Towards formalized adaptive management in succulent valley bushveld.

Abstract

This study was designed to provide the means for implementing formal scientific vegetation management 1n the succulent valley

bushveld of the eastern Cape, South Africa.

Nowhere in the world has a detailed, effective and practical veld

management system being developed entirely from research, and

even the most successful management systems rely heavily on the

intuition of people. A process, formally called 'adaptive

management', combines this intuition with scientific testing and

the overall objective of this study was to provide a framework

for formalized adaptive management in succulent valley bushveld.

On analyzing the process of adaptive management, the following

knowledge 'tools' were identified: (i) a management system for

immediate implementation; (ii) a technique for vegetation

assessment; (iii) a technique for monitoring vegetation change;

(iv) a technique for monitoring forage use and recovery; (v) a

list of key forage species; (vi) a model to set initial stocking

rates; (vii) a method of recording essential information; and

(viii) a database of ecological principles.

Providing these 'tools' became the goals of this study. These

topics covered almost all facets of rangeland science, and the

approach was to address these in a 'top down' manner, rather than

sub-optimize by specializing on anyone component.

Most of the 'tools' were achieved to a greater or lesser extent

and are presented as a series of publications. However, a

central tool, that for monitoring vegetation change, remains

outstanding despite comprehensive testing of a range of

traditional botanical methods. Indeed, critical review revealed

that this 'missing tool' is a problem which is common in all

vegetation communities in South Africa - despite the impression

created by vegetation researchers that adequate techniques are

indeed available. This is serious because land managers are not

able to evaluate the impact of their efforts and the government

is unable to monitor the effectiveness of their research and

extension services, costing millions of public monies annually.

The implication also, is that vegetation cannot be managed

scientifically (management implies monitoring).

Either formal adaptive management is not practicable, or

researchers are operating from an inappropriate paradigm;

specifically that of providing techniques for their research

projects and claiming that these (or derivatives of these) are

adequate for farm or regional scale monitoring.

More generally, research has often become an end in it's self,

with research quality being judged by criteria which are of

little significance to the real world and which damage

efficiency. Perhaps, the real value of vegetation research lies

in the experiential learning which the researcher gains not the

inevitably parochial results.