Fire can destroy infrastructure and livelihoods, and claim lives. Yet, fire is inevitable and plays several vital ecological roles that have shaped ecosystems over millennia. Planned fires also serve human needs. Critical media content analysis of 390 media reports (print, online and broadcast) on fires in South African National Parks over a three-year period were used to investigate the portrayal of fire by the mass media. We found a strong emphasis on reactive fire suppression along with a predominantly negative sentiment towards fire (93.9% of total media reach) focussing primarily on losses, destruction and the threat of fires to infrastructure, human health or lives and vegetation. In the few cases where scientists were involved (2.3% of total reach), the narrative, sentiment and images provided a more nuanced perspective of fire as having both detrimental and beneficial consequences (63.6%), imparting key fire ecology concepts to understand fire behaviour better and highlighting the importance of proactive fire-risk reduction measures. Given the influence of the mass media on the views and opinions of the public and policymakers, and its socio-political and management consequences, we conclude that scientists and journalists should do more to engage with one another. We provide pathways and tips to scientists on how to increase their media footprint to promote a more balanced media portrayal of fire.

In the Western Indian Ocean (WIO), more than 76 records from peer-reviewed and grey literature identified approximately 60 invertebrate taxa harvested for bait and food. The most diverse phyla were Mollusca, followed by Arthropoda and Annelida, with few records of Porifera, Nemertea and Echinodermata. Importance of each phylum differs according to country, with arthropods (Upogebia africana and Kraussillichirus kraussi), and annelids (Marphysa mossambica) being most important in South Africa and Kenya, respectively. Of the taxa utilised, only 42 are reliably identified to species level, suggesting that the diversity of species utilised in the region is greatly underestimated. Most of the data on biology and exploitation were for species from South Africa. Less data were available from Kenya with minimal to none being available from the remaining WIO countries. This limits the understanding of biology and trends in exploitation of most bait taxa, and consequently information required for developing national and regional management policies. Bait management guidelines are available only for South Africa, but require updating in view of changes in use of bait resources. We recommend the development of coordinated multidisciplinary, multicountry research aimed at increasing data and information to feed into policy development and support national and regional bait resource management.

Protected areas (PAs) play a critical role in safeguarding Earth's biodiversity and contributing to human wellbeing. Maintenance of ecological intactness, financial viability and social relevance influence PA sustainability. We explore how COVID-19 and associated lockdown regulations influenced the sustainability of South Africa's largest PA management agency. Quantitative and qualitative information, sourced from ongoing monitoring, organizational reports, questionnaires and discussions with agency staff, were used to make sense of the challenges and opportunities. In the short term, lockdown regulations limited people's ability to access benefits from PAs with 50,000 educational visits lost between April and June 2020 and recreational visits in access-controlled national parks decreasing by ~96%. Consequently, tourism revenue dropped by 90% highlighting the fragility and risk of single primary income stream reliance. This resulted in loss of community development revenues and implementation of cost curtailment measures. Increased anxiety regarding health and job security impacted employee morale and complicated operational challenges. Navigating this period required good communication, re-prioritisation and adaptive responses by park managers. Whilst we report on short-term impacts and responses, lagged and longer-term impacts are anticipated. The pandemic highlighted the interconnectedness of people and ecosystems and the complex interdependencies between the sustainability principles which must be considered for increased PA resilience and sustainability.

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundreds of reports of unusual species observations from around the world suggest that animals quickly responded to the reductions in human presence. However, negative effects of lockdown on conservation also emerged, as confinement resulted in some park officials being unable to perform conservation, restoration and enforcement tasks, resulting in local increases in illegal activities such as hunting. Overall, there is a complex mixture of positive and negative effects of the pandemic lockdown on nature, all of which have the potential to lead to cascading responses which in turn impact wildlife and nature conservation. While the net effect of the lockdown will need to be assessed over years as data becomes available and persistent effects emerge, immediate responses were detected across the world. Thus, initial qualitative and quantitative data arising from this serendipitous global quasi-experimental perturbation highlights the dual role that humans play in threatening and protecting species and ecosystems. Pathways to favorably tilt this delicate balance include reducing impacts and increasing conservation effectiveness.

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) provide a useful frame for exploring the benefits that people derive from visiting protected areas. The role that management authorities play in facilitating the delivery of CES has been identified as a particular research gap. We used group discussions with staff from three contrasting national parks in South Africa to explore how participation in visitor activities may translate into CES. Based on 21 selected activities, we found some complementarity across the three parks and that each activity could give rise to multiple CES. Additionally, CES delivery is influenced by a plethora of enablers, threats/constraints, opportunities, and trade-offs, many of which were park-specific and dynamic over time. Although the operating environment which enables CES differed significantly between fenced and open access parks, some enablers, trade-offs and tensions were generic across all three parks. A common tension related to the perception that delivery of CES was secondary to achieving biodiversity conservation, whilst a trade-off existed between the need to increase revenue and tourist numbers and providing quality and meaningful nature experiences. An alternative to the linear cascades model of ecosystem service delivery is suggested to better describe the complex interactions involved in CES delivery.

Sporting events are becoming more prevalent within protected areas. To investigate the potential for trail runners to facilitate alien plant introductions into a protected area, we identified plants germinating from material from shoes obtained from 682 trail runners prior to four races in a South African national park. Runners' perceptions of their potential role in spreading plant seeds were assessed. We identified 33 species (152 plants) from 9 families; 45% of species and 82% of plants were alien and 97% of the species are weeds elsewhere. Each race contributed, on average, 11 species of which 6 were alien. Poaceae, Asteraceae and Caryophyllaceae were the most speciose families, and Poa annua the most abundant species. All species were herbaceous, mostly with small, persistent seeds and unspecialized dispersal syndromes - traits facilitating dispersal and persistence. Eighty percent of participants agreed that trail runners could potentially transport seeds although <50% cleaned their shoes frequently. Management implications: Our findings confirmed that trail runners can act as vectors for seed dispersal and that sporting events in protected areas can increase the potential for alien plant introductions. Biosecurity measures and awareness raising initiatives need to be implemented by protected area authorities in collaboration with sporting event organizers.

Monitoring is an essential component of measuring the performance of protected areas. This requirement led to the development of a biodiversity monitoring system for South African National Parks (SANParks). The system comprises of ten major programmes, each focusing on a core area of conservation biodiversity monitoring, with resource use being one of the focal areas. With the growing appreciation of the importance of natural resources for the socio-economic well-being of communities and other stakeholders, sustainable resource use is an important component of the management of natural areas and national parks. To gauge sustainability, a sound monitoring and research programme that fits within the context of the SANParks’ adaptive management approach towards social-ecological system management is required. The purpose of this article was to define the context and scope in which consumptive resource use takes place within SANParks and to outline the criteria necessary for developing a sound monitoring programme to assess the sustainability of such use. The monitoring programme is structured in view of the fact that sustainable resource use is achievable only where all dimensions of sustainability (social, economic and ecological) are considered simultaneously. In terms of the social and economic dimensions of sustainability, the programme provides for assessing stakeholder needs, trends in resource use and the social and economic impacts of resource use. Monitoring that relates to the ecological dimension of sustainability of biological resource use deals with the rate of turnover and population dynamics of target species, as well as harvest impact. In terms of abiotic (non-renewable) resources, monitoring deals with sound management practices to minimise impact on the environment, and to optimise benefits through responsible use. Conservation implications: The resource use monitoring programme is intended to ensure that monitoring relating to the harvesting of natural resources from national parks is scientifically sound and conducted in a structured way, towards meeting the objective of sustainable use and compliance with national legislation. The article illustrates how SANParks meets its obligation to monitor biodiversity conservation while at the same time meeting the needs for the consumptive use of resources.

The fish assemblage in the Noetsie Estuary, a temporarily open and closed estuary on the southern coast of South Africa, was sampled using multiple gears. A total of 12 species from 8 families were recorded. Collectively, estuarine-dependent marine species dominated seine net catches numerically and in terms of biomass for both sampling seasons. Estuarine round herring (Gilchristella aestuaria) was numerically the dominant species in late summer, while juvenile Mugilidae dominated catches in winter. Size class distributions of various fish species indicate that the estuary both serves a nursery function for important euryhaline marine species and supports estuarine resident taxa. Application of the Estuarine Fish Community Index indicates the ecological condition of the estuary to be ‘good’. This study contributes to the species list for the estuary while also reporting the presence of an alien invasive freshwater species, Gambusia affinis. Recommendations include the development of a management plan and the formalisation of an estuarine management committee.Conservation implications: The Noetsie Estuary serves a nursery function for important euryhaline marine species, while supporting healthy populations of estuarine resident taxa. The presence of one alien invasive fish species is documented with potential implications for the conservation of biodiversity in the estuary.

Protected areas are increasingly being viewed and acknowledged within broader social-ecological landscapes as providing a range of ecosystem services, which offer an important connection between nature and society. We explore non-mechanised adventure racing as a form of nature-based tourism, how this activity enables access to a suite of cultural ecosystem services, and its facilitation by a network of relatively open-access protected landscapes. An international adventure race, set within the Garden Route, South Africa, was used as a case study. The physical setting (appreciating nature's beauty and experiencing the environment in a different way) played the most important role as a motivating factor for participation within adventure racing. Mountainous scenery, rugged coastlines and encounters with iconic species along with the challenge, physical exertion and social bonding also contributed strongly towards the overall experience. Social media and live tracking provided an opportunity for broad exposure and a virtual experience of cultural ecosystem services at a range of spatial scales. In this manuscript we contribute to profiling adventure tourism within a cultural ecosystem service framework, and highlight some implications for protected area management. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Wilderness Lakes System, a temporarily open and closed estuary with three associated lakes situated in the southern Cape region of South Africa, was sampled using a range of sampling gears to assess the fish community. A total of 25 species were sampled throughout the system, with the highest diversity in the Touw Estuary (23 species) and the lowest in Langvlei (11 species). Estuary-associated marine species (13 species) dominated species richness with smaller proportions of estuarine resident (7 species), freshwater (3 species) and catadromous species (2 species). Estuarine resident species dominated the catch numerically. The size–class distribution of euryhaline marine species indicated that upon entering the Touw Estuary as juveniles, the fish move up the system towards Rondevlei where they appear to remain. Three freshwater species were recorded in the system, all of which are alien to the Wilderness Lakes System. Decreasing salinity in the upper lakes appears to be a driving factor in the distribution and increasing abundance of the freshwater fishes. Sampling followed a drought, with the system experiencing substantially increased levels of mouth closure compared to a similar study conducted in the 1980s. The timing of mouth opening and the degree of connectivity between the lakes influence the nursery function of the system as a whole. Management actions need to focus on improving ecological functioning of this system, in particular how mouth opening is managed, to facilitate nursery function and limit the establishment of invasive species. Conservation implications: Key management actions are required to improve fish recruitment potential into and within the system. These include maintenance of adequate marine inflow through adherence to artificial mouth breaching protocols and improving connectivity between the lakes through sediment removal from localised deposition points within the connecting channels.

Groenvlei is a coastal, near-freshwater lake in the Garden Route region of South Africa, which became isolated from the ocean about 4,000 years ago due to sea level regression. It contains only two native fish species-Atherina breviceps and Gilchristella aestuaria-and several non-native species, including the illegally introduced common carp ( Cyprinus carpio). Options for controlling this highly invasive species in Groenvlei are presently being considered and as such, it is pertinent that the conservation status of native species be assessed. Mitochondrial DNA analyses support significant divergence of both native fish species inhabiting Groenvlei from nearby populations. Additionally, genetic structuring of A. breviceps populations inhabiting other sampling localities was also detected. In Groenvlei, populations of both species displayed slightly lower haplotype diversity and much lower nucleotide diversity than those inhabiting nearby estuaries. Given the level of genetic divergence, native fish populations in Groenvlei should be recognised as a distinct management unit. It is acknowledged that invasive species, such as carp, pose a serious threat to the Groenvlei ecosystem. However, the divergence of the Groenvlei populations-as evidenced by this study-implies that any large-scale actions aimed at removing invasive ichthyofauna should not impact the native species because the unique evolutionary signals of both populations could be destroyed. Our results highlight the importance of incorporating a genetic approach to understanding the evolutionary history of southern African estuarine species and decision-making processes supporting conservation of biodiversity in the region.

This study investigates the distribution, relative abundance, population growth and biology of the alien invasive fish Gambusia affinis in the Wilderness Lakes System, a coastal lake system in the warm-temperate region of South Africa. Fish were collected throughout the system during four seasonal sampling trips in spring (October 2010), summer (February 2011), autumn (May 2011) and winter (July 2011). Gambusia affinis were widespread and abundant in all habitats from the freshwater reaches of the inflowing Touw River to the more saline lakes and estuary. Sex ratio was generally female dominated and mean length at maturity was 14.7 mm standard length (SL) for males and 20.3 mm SL for females. Reproduction was strongly seasonal with reproductively active fish sampled in spring and summer but not in autumn and winter. Relative abundance also varied seasonally, with populations following typical boom and bust' population dynamics. By winter, the population in all habitats was lower with mortality rates as high as 85%. The stronghold of the population appears to be in the channels between the lakes, where relative abundance was more consistent and winter mortality rates were lower. The survivors, which are primarily females, then reconstitute the population in the spring and summer months.

Coastal environments provide a wide range of leisure opportunities, including recreational fishing. Understanding spatial and temporal fishing patterns is important in ensuring wise management and sustainable use. To provide information on shore angler effort and distribution, randomised aerial surveys of the Garden Route coast between the eastern border of the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area and the Kaaimans River mouth in the west were undertaken between December 2008 and November 2009. A total of 15 flights were conducted, with six flights taking place over weekends, two on public holidays and the balance on normal week days. Angler effort was not uniformly distributed along the coastline, and spatial analysis highlighted coastal areas both inside and outside marine protected areas that had increased angler effort. In general, fishing effort was highest around more densely populated areas and concentrated in areas with easy access. Although angler counts were highly variable, the seasonality of shore angling effort showed a slight increase during autumn and winter and angling effort was significantly higher on weekends.Conservation implications: Data obtained during these surveys can assist management with future conservation planning exercises, whilst also guiding daily law enforcement patrols to maximise angler encounters.

Subtidal research presents numerous challenges that restrict the ability to answer fundamental ecological questions related to reef systems. These challenges are closely associated with traditional monitoring methods and include depth restrictions (e.g. safe diving depths for underwater visual census), habitat destruction (e.g. trawling), mortality of target species (e.g. controlled angling and fish traps), and high operating costs (e.g. remotely operated vehicles and large research vessels).

Resource harvesting is permissible within South African protected areas under certain conditions as part of benefit sharing that seeks to strengthen relationships with communities living adjacent to parks. However, not all resource use is authorised and little is currently known about what is harvested, or the extent and impacts of harvesting in parks. This limits capacity to monitor and set the boundaries for such use. This paper provides a checklist of resources harvested within each of 19 national parks managed by South African National Parks. Data were gathered by means of a question-based survey of park staff. A database detailing the parks from which each resource was harvested and its purpose(s) was compiled, representing the most comprehensive list of resources harvested from parks to date. A total of 382 harvested biological and abiotic resources (284 terrestrial and 98 aquatic), used for a wide range of purposes, were identified across parks. Many of the resources, especially animals (96%), were harvested destructively. The strongest motivation for harvest was subsistence, although most resources were also used for financial gain through informal business. Although current data are not sufficient to determine harvest sustainability for most resources, better data and increased awareness of resource use activities will enable future research to this end.Conservation implications: The checklist of harvested resources provides critical baseline data for parks, which will facilitate assessment of park-specific priorities for research, monitoring and management action.