BDC 332: CONSERVATION PLANNING– 2014
Biodiversity and Conservation Biology department, UWC
Dr Rich Knight; Tel: 9593740; knight.rich@gmail.com
WEEK
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LECTURE
Conservation: Non-equilibrium
PRACTICAL
8-Sep-14
DAY
Mon
9-Sep-14
Tue
Biomes, Eco-regions, Hotspots
Global Classification
Systems
11-Sep-14
Thu
IUCN species and Habitat
Systems
IDRISI how to produce a
Landcover classification
12-Sep-14
15-Sep-14
Fri
Mon
Completion of Digital Stories
Habitat Loss & Fragmentation
Data Sheets for SA
examined. Students to
make BGIS accounts.
Felix Film Awards
Loaded Locally
2
16-Sep-14
Tue
Introduction to South African
Vegetation Maps and what
data is needed.
2
18-Sep-14
Thu
Second Life Film presentations
2
19-Sep-14
Fri
Reserve Design Principles
3
22-Sep-14
Mon
Reserves & Resources
3
23-Sep-14
Tue
SA Biomes and Vegetation
types and maps
Will use Second Life to do
an exercise
BGIS – List vegetation
types for Municipality
and download and
extracting using
ArcView.
HANDOUT Take-home
test
3
3
24-Sep-14
25-Sep-14
Wed
Thu
3
26-Sep-14
4
29-Sep-14
Fri
Mon
HERITAGE DAY
Iziko Museum for film review
ESS Third Year Films
Getting South African
Protected Areas by
Municipality
BGIS List of Protected
Areas and extract using
ArcView
Biodiversity Impact
Assessment
What are Bioregional plans?
4
30-Sep-14
Tue
Develop Ecosystem status
based on Land Cover and
Remaining vegetation to
be extracted from the
original vegetation
using ArcView for their
Conservation Planning BDC332 2014 (R.S. Knight)
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vegetation map
4
2-Oct-14
Thu
Overstrand developing a
Landuse Map using IDRISI
4
3-Oct-14
Fri
Biodiversity Summaries
calculated from the national
maps and compared to their
own municipal calculations
5
6-Oct-14
Mon
Biodiversity Offsets
5
5
5
6
6
Conservation Plans for their
Municipality
9-Oct-14
Thu
Using of BGIS – and
Introduction to Landuse
Decision Support
Use of “Area of Interest”
and examine all relevant
layers w.r.t and
identified development
10-Oct-14
Fri
Proposed Field trip (Monitoring
and Restoring Biodiversity)
13-Oct-14
Mon
Making Second Life Skyboxes
Tue
LUDS report feedback in
preparation for World Food
Day
14-Oct-14
World Food Day
Thu
6
17-Oct-14
Fri
7
20-Oct-14
Mon
Introduction to Systematic
Conservation Programs
Marxan/CLUZ
Cape Town’s Protected Area
Network
21-Oct-14
Tue
Marzan/CLUZ Practical 1
23-Oct-14
Thu
Marzan/CLUZ Practical 2
7
SUBMIT TAKE-HOME
TEST
Tue
7-Oct-14
16-Oct-14
7
Students will attempt to
prepare their own
classification using
Fused datasets
Using BGIS to look at
the overall conservation
plan (identifying
suitable attribute fields)
and use the planning
documents and
metadata to refine.
6
7
municipality
24-Oct-14
Fri
HANDOVER WEBLOGS
Six minutes to present
what they are going to
show on Thursday
Second Life
Ambassadors for CoE
Food Security
HAND-IN
CONSERVATION
REPORT
Ensure you printout a
hard copy of all your
weblog reflections and
submit.
Module description:
Illustrate the application of the following:
concepts such as South African vegetation types and biomes; disturbance ecology; fragmentation and use
of corridors for developing biodiversity networks; Non-equilibrium ecosystem dynamics (chaos models;
Conservation Planning BDC332 2014 (R.S. Knight)
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state and transition models and tipping points); Biodiversity Impact Assessments; Bioregional Planning
which is based on a Systematic Biodiversity Plan and Critical Biodiversity Areas; Restoration Ecology;
environmental monitoring.
Main outcomes:
Prepare management reports reflecting the required structures for a Bio-regional plan, a Biodiversity
Impact Assessment, and a Biodiversity Offset alternative;
Engage with the practical components and take responsibility for organising and managing the workload
for completing the conservation case study;
Analyse data using a personal computer and confidently present their analysis orally to an audience.
Lectures BCB: Monday: 08:30; Thursday: 9:40; Friday: 08:30
Practicals: BCB: Tuesday 14:00 – 16:30, Thursday 10:40 – 13:00
Lecture venues: All lectures to be held in the BCB labs, 5thth floor, Core 2, New Life Sciences building
Evaluation:
Conservation Planning Counts (50% of BDC332)
Year mark = Practical mark based on a Conservation Presentation for a Municipality with report (25%) +
Blog Reflections (25%) + Take-home Test (50%)
Theory mark = Take Home Test
Practical Mark = Conservation Planning Report plus Blog Reflections
Year Mark = 60-% and Exam Mark = 40%
Examination Two Papers: Paper 1 theory covering all material in Landscape Ecology and Conservation
Planning. Paper 2 an Practical paper requiring using of the computers in the 5th Floor BCB computer lab.
Both exams are three hours in length.
Dates for Submission (note times!)
18 September
9h00 all presentations must be loaded onto the
Lecture into desktop folder “Felix Film Awards”
19 September
17h00 All films (plus hard copies of digital stories
and full accreditation ) must be submitted onto the
YouTube account name carboncampus password
dolphin@123 – Your film cannot be marked if it is
not loaded onto this YouTube channel – please note
if you use copyright material (music or images)
and there is a dispute your video material will be
deleted from the YouTube and we risk losing our
carboncampus account and the Qarbon Qampus
channel!!!!!!
23 September
Take home test handed out in class (= theoretical
mark = 50% of term mark)
3 October
17h00 Hard copies of take-home test handed in
14 October
14h00 LUDS and Conservation Project Verbal
feedback (counts 20% of conservation project)
17 October
17h00 Submit hardcopy 2000 Municipal
Conservation Planning Report (60%) and the SLURL
for your Skybox that you presented to World Food
Day.
24 October
9h00 completion of ALL weblog reflections submitted
onto the Course Weblog and a hard copy submitted
(so we don’t have to search for your postings).
ALL ASSIGNMENTS must be clearly labelled with the assignment name, your name and your student
assignment.
Web Resources (Main Portals only)
http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/bdc332 (course material loaded here including Power Point Lectures)
http://bgis.sanbi.org (Main source of information for your conservation reports)
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http://biodiversityadvisor.sanbi.org/ (useful resource for defining terms and understanding certain
procedures)
http://bdc332-2014.blogspot.com/ (Course weblog … to book your municipality and to publish your FIVE web
blog reflections).
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tamire/5/29/22 Second Life URL for Maldives course site
Course Description
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This course will introduce you to some of the basic concepts surrounding conservation biology and planning.
This is an extensive field, and there is a considerable amount of theory to get under your belt, so we will
have to move fairly quickly through the content. For the first couple of weeks we will look at issues causing
loss of biodiversity – for some of you this is revision. We will consider some global issues, and look at
reserve design and management, as well as the legal framework through which conservation is run within
South Africa. We will also touch on sustainable development and the concept of sustainability, consider
community interactions with conservation, and examine ecological restoration and environmental
monitoring.
•
Each week you will be presented with a reading list of at least two papers, with additional recommended papers.
The papers will be included in tests and exams, and the additional texts will flesh out your understanding of
the subject, so you should do your best to read as much of the additional reading as possible. The final
coursework assessment will include four tests and two assignments which will be administered through the
course, as well as your practical write-ups.
•
The practical programme will progress mostly independently from the lectures. This programme will focus on
the modern tools used for conservation planning on a landscape level. The primary theme of the practical
programme is “Conservation Planning in Practice”, and we will consider both local and international
examples. We will cover as much of the following as time allows:
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Constructing surrogate data for conservation planning. When carrying out conservation planning it is rare to have
sufficient biological data to make an informed decision. Hence, planners need to model or simulate this data on the basis
of some field sampling.
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Conservation resources. There are a large number of available resources for conservation planning on various
scales in South Africa, primarily prepared by the South African National Biodiversity Institute and use the
http://bgis.sanbi.org and the http://biodiversityadvisor.sanbi.org/
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Conservation planning software. Deciding which areas are a conservation priority is a very challenging process:
when there is too little data it can be compared with blind guesswork, but when there is sufficient data it becomes hard
for a person to assimilate it all and to make sense of conflicting priorities. Conservation planning software such as C-Plan
and Marxan/CLUZ allows a planner to attempt to look at different theoretical solutions and to weigh priorities in varying
manners to attempt to find this optimal solution. We will briefly look at such programs in order to understand how it
works.
•
NEMA. We will briefly examine the NEMA legislation, a comparison of environmental impact assessment and basic
assessment reports, and the use of incentives (offsets) to improve biodiversity conservation measures.
Weblog Reflections (25%)
Topic 1: Collecting Data for the National Vegetation Database and the status of mapping vegetation in South Africa.
Topic 2: What is conservation planning: A literature review and reflections on its development?
Topic 3: Preparing a Landcover Map for the Overstrand Municipality (Hermanus Area): Methods, results and
interpretations. Put this into the context of the global land cover mapping that has been undertaken and that you have
used in your Landscape Ecology course.
Topic 4: Is Cape Town’s Conservation Plan scientifically rigourous and given the need for economic development
realistic in terms of its conservation goals?
Topic 5: Reflections on the use of Second Life in education generally and landscape ecology and conservation planning
specifically.
Rubric:
http://planet.botany.uwc.ac.za/nisl/BDC332/Rubric/BDC332_Blog_Evaluation_Rubric_Conservation_Planning_coursereflection.pdf
Conservation Planning Assignment (25%)
Details to follow but a break-down of sub-components
20% Presentation of your LUDS report in Class
20% Your Skybox design
60% Conservation Planning Report
Conservation Planning BDC332 2014 (R.S. Knight)
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