A STEP forward : safeguarding the biodiversity of the south-eastern Cape region : feature

Some of the older conservation-minded individuals amongst us might recall a conference on conservation way back in the 1970s when Paul Britton, an urban planner for the City of Cape Town, made a heartfelt appeal to the audience of biologists. He implored them to develop maps showing areas of different conservation priority that would assist urban planners in making wise land-use decisions. Over the next twenty odd years, there was little progress in this regard. However, in recent years, there has been a surge in technological and conceptual innovation in this field, now termed conservation planning. Even so, the results of this hi-tech research are complex and difficult to integrate into land use plans.