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Southern Africa is well-blessed with a diverse and vibrant human population and a wealth of natural capital. The key challenge for sustainable development is to grow society's capacity to use this natural capital to meet the needs of the region's human population, especially the poor, in ways that sustain environmental life-support systems. Collaborating across disciplines, the authors explore the underpinning principles and the potential of sustainability science in a number of case studies.
Human impact on natural landscapes through urbanization and agricultural expansion are becoming more and more dramatic and are the cause of serious environmental problems. This volume examines the effect of landscape disturbance on plant and animal diversity in the five mediterranean-climate regions of the world. It begins with three introductory chapters broadly reviewing the issues of landscape degradation. Further contributions describe regional land use conflicts in each of the five regions. Landscape disturbance and plant diversity, and landscape disturbance and animal diversity are treated in separate chapters. Four contributions deal with demography and ecophysiology in vegetation succession following disturbance. The volume closes with a consideration of the future addressing aspects of environmental politics.
'I straighten her little tiara every morning – I lift her chin and remind her that she is meant for greater things than playground bullies.' 'Everything shines in its own time. There is no timetable for life. Timetables are for classrooms, not for people.' These are just some of the wisdoms shared on The Village, South Africa's beloved Facebook group for parents raising tweens, teens and young adults. Having kids is a baffling endeavour beset with sulk, meltdowns, anxiety and disappointment – and that's just the parents! When you get that call to the principal's office? When the school acceptances don't come? When the bedroom door slams and you hear your child sobbing behind it? All awful but it's also a precious time. The trick? To find a way to enjoy our families, love our children and believe in them and ourselves despite the daily challenges. And laugh . . . In this book, Vanessa Raphaely and Karin Schimke have gathered together life lessons and insights from The Village members. It contains the gems and remedies from the real parenting experts – the parents – to help you raise your family in your own perfectly imperfect way.
This book tries to answer that question through a global journey in search of places where conservation efforts mean things are getting better, not worse an attempt to understand conservation success, celebrate it, and learn from it.
Namaqualand is justifiably famous for the floral wonderland it becomes in spring, when seas of bright flowers carpet the land. Astonishingly, the carpet comprises some 3,800 species, of which 28% are endemic. This book introduces nearly 600 species, highlighting those most commonly found, most conspicuous, spectacular or interesting, as well as endemics. An introduction touches on the species selection for the book, the climatic and topographical subregions within Namaqualand, plant names and uses, and conservation issues. The concise species descriptions also give seed and fruit details, uses, local growing conditions and flowering times, along with beautiful full-colour photographs. This is a must-have guide for visitors to Namaqualand, or for anyone interested in the wild flowers of southern Africa.
In 2018, the city of Cape Town, South Africa, was close to the “Day Zero”, requiring all taps to be shut off and citizens to fetch a daily 25 litre per person. Though the day-zero was avoided, it is estimated that, at the current rate, South Africa will experience a 17% water deficit by 2030 if no action is taken to respond to existing trends.
Classified list with author and title index.
This book represents the most comprehensive compilation of data on threatened vascular plants ever published. It includes the names of some 33,000 plant species determined to be rare or threatened on a global scale. Conservation assessments were provided by the IUCN Species Survival Commission, the National Botanical Institute (South Africa), Environment Australia, and CSIRO, The Nature Conservancy, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, together with hundreds of botanic gardens and botanists throughout the world. The Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and the New York Botanical Garden have made major in-kind contributions.The result of 20 years work by botanists and conservationists around the world, it is intended as a conservation tool, a provider of baseline information to measure conservation progress and as a primary source of data on plant species. Most importantly, however, it provides the building blocks on which to base a worldwide effort to conserve plant species.