SA faces 'real, urgent' threats

2007-06-06 07:05

Cape Town - Over the next few decades, global warming may change the face of Table Mountain, one of South Africa's best-known tourism icons.

Along with other conservation areas, the mountain and the national park it is located in face a "real and urgent" threat from climate change, the Department of Environmental Affairs warned on Tuesday.

By mid-century, within the Table Mountain National Park, climate-sensitive fynbos species will be extinct, perennial water seeps will dry up, and alien plants will spread, it says in a handout tabled at a pre-budget vote media briefing at Parliament.

Another tourism icon, the Kruger National Park, also faces climate-induced changes.

These include "more intense rainfall interspersed with possibly more extended dry spells, changes in the tree cover and grass production, (and) greater competition for water... with users upstream of the park".

The Addo Elephant National Park will also see a greater frequency of "intense rainfall events", interspersed with droughts.

Aggressive and biodiversity-choking alien plants - including the virulent triffid weed - are set to spread through the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal.

In the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, extreme temperatures will cause key species such as the quiver tree to die back, and a "remobilisation" of the Kalahari dunes.

Coastal wetland bird sanctuaries will come under threat from salinisation due to rising sea levels and storm surges.

In the Tanqua Karoo National Park, there is a "very likely" risk of tens to hundreds of species of endemic succulent plant species going extinct.

According to the document, the experts who sit on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change foresee between 25% and 40% of animal species in South Africa's national parks facing "further increases in threat status".

Particularly vulnerable are the fynbos and succulent Karoo ecosystems.

"For a mean global temperature increase of between two and three degrees Celsius during this century, we stand to lose between 50% and 65% of our unique fynbos," it says.

The document notes the economic impact of climate change on South Africa's tourism industry, representing over eight percent of the country's GDP, could be "very large indeed".

Nature-based tourism and wildlife were cited by about a third of international visitors as the key reason for their visit.

"In conservation areas, the threats (from climate change) appear to be real and urgent," it says.

- SAPA