Environmental management strategy : Krantzkloof Nature Reserve, a case study.

Abstract

KZN Nature Conservation Services budgetary cuts for the KrantzkloofNature Reserve (KNR) has led to economic shortfalls in important areas like facilities maintenance and invader plant control. The study has found that the benefits of maintaining KNR, determined from the estimated Total Economic Value (TEV), are huge and far outweigh the budget shortfall. The shortfall has been closed by user charging, the timing of which has prevented any deterioration in the facilities and ecology ofKNR due to budget cuts. Facilities maintenance needs to be prioritized to protect the user charge funding base and alien invader control needs to be prioritized due to escalating costs and the magnitude of the problem. The study has found that subcatchment stakeholder groups in the developing Emolweni forum, within which KNR is strategically placed, are strongly associated with local conservancies which will essentially provide the backbone for the envisaged forum. In order for stakeholder groups to be more representative, however, it is important for local conservancies to fmd a way to draw in community groups not normally involved in conservation work. The forum should provide networking and support for projects like environmental education, income generation and rehabilitation that will allow these community groups to participate in conservation work in a meaningful way. Delivery should occur through strategically placed community institutions like schools and clinics and should target young people and the unemployed. Nature reserves have largely untapped resources and a quasi- option value project is explored that combines alien vegetation control with the development of an indigenous nursery in an ecological and economic sustainable manner. It is envisaged that income derived from the sale of horticultural plants may substitute the income derived from medicinal plants and thus reduce the pressure applied on KNR's threatened resources by the unemployed. The study recommends that the subcatchment be divided into manageable units, based on a situational analysis, out of which particular criteria and objectives can be developed. Surveys, inventories, mapping and research activities should be carried out, with reports on the state or use of soil, water and biota submitted to the forum, which can then provide management solutions.