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4.2. Percentage of D’MOSS that is protected
Only 7.16% of the area of D’MOSS enjoys some form
of protection (Table 2). This includes various categories
of protection: proclaimed and unproclaimed private or public nature reserves; properties that have been bought through the eThekwini Municipality’s (EM) Environmental Land Acquisition Programme; sites where sensitive portions have been protected by Non-User Conservation Servitudes (NUCS) or conservation zone during the development approval process; and sites that have been rezoned to conservation. This represents an increase in the area of D’MOSS that is protected from 6773,67ha in 2021/2022 to 7046,35ha in 2022/2023.
The total protected area in EM is calculated as 2,73% for 2022/2023 (Table 2). This is still below the Convention of Biological Diversity’s requirement for all governments to protect a minimum of 17% of terrestrial and inland water
areas and 10% of coastal and marine areas [7]. In addition, it has been noted that these flat targets may be too small to adequately ensure the preservation of habitat types into perpetuity as it may not have a compelling ecological rationale. As a consequence, South Africa has adopted a more scientific-based approach to setting conservation targets.
The hierarchical classification was defined to categorise the various levels of protection from the most protected formally Proclaimed Nature Reserves (protected in terms of the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act ( NEM: PAA, Act. No. 57 of 2003)) to the least protected Private Conservation Area (which may not have any legislated protection). Such classification prevents double counting when areas fall within more than one category.
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