Water Wheel Nov/Dec 2021: Water And Wetlands

Abstract

South Africa’s swamp forests are very likely critically endangered wetland ecosystems There is wide recognition that South African swamp and floodplain forests or forested wetlands, are unique biotypes and that they are threatened (Berliner, 2005; 2009; Jewitt, 2018; Mucina & Rutherford, 2006). The forested wetland extent has been mapped by at least eight different studies using methods such as heads-up digitising or remote sensing classification at various scales. During the past year, this information was brought together and integrated into a single output, the areal extent, being used to assess the red list status of these wetlands. Following the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for the Red Listing of Ecosystems (RLE), this protocol was used to evaluate these forested wetlands, and the results recently published by Van Deventer et al. (2021). Here we provide an overview of the study and the implications of the work for South Africa.

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