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Biodiversity feature information for use in the C.A.P.E. Fine-Scale Biodiversity Plans. These plans are to serve as the primary spatial biodiversity informant guiding proactive conservation action and directing land use planning and reactive decision-making in local, provincial and national spheres of government. In order to summarize which biodiversity features led to a site’s CBA categorization, a lookup table layer (Overberg_CBA_and_ESA_Lookup_Table.shp) was prepared.

The CBA lookup table units (20 hectare hexagons) were coded with the major reasons why an area was selected.

Notes:

1. Critical areas indicate criteria which were important enough to identify an area as a Critical Biodiversity Area in their own right.

2. Important supporting areas indicate criteria which were significant enough to identify an area as an Ecological Support Area.

3. Specific sites may have a number of different underlying reasons why they were designated as CBA or ESA. All the applicable criteria need to be assessed.

4. Generally, an area will have a final classification based on the highest CBA or ESA classification. However, in some cases (such as very small areas) an area may be classified as ESA rather than CBA even if it contains limited CBA elements. Conversely, numerous overlapping ESA elements could result in an area being classified as CBA.

5. These criteria provide a quick summary of the core reasons why an area is classified. For more comprehensive reasoning, the underlying data needs to be interrogated.

SANS 1878

FGDC-STD-001-1998