- Title
- Local wood demand, land cover change and the state of Albany thicket on an urban commonage in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Creator
- Stickler, M M, Shackleton, Charlie M
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2015
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/398343
- Identifier
- vital:69402
- Identifier
- xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0396-6"
- Description
- Understanding the rates and causes of land-use change is crucial in identifying solutions, especially in sensitive landscapes and ecosystems, as well as in places undergoing rapid political, socioeconomic or ecological change. Despite considerable concern at the rate of transformation and degradation of the biodiversity-rich Albany Thicket biome in South Africa, most knowledge is gleaned from private commercial lands and state conservation areas. In comparison, there is limited work in communal areas where land uses include biomass extraction, especially for firewood and construction timber. We used aerial photographs to analyze land use and cover change in the high- and low-use zones of an urban commonage and an adjacent protected area over almost six decades, which included a major political transition. Field sampling was undertaken to characterize the current state of the vegetation and soils of the commonage and protected area and to determine the supply and demand for firewood and construction timber. Between the 1950s and 1980s, there was a clear increase in woody vegetation cover, which was reversed after the political transition in the mid-1990s. However, current woody plant standing stocks and sustainable annual production rates are well above current firewood demand, suggesting other probable causes for the decline in woody plant cover. The fragmentation of woody plant cover is paralleled by increases in grassy areas and bare ground, an increase in soil compaction, and decreases in soil moisture, carbon, and nutrients.
- Format
- computer, online resource, application/pdf, 1 online resource (12 pages), pdf
- Publisher
- SpringerLink
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Environmental Management, Stickler, M.M. and Shackleton, C.M., 2015. Local wood demand, land cover change and the state of Albany thicket on an urban commonage in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Environmental management, 55, pp.411-422, Environmental Management volume 55 p. 411 2015 1432-1009
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the SpringerLink Terms of Use Statement ( https://link.springer.com/termsandconditions)
- Rights
- Closed Access
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Collections
RU DST/NRF SARChI for Interdisciplinary Science in Land and Natural Resource Use for Sustainable Livelihoods
RU Department of Environmental Science
Shackleton, Charles Michael (Distinguished Prof)
SDG 15. Life On Land
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | Local wood demand, land cover change and the state of Albany thicket on an urban commonage in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.pdf | 670 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |