Ecological: all recorded flora and fauna from the WBR, alongside their relevant conservation status (IUCN Red-listing); VegMap (with areas of each vegetation type)
Land cover and land use: agricultural, industrial, settlements, natural and degraded;
Socio-economic, including population density, age, gender, well-being (education, income/employment, potable water, sanitation, multidimensional poverty indices);
Cultural: historic and modern sites of importance to communities (e.g. Makapan) and heritage management
Economic: land ownership, land use zoning, tourism, mining, other industry, agriculture, game-farming/ranching; vii) Infrastructure: hard, grey & green
Protected Areas, plus water and other natural resource management, including FEPA’s, Water and Catchment Management Areas/Agency boundaries
extract from the draft RSA Biosphere Strategy 2020-2030
"These datasets can provide the basis on which to start building a more detailed integrated spatial plan. The integrated spatial plans can therefore be developed in stages and to various levels of detail over the next ten years, depending on available budgets and spatial data. Ultimately, it is envisioned that they will include critical biodiversity areas, threatened ecosystems, ecosystem services, climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, ecological corridors, sustainable land use zoning for agriculture, and social and economic development. All broad zonation plans and detailed integrated spatial plans need to be made available to the public in GIS format to ensure the integration of these plans into municipal spatial planning and other spatial planning initiatives.
These BR integrated spatial plans would need to take cognisance of other spatial plans to ensure that they are ultimately integrated into the local and district municipalities’ Spatial Development Frameworks, Environmental Management Frameworks, Integrated Development Plans, Bioregional Plans and into other departmental spatial plans. The mapped detailed integrated spatial plans are to be made available in Geographic Information System (GIS) format and supplied to local and district municipalities and departments involved in sector planning, and support provided towards their usage.
Within the next ten years each BR is to have developed its respective detailed integrated spatial plan that provides the spatial vision of the BR to provide guidance regarding areas that need to be protected from a biodiversity and ecosystem services perspective, important buffer areas, ecological corridors linking areas together, areas important for climate change adaptation and mitigation and other environmental changes, and areas for agricultural, social and economic development and for addressing population dynamics.
extract from the draft RSA Biosphere Strategy 2020-2030