This layer provides a general synopsis of why an area or polygon received its specific Critical Biodiversity Area classification, by listing the specific biodiversity informant involved. Also provided are the transformation state and management recommendation. It is anticipated that this layer would mainly be of interest to technical or specialist users.

SKEP Expert Maps (Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Insect, Invertebrates, Mammals, Plants, Reptiles). The SKEP expert maps (Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Insect, Invertebrates, Mammals, Plants, Reptiles) were mapped by experts on 1:250 000 topocadastral maps and digitized by Benis Egoh (IPC).

Map of the vegetation types of South Africa (including Prince Edward and Marion Islands), Lesotho and Swaziland (Mucina & Rutherford 2006). There are 444 zonal and azonal vegetation types mapped at a working scale of 1:250 000 and sometimes better. The map is the result of a collaborative project involving about 60 individual contributors from a number of organizations. Includes some mapping from Fine Scale Planning in Western Cape Province including: Fixed forest at Eastern Cape/KwaZulu-Natal border that had been inadvertently deleted. Saldanha Peninsula, Bokkeveld and Sandveld Fine Scale Planning domains as done by Helme & Koopman (2007) and Helme (2007a,b). Breede River Valley by Helme (2007) Little Karoo by Vlok, Cowling, Wolf, (2005). Hantam/Tanqua/Roggeveld by van der Merwe et al (2008a,b). Recommended projections of decimal degrees data: South Africa: Use in view with Map units decimal degrees, Distance units kilometers, or projected view with map units meters, projection Albers, WGS84, Central meridian 24, Reference latitude 0, Standard parallel 1 -30, Standard parallel 2 -20, no false Easting or Northing. Prince Edward Islands: Data are in UTM projection, WGS84, Central Meridian 37 E. Use in view with Map units meters, Distance units kilometers. - The updates are within an area (domain) and there is no systematic matching across the domain line to ensure that mapping on the other side of the domain line benefits from the efforts within the domain line. - The scale within a domain does not match the scale of mapping outside the domain line resulting in uneven levels of detail. - The descriptions of vegetation types have not been systematically updated to reflect the new spatial extent of vegetation described, nor the conservation status, and so forth. - Descriptions are available for new vegetation types. - The National Biodiversity Assessment has been done with the 2006 version of the map for these reasons listed above. - Gazetted threatened ecosystem list is based on vegm2006 so that they do not reflect the updated mapping. It is important for those involved in using the list of threatened ecosystems at the policy end to know when a new version of the veg map becomes available - there are likely to be queries about how this relates to the veg types in the gazetted list and how e.g. EIA practitioners should deal with veg map changes that impact on listed veg types. References Mucina, L. & Rutherford, M.C. (eds) 2006. The vegetation of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. Strelitzia 19.South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. 800 pp. Mucina, L., Rutherford, M.C. & Powrie, L.W. (eds) 2005. Vegetation Map of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, 1:1 000 000 scale sheet maps. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. ISBN 1-919976-22-1 MUCINA, L., RUTHERFORD, M.C. & POWRIE, L.W. (eds) 2007. Vegetation Map of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, edn 2, 1:1 000 000 scale sheet maps. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria. ISBN 978-1-919976-42-6. Helme, N. A. 2007. Botanical report: Fine scale vegetation mapping of the Bokkeveld Escarpment. Report for CapeNature, as part of the C.A.P.E. programme. Helme, N. A. 2007. Botanical report: Fine scale vegetation mapping in the Sandveld. Report for CapeNature, as part of the C.A.P.E. programme. Helme, N. A. and R. Koopman. 2007. Botanical report: Fine scale vegetation mapping in the Saldanha Peninsula. Report for CapeNature, as part of the C.A.P.E. programme. Helme, N. A. 2007. Botanical report: Fine scale vegetation mapping in the Upper Breede River Valley. Report for CapeNature, as part of the C.A.P.E. programme. Vlok, J.H.J., Cowling, R.M. & Wolf, T., 2005. A vegetation map for the Little Karoo. Unpublished maps and report for a SKEP project supported by CEPF grant no 1064410304.

Sub-quaternary catchments for the Bergriver Local Municipality Municipality

The Broad Management Units have been defined by the intersection of all the broad-scale processes. Because many of the processes overlap, all the different combinations of overlap are shown. The GIS layer that was prepared for this report will allow the user to query the exact extent of each process.

Protected areas for the George, Knysna & Bitou Municipalities

These style files are provided to ease the display of the 2023 Marine Ecosystem Map across multiple GIS software platforms, including QGIS (.qml), ArcMap (.lyr) and ArcGIS Pro (.lyrx). Different style files display either the benthic and bentho-pelagic layer, or the pelagic layer. We provide these style files to try and help users to display the maps. They come with no guarantee of working across various software installation versions.

The uMRC_IAPs_2024_GCS_V1.0 feature class has been developed to characterise the many invasions of the uMngeni River Catchment by invasive alien plants (IAPs). This includes information regarding species, distribution patterns, accessibility and extent of riparian invasion. IAP information is captured against a wall-to-wall set of polygon features called segments. Segments were generated using the segment mean shift tool in ArcGIS and Sentinel 2A imagery of 10m spatial resolution. These were then manually adjusted to better fit the landscape. IAP information was captured for segments through interviews with local experts in a workshop setting, through field work and through extracting information from existing IAP mapping data products, predominantly data from the Working for Water programme and data from the SEBEI project.

SKEP Expert Maps (Amphibians, Birds, Fish, Insect, Invertebrates, Mammals, Plants, Reptiles)

The Western Cape’s 2016 Ecosystem Threat Status layer was developed to more accurately reflect the current threat status of ecosystems in the Western Cape Province, especially in terms of habitat loss (criterion A1). Ecosystems are based on the SA Vegetation Map (2012 version) and relevant indigenous forest types (DAFF, 2010), as per the national approach to assessing ecosystem threat. Threat status is provided for each ecosystem according to three assessments: (1) the national assessment in 2011 (note: threatened ecosystems identified in the NBA 2011 are the same as those listed in the gazette in December 2011); (2) CapeNature’s 2014 assessment of criterion A1 (habitat loss); and (3) the highest status achieved in either the national assessment or CapeNature’s 2016 assessment of criterion A1 (habitat loss). This latter category is considered the best available status for the Western Cape Province (see field "WC_ETS2016" in this shapefile).