BIODIVERSITY STEWARDSHIP
The Biodiversity Stewardship South Africa (BSSA) programme is an initiative of the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) in partnership with key conservation organisations.
The BSSA programme was conceptualised by a coalition of non-governmental organisations during an exploratory workshop in 2005. The BSSA is an umbrella programme that provides a powerful new tool to assist national and provincial government in fulfilling its mandate to conserve biodiversity outside of state-owned protected areas, in terms of the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas (Act 57 of 2003) and Biodiversity (Act 10 of 2004) Acts.
The programme helps to implement provincial conservation plans through a consistent, national, landscape-scale approach to stewardship. It also assists government in meeting the targets set out by the National Spatial Biodiversity Assessment and the National Biodiversity Framework (NBF). The BSSA's goals are aligned with those of DEAT's National Protected Areas Expansion Strategy and Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme.
The Midlands Conservancies Forum Biodiversity Stewardship Manager is Gareth Boothway biodiversity@midlandsconservancies.org.za
Click on the following links for more information on the BSSA programme: