STEP Protected Areas. The STEP protected area layer aimed to map all publicly-owned land in the planning domain, as well as all privately-owned land that has conservation as one of its land uses. Not all of these areas can be referred to as protected areas, because some of them do not have conservation as the primary land use. They were, however, incorporated into the layer because they provide opportunities for conservation in the future, owing to fact that they are either state-owned, or they support a framework (e.g. a conservancy agreement among land owners) that offers the potential to negotiate more biodiversity-friendly land use in the future. The layer is thus strictly a conservation potential layer, but the report refers to it as a protected area layer.

Baviaanskloof Mega-Reserve Protected Areas. This layer shows the protected areas within the Baviaanskloof Mega-Reserve planning domain and surrounding areas. It includes National Parks, Provincial and Municipal nature reserves, publicly owned land which has been declared as reserves and privately owned land which is managed for conservation (i.e. conservancies).

Protected Areas layer for the Cape Agulhas, De Hoop Management Area, Overstrand, Drakenstein Municipality, Swartland, Swellendam and Theewaterskloof Municipalities.

Protected Areas layer for the Cape Agulhas, De Hoop Management Area, Overstrand, Drakenstein Municipality, Swartland, Swellendam and Theewaterskloof Municipalities.

Protected areas in the SKEP planning domain

Protected Areas layer for the Cape Agulhas, De Hoop Management Area, Overstrand, Drakenstein Municipality, Swartland, Swellendam and Theewaterskloof Municipalities.

Protected Areas layer for Little Karoo Planning Domain defined by Vlok etal. 2005. PA data based on Cape Nature data, NPAES data, Pasquini Data

Informal conservation areas in South Africa

This GIS layer represents the polygon layer for focus areas for offshore protection. The focus areas for offshore protection are geographic areas with high biodiversity priorities and are identified through systematic planning. They were developed to address the inshore bias in South Africa’s protected area system, support ecosystem based management and spatial planning the offshore environment as well as to identify potential network of offshore MPAs. Ten focus areas for offshore protection were identified.

Critical Biodiversity Areas Statutory Reserves for the Eastern Cape