Biodiversity Planning Branch Home Page

The aim of the Biodiversity Planning Branch is to ensure the sustained supply of a broad range of high quality environmental goods and services for Durban’s residents and visitors. This is achieved through the conservation, sustainable utilisation and equitable sharing of benefits from significant marine, freshwater and terrestrial biodiversity assets and the physical environments in which they are found. 

The annual eThekwini Municipality State of Environment Reporting track trends through the collection and analysis of this data to assess impacts of municipal activities.

In pursuing its aim, the branch contributes to the fulfillment of a number of municipal plans and programmes as outlined in the 2006-2011 Integrated Development Plan (IDP). Notably Plan One: “Sustaining our Natural and Built Environment”.

The municipality has a specific plan to protect its natural environments, which is included in its Integrated Development Plan. Open space planning in Durban was initiated over 25 years ago by a non-governmental organization, the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa. Since then the plan has become a municipal responsibility and has undergone a number of revisions driven by changes in conceptual focus and a big increase in the eThekwini Municipal Area (EMA). Previously the plan focused on the protection of conservation-worthy areas, but nowadays the plan is also founded on principles such as sustainability and democracy. The plan is officially called the eThekwini Environmental Services Management Plan although the acronym D’MOSS (Durban Metropolitan Open Space System) remains in popular use. There are two parts to this plan, produced in 2001 and 2003.

_{Click here to see a map showing the expanding municipal boundary and open space system}

As mentioned above, the main aim and conceptual focus of the EESMP is to ensure the sustained supply of a broad range of environmental goods and services. These include the supply of water, fuel, and food, waste treatment, wildlife refuges, and buffers against environmental perturbations, e.g. climate change, stormy seas and flooding. Environmental goods and services have a significant impact on our quality of life, and in some parts of Durban, people still rely heavily on their local, natural environments. Using resource economics, it was conservatively estimated in 2002 that the total replacement value of environmental goods and services supplied by the open space system was R 3.1 billion per annum (excluding the value of the role of open space in the tourism industry of Durban, itself worth about R 3.3 billion in 2001).

_{Open spaces provide environmental goods and services. The resident is collecting ncema (Juncus kraussii) to make sleeping mats}.

Amongst other things, the EESMP identifies the land within the EMA (63 115 ha or 27% of the EMA), which delivers most environmental goods and services. As a result, the plan also identifies areas which are not environmentally sensitive and where development can proceed with limited environmental considerations. Land identified as environmentally sensitive may be viewed on City Maps on the Home Page of the municipality’s website www.durban.gov.za

_{Map showing the environmentally sensitive land in the municipal area.}

A large proportion of the land that has been identified as environmentally sensitive cannot be developed due to the nature of the land (e.g. it is subject to flooding) or it may not be legally developed (e.g. zoned open space.) Other parts are privately or communally owned and may be zoned to facilitate development. As the eThekwini Municipality cannot own and manage all the important natural areas in the EMA, the challenge is to seek cost effective ways to secure and manage this land. This must be done in consultation with landowners as land may have previously been allocated potential development rights. In order to assess the potential impacts of proposed developments on the EESMP, and eThekwini Municipality’s broader sustainable development agenda, all applications for development within or adjacent to land identified as part of the EESMP should seek early input from the Environmental Management Department.

As outlined above, the EESMP defines the concepts underpinning open space planning, estimates, the value of the goods and services supplied by ecosystems and identifies the land which delivers the highest quality environmental goods and services. It also begins to deal with implementation, management, funding and institutional matters.  In order to provide a framework for action, the Biodiversity Planning Branch has prepared an EESMP Implementation Strategy and Action Plan with the help of other interested parties. This document aims to encompass the work of a range of role- players and record implementation strategies, actions and target dates in more detail.