Plantation Forestry in South Africa and its Impact on Biodiversity

Impact of land use on the biodiversity integrity of the moist sub-biome of the grassland biome, South Africa

“…Land uses in this region differ in their impact on plant (Venter et al, 1989;O'Connor et al, 2003;O'Connor, 2005;Walters et al, 2006) and animal (Rowe-Rowe, 1982;Samways and Moore, 1991;Samways and Sergeev, 1997;Armstrong et al, 1998;Davis et al, 1999) composition and diversity, and on ecosystem functioning (Du Toit and Du Preez, 1995;Dickens and Graham, 1998;Dye, 2000;Mills and Fey, 2004;Mills et al, 2005). These studies are insufficient for assessing the relative impact of different land uses because they have compared only a few land uses or a limited number of response variables.…”

The importance of dry woodlands and forests in rural livelihoods and poverty alleviation in South Africa

“…The values of plantation forests and the forest products industries come with some environmental costs, especially in terms of water abstraction and biodiversity impacts (e.g. Armstrong et al, 1998;Tewari, 2001), many of which have not been adequately costed, and deducted from forestry GDP statements (Hassan, 2002). However, there has been a steady commitment to improvement of environmental performance by the forestry industry, with over 80% of the plantation area now boasting some international certification standard.…”

Forestry as a streamflow reduction activity in South Africa: Discussion and evaluation of the proposed procedure for the assessment of afforestation permit applications in terms of water sustainability

“…The impacts of forestry on biodiversity has been well documented (Primack, 1993;Kromhout, 1994;Gilpin, 1996;Olbrich et al, 1997;Van der Zel, 1997;Armstrong et al, 1998). Afforestation in South Africa involves the replacement of grasslands (Heydenrych, 1995;Richardson, 1998) and scrub-brushland habitats (Richardson, 1998).…”