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To identify areas in the Little Karoo where potential exists for spekboom restoration projects as well as projects aimed at using spekboom for carbon sequestration within a 15 kilometre radius of each town in the region. This was done to give an indication of the distances needed to be traveled to reach these areas.

Capture Source: Jan Vlok (Regalis Environmental Services)

The vegetation map for the Little Karoo (Vlok et al. 2005) and the Little Karoo

Transformation Map (Thompson et al. 2008) were used to determine where potential exists for spekboom restoration. This potential was divided into four site classes based on four major habitat types where the veld is either moderately or severely degraded. The habitat types were classed in terms of growth potential as follows; arid thicket with spekboom = good, arid thicket with spekboom mosaics = low, valley thicket with spekboom = excellent and valley thicket with spekboom mosaics = moderate. The resultant spatial layer was then clipped to correspond to a 15 kilometre radius buffer created around each town.

Available documentation:

Thompson, M., J. H. J. Vlok, M. Rouget, M. T. Hoffman, A. Balmford and R. M. Cowling. 2008. Mapping land transformation in a heterogeneous environment: a rapid and cost effective approach for assessment and monitoring. Journal of Environmental Management, in press.

Vlok, J. H. J., R. M. Cowling, R.M. and Wolf, T. 2005. A vegetation map for the Little Karoo. Unpublished maps and report for a SKEP project supported by Grant No 1064410304. (Cape Town, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund) [online] URL:

http://bgis.sanbi.org/littlekaroo/index.asp.

SANS 1878

FGDC-STD-001-1998