FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

							                        Conservation Stewardship Workshop Proceedings
                               5 November 2003, Kirstenbosch Research Centre

____________________________________________________________
                                                                                        Meeting minutes by Sue Winter
Objectives of the workshop
     To provide information on:
      -    the details of stewardship options1, and the optimal way of communicating these to landowners
      -    the optimal order of events/operational approach for implementing stewardship in the landscape
      -    legal provisions and restrictions in stewardship contracts
      -    biodiversity criteria for conservation value site assessments of private properties
      -    landowner database construction currently underway
     To stimulate thinking in each Cape Nature Conservation (CNC) Business Unit on their individual work plans
      and targets for reclassifying existing privately protected sites and promoting new stewardship options


Presentations
Presentations were delivered on the following topics:
     What you need to know about stewardship options – by Sue Winter
     Explaining the options to landowners: do’s and don’ts – by Kerry Delahunt
     An overview of the Stewardship operational approach – by Sean Ranger
     Legal provisions in stewardship contracts – by Mark Botha
     Background to reclassifying existing stewardship sites – by Chris Martens
     Biodiversity criteria for stewardship site assessment – by Anton Wolfaardt


Copies of these presentations are available on the server at Jonkershoek Scientific Services. Alternatively contact
Sue Winter (winters@nbict.nbi.ac.za) who has copies at Kirstenbosch. Note: Please use these presentations with
discretion and ensure that you understand the rationale behind the content.


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS about Stewardship Options


      1. Why notify landowner for access on Contract Nature Reserves if a servitude exists on the land?
      A: The type of servitude concerned is a restrictive one, doesn’t give “right of way”. Notification is good
      neighbourliness, and management agreement can stipulate access arrangements if need be.


      2. Are commercial activities such as guided trails permitted in Contract Nature Reserves?
      A: A separate agreement for commercial ventures would need to be drawn up.


      3. Who makes decisions about level of management input that CNC will provide for Contract Nature
           Reserves?
      A: There is no recipe - depends on Business Unit manager (to make recommendation to directors) and
      available resources in Business Unit. After director approval, the final decision is with the MEC.


      4. Is it the landowner’s responsibility to implement the management plan for a co-operation agreement?
      A: Yes for the most part. There might be specific instances where the Board would get involved – e.g.
      dropping a fence.


      5. Is there a strategy to ensure the long-term sustainability of servicing sites?
      A: The strategy depends on each Business Unit having an operational plan in place for servicing their sites.
      The Stewardship Programme will only generate catalytic funds. Creative solutions are required (e.g. better
      links are required with LandCare and Working for Water).


1
    Reminder: The 3 stewardship options include: (1) Contract Nature Reserves, (2) Co-operation Agreements, (3) Conservation
Areas.
                                                               1
6. Who will pay legal costs for drawing up agreement and management plan?
A: At this stage, CNC has agreed to cover costs for drawing up legal documents, processing rezoning
applications, registering servitudes, and registering deeds restrictions.


7. Who will assess biodiversity value of site and do auditing of site?
A: Conservation Service staff (will might need area specific training) together with regional ecologists (who
must have sign off).


8. Concern – that we raise expectations and then are unable to adequately service sites in future.
A: CNC is now in a better position to elicit resources for secure sites. However, this problem exists whether
the board goes with stewardship options or not.


9. How do you enforce compliance with previous conditions of development where a requirement was to
    zone an area as Open-Space III?
A: When additional permissions are sought, no further approvals will be granted until conditions met. But the
board does not control this form of compliance. DEA&DP will be engaged to ensure that the right interactions
happen, and comments sought from the CNC, before further authorisations given.


10. Roughly, how many landowner meetings are needed to finalize each stewardship option? (for the
    purposes of planning extension efforts).
A: Try keep meetings to a minimum, but recognise all relationship-building interactions as valuable even if a
deal is not closed. It is very important to prioritise properties to decide where to focus efforts.


11. If a contract nature reserve in place, and they breach conditions, then what?
A: There are terms and conditions in an agreement to deal with breaching contracts. CNC has the ability to
seek relief in court.


12. Must costs of registration, drafting legal agreements etc. come out of Business Unit budgets or the CNC
    corporate budget?
A: Rezoning – Makes sense for BU to cover because cost is at municipal level i.e. adverts in local papers. The
corporate budget should cater for the rest. However, they must know in advance- therefore Business Unit
should inform them of possible numbers for the next year. New budget format must cater for variety of
stewardship costs.


13. Is an official land survey needed to demarcate land to be included in an agreement?
A: No. GPS co-ordinates or identifiable landmarks will suffice.


14. Could income generated from commercial activities on contract reserves be allocated to assist with
    management costs?
A: Ideally yes. However, this must be specifically stated as such and incorporated into the agreement, or
otherwise income will be spent on other things.


15. When wanting to consolidate areas, are individual cadastral agreements still necessary?
A: Yes!


16. What about inequitable allocation of resources (e.g. alien clearing) to different landowners?
A: Judgement calls required – must be defensible based on biodiversity value of site and the level of security
that the landowner has committed to.


17. Are stewardship options also applicable to communally owned sites?
A: Yes, e.g. Moravian mission stations. In this case it will be necessary to negotiate with community
overseers or the community council to enter into a contract/co-operative agreement.

                                                       2
18. Why would a landowner be interested in a Co-operation Agreement, considering rates rebates are only
    applicable to Contract Nature Reserves and not Co-operation Agreements?
A: Many landowners do not want long-term restrictions, but do want more assistance than what is available
for conservation areas. The Co-operation Agreements offers a transition phase.


19. How can we facilitate the process of entering into agreements with municipalities where municipal land is
    concerned?
A: Target key councillors, and lobby public figures. But we must also ensure Spatial Development
Frameworks target these the municipal areas with high biodiversity value. The Biodiversity Act will force
municipalities to consider threatened ecosystems. One of the key objectives in Local agenda 21 is
environment – these opportunities should be further explored.


20. What about financial implications for existing Private Nature Reserves (PNR’s) that aren’t officially
    registered?
A: A list of things will be given to legal services to include in the revision of the WCNCB Ordinance, to ensure
that no private reserves use the PNR branding illegally. We must reserve branding (especially for the new
stewardship options) for those that officially qualify – this will require proactive marketing.


22. What about hunting and game ownership issues in stewardship options?
A: No answers available at this stage. A dedicated meeting (with Wildlife Management Programme, CNC
directors and Stewardship Programme) needs to be held to take game & hunting issues forward.


OTHER


Biodiversity Criteria for Stewardship options (Site Assessment Form)


   A Site assessment form and associated guidelines have been drafted by the Stewardship team and field
    tested once in the West Boland region. The purpose of the form is assess the conservation value of the
    property/piece of property in question to help decide which stewardship option is most suitable for the
    site.
   It was suggested that more field visits were needed (in a variety of vegetation types) to test the use of
    the form in the field.
   Note: No individual will be responsible for making a decision on the conservation value of a site – a team
    effort is required with inputs from Cons Services Managers and regional ecologists.
   A comment was raised that while some of the existing CNC reserves are not in an ideal state of ecological
    management, time prohibits us waiting until all CNC reserves are in order – critical sites on private land
    are being lost at an alarming rate.
   A suggestion was made to investigate the possibility of using cybertracker to capture information in
    thefield.
   Comments on the database should be forwarded to Anton Wolfaardt
    (anton@cncjnk.wcape.gov.za) before 24 November 2003 (in order to co-incide with another
    field testing of the form on the 24th). Thereafter, a smaller group (consisting of the regional
    ecologists and other necessary expertise) will take the biodiversity criteria forward by doing more field-
    testing, finalizing suggested changes and making the guidelines suitable for each vegetation type.


Landowner database


   The contents of a landowner database has been drafted and was presented for comment (by Arne Purves
    & Lauren Waller) at the workshop. This database will not only serve the needs of the Stewardship
    Programme, but will include information for Conservation Services purposes (e.g. permitting and site
    inspection records) and the other CNC programmes.
   It is important that only this database is used throughout all business units to ensure consistency in the

                                                      3
      type of data captured. Other landowner databases currently being used should be discontinued or
      incorporated into this one.
     The data co-ordinators in each Business Unit will collate data in their region and then forward to Scientific
      Services at Jonkershoek, where the database will be centrally updated and housed.
     It was stressed that it is important to think about the types of products or queries that users of the
      database wish to get out of the database BEFORE the database is designed.
      The following list of products have already been suggested:
         a. Prompt (for expiry date on agreement)
         b. Prompt (for site audit due)
         c. Prompt (for landowner visit due)
         d. Map of priorities (for aspects of biodiversity, willingness, threats etc.)
         e. Map of Permits, Certificates of Adequate Enclosure, Directives issued etc.)
         f. Prompt (for CNC intervention required)
         g. Map of Agricultural Landuse
         h. Map of current stewardship status (and graph)
         i. Graph of growth in area under stewardship (3 options)
         j. Total cost of intervention (per option, total)
         k. Annual cost per type of intervention
         l. Prompt (for due date of Management Plan revision)

     The following additional products/database capabilities were suggested:
         m. Performance Assessment tool – i.e. Cons. Services staff names should be linked to actions taken,
              so that they can be tracked per person.
         n. Law enforcement actions – records of ECIS visits to be included.
         o. Link with permit system database
         p. Previous data should not be lost when new data is updated (e.g. provide ability to track previous
              land use after landuse has changed)

     It was also suggested that a new section in the database should be created for socio-economic and youth
      development info, and other data pertinent to the Community Conservators (e.g. which communities are
      utilising the property).


     Comments on the database (i.e. additional fields or database products that you require)
      should be forwarded to Arne Purves (apurves@pawc.wcape.gov.za)) by 30 November 2003.
      Please refer to the attached draft datasheet (where data will be captured in the field in hard copy) and
      Excel spreadsheet (for interim electronic data capture).


     A working group of approx. 5 people including representatives from CNC Scientific Services (GIS dept),
      Conservation Services and Legal services &/Admin will be co-ordinated by Helen de Klerk to take the
      database forward once all comments have been received. This working group will meet in mid
      December 2003. Thereafter, a technical person will need to be appointed/assigned to convert the Excel
      database into Microsoft Access format.


Business Unit discussions


Each Business Unit cluster discussed and reported back on the following 3 items:
1.)     Determine a strategy timeline (1 year & 3 year plan) for reclassifying existing stewardship sites (i.e.
Private Nature Reserves, Natural Heritage Sites, properties in conservancies etc.) into 1 of the 3 stewardship
options.
2.) Identify key obstacles in Business Unit clusters regarding reclassification
3.) Outline the support required from the Stewardship Programme.


It was also noted that there is a need for a corporate plan for stewardship in terms of how resource allocation
to the business units will be affected (CNC directors’ & Chris Marten’s responsibility).


The reporters from each Business Unit cluster are requested to please send their notes from this
discussion to Sue Winter (winters@nbict.nbi.ac.za) by 30 November 2003.


                                                       4
KEY OUTCOME: Each business unit should draw up an operational plan (1 yr & 3 yr plan) and map of
priority sites which should be targeted for stewardship status. This includes both those currently conserved
and properties identified as critical, but not yet secured. This plan should be completed before the next
financial year (March 04) to ensure business unit & corporate budgets cater for the costs of servicing
stewardship sites.
The Stewardship Programme will assist business units with strategy & implementation aspects of these plans
in a series of regional training times in 2004, which will be held in each business cluster.



Other:
   It was noted that 1 page clarification documents are needed on CNC’s policy on i) Contracts, ii) Rates, iii)
    Reclassification   of   PNR’s   and   other   tricky       issues,   with   support   from   Aletta   Jordaan   (CNC
    Communications).
   Application forms for Contract reserves, Co-operation Agreements and Conservation Areas still need to be
    developed by CNC with support from legal services and communications departments, and should include
    leading questions to convey a sense of the importance of the different options.




                                                           5