms of the Biodiversity Act; and planning for protected area expansion. Sessions were held on wetland planning; planning for ecosystem services; freshwater conservation planning; monitoring of bioregional plans and socio-economic data for biodiversity planning. The 2007 Forum was the largest Forum to date with 120 people attending including representatives form provincial conservation agencies and provincial environmental departments, national departments, research institutes, NGO's, and independent biodiversity planning consultants.

Participants at 2007 Forum