Red List of South African Species

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Least Concern (LC)
Assessors: Matthew Child
Reviewers: Craig Hilton-Taylor Michael Hoffmann

Rationale

Listed as Least Concern in the assessment region due to our extremely large population size (estimated at 52.98 million in 2013), with a healthy projected growth rate of 2.4% until 2040 (60.94 million). We cover the entire extent of occurrence with an average of 42 individuals / km2 and 675 individuals / km2 in Gauteng Province alone. Although political and economic turmoil threaten the stability of our population, it is not expected to lead to regional extinction. The main threat to our species is the threat we pose to other species: the scale and speed at which Humans are transforming landscapes and consuming resources has led to the epoch of the Anthropocene, wherein Humans have become the greatest destructive force on the planet. By undermining the capacity for ecosystems to function and thus provide ecosystem goods and services, Humans may well be increasing our extinction risk in the long run. Humans are very adaptable but, unfortunately for the rest of biodiversity, not very sapient.

Key interventions to curb the destructive nature of Humans, and the demise of all life on Earth, include:
  1. Voluntary family-planning practices to liberate women from unintentional reproduction.
  2. Behavioural economic practices to curb over-consumerism.
  3. A switch in diet to consume less meat, and, within the assessment region, more game meat.
  4. Stricter governmental control and regulation of multinational corporations that cause harm to the environment.
We suspect that the world can accommodate all 8.7 million described species (Mora et al. 2011) if Humans were to simply consume less, utilise space more effectively and care more about their ecological communities.

Regional population effects: The rescue effect is unnecessary due to excessive in situ growth.

Distribution

Humans have the widest distribution of any terrestrial mammal species, inhabiting every continent on Earth (although there are no permanent settlements on Antarctica). A small group of Humans has been introduced to space, where they inhabit the International Space Station. Thus, Humans are extraordinarily good dispersers, able to colonise all ranges, especially extra-limital habitats.

Humans have a clear preference for wetter areas and coastal areas, and are less common in deserts. Within the assessment region, all biomes are occupied by Human settlements, with, according to the 2011 national census, highest densities in Gauteng Province (675 individuals / km2) and lowest in the Northern Cape Province (3.1 individuals / km2). Thus the extent of occurrence is the area of the assessment region (1,219,912 km2) with an estimated area of occupancy of 29,026 km2 based on current (2013) Human settlement area (GeoTerraImage 2015). However, a complex feedback loop between culture and landscape means that most landscapes are managed for a cultural-specific aesthetic (for example, Nassauer 1995; Gobster et al. 2007). The implications of which mean there is very little ‘pristine’ nature left in the world but rather a mosaic of ‘scenes’ where nature is used as a narrative device devoid of any transcendent property (Cronon 1996).

In South Africa, such a narrative often takes the form of ‘the bush’ where educated and affluent individuals exhibit a subtle colonial attitude towards their landscapes, similar to the rugged individualism of the American frontier, and have subsequently fuelled a demand for so-called eco-estates and cordoned-off conservancies, which, unfortunately, may only be fuelling alienation from the ‘local’ landscape (Ballard & Jones 2011). Similarly, although transfrontier conservation areas are hugely beneficial for biodiversity, their efficacy in unifying cultures and societies remains questionable as the imagery of the quintessential African landscape is rooted in primitivist discourse, which precludes the material development of African communities (Draper et al. 2004).

It is clear that the integration of culture and landscape in South Africa is politically and aesthetically fraught and more work needs to be done to sustain a vision of the land that includes all stakeholders.

Population trend

Trend

The South African population of Humans was estimated at 52.98 million in 2013, which equates to 31.79 million mature individuals using a 60% mature population structure. Similar 2013 population estimates for Swaziland and Lesotho are 1.25 and 2 million respectively. The largest subpopulation exists in Gauteng Province, with an estimated 12.7 million residents. The annual rate of population growth is 1.3% for South Africa (Statistics South Africa 2013). The Human population within the assessment region is thus safely over the 10,000 threshold required to consider application of IUCN Red List Criterion C.

South Africa is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, with 11 official languages (Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu) and four major ethnic groups. Although racially segregated from 1948 to 1994, subpopulations and cultures are in the process of integration. Such high ethnic diversity, and increasing rates of gene flow between groups, should ensure a resilient population in the future. As far as mating systems go, most communities are monogamous, although some individuals remain polygamous.

While most other species suffer the problem of too few individuals, Humans need to reduce their abundance. The global Human population size has increased from about 10 million 10,000 years ago to over 7 billion in 2013. Parallel to this, there has been a major increase in per capita resource use, which significantly compounds the damage caused to biodiversity and makes the species vulnerable to population crash through environmental collapse or disease pandemics (Freedman 2014). Such unprecedented rates of population growth and consumption have led to the delineation of a new epoch: the Anthropocene (Smith & Zeder 2013). This Human-dominated epoch is estimated to have begun around 1800 at the onset of major industrialisation and has led, among other phenomena, to the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide from preindustrial 270–275 ppm to over 380 ppm currently (Steffen et al. 2011; Zalasiewicz et al. 2011). If we do not achieve planetary stewardship soon, the Human species risks driving the global system into a state that is hostile to life and not easy to engineer solutions (Steffen et al. 2011), especially for the majority of the world’s people and species.

Within the assessment region, subpopulations are increasing alongside protected area boundaries (Wittemyer et al. 2008), which may impact negatively on biodiversity. With no economic or social mechanism to provide low-carbon protein or sustainable resources from protected areas to rural communities, segregation and crime will continue to be a problem in the countryside.

Simultaneously, South Africa is becoming increasingly urbanised, with data from the World Bank showing approximately 64% of the population now lives in urban areas and is set to continue increasing. Designing our cities to sustainably cope with increased Human density and ensuring our economy can provide enough jobs for urban migrants, will be a key challenge for government during this century.

Threats

Although there are no immediate major threats to Humans within the assessment region, the major long-term threat is the undermining of the natural resources on which the entire biotic community depends (Driver et al. 2012). The degradation of water resources is a particular threat, as 48% of our wetlands are Critically Endangered and 25% of our river systems are Critically Endangered (Driver et al. 2012). These trends are set to worsen given the projected effects of climate change (Ziervogel et al. 2014).

Uses and trade

Slavery has occurred throughout history and, currently, Human trafficking is a blight upon developing communities across the world.

Conservation

At present, no conservation measures are required. However, several interventions are required both globally and within the assessment region to avoid a calamitous collapse of the Earth system and thus threaten the viability of life on Earth:
  1. Decrease birth rate through voluntary family planning and education of women (for example, Potts 2014): If every woman in the world had half a child fewer than the status quo, global population would be closer to 7 rather than 17 billion by the end of the century. Voluntary family planning is based on freedom over one’s body and represents a genuine increase in quality of life for both women and the family unit.
  2. Decrease per capita consumption: The culture of consumerism has instilled a linear sense of identity construction whereby increasing material acquisition is construed as a proxy for increasing happiness and social status (Sanne 2002). However, Human identities should be adaptive, renewable and cyclical so as to find meaning amidst shifting contexts (Child 2011). A key intervention, however possible, is to thus instil an experiential and non-consumptive sense of identity as opposed to a linear and product-based identity. Additionally, social marketing can be used to inculcate a sense of place and thus increase the likelihood that conservation planning will be effective in South Africa (Wilhelm-Rechmann et al. 2014).
  3. Decrease meat consumption: The majority of the evidence indicates that reducing meat consumption(Machovina et al. 2015), especially if the meat originates from the industrial food chain (rather than from alternative farms or wildlife ranches), is more resource-efficient and will lead to land-sparing (Leader-Williams 2002).
  4. Working for ecosystem services: The Working for Water (WfW) programme was established to both create employment and to clear water catchments of alien vegetation to increase flows. This programme has been a success and should be continued to increase the resilience of our social-ecological landscapes (Turpie et al. 2008).
  5. Stricter enforcement and penalties on corporations and polluters/developers will need to be established. This includes more innovative private-public partnerships in generating both social and ecological welfare while undertaking profit-making schemes. Ultimately, a shift in the global economic mode from neo-liberal market capitalism to steady state economics will need to be fostered (Daly 2014).
An evidence base for the interventions above will need to be developed to create a “business case” for their implementation.

Recommendations for land managers and practitioners:
  • Alleviate poverty, possibly through using wildlife resources to provide low-cost, low-carbon protein to rural communities, thus enhancing national food security (sensu Leader-Williams 2002).
  • Promote ethical environmental and social behaviour, possibly through a shame and honour system (Jacquet et al. 2011).
  • Promote biodiversity stewardship schemes across South Africa.
Research priorities:
  • Collating evidence for effective strategies to promote good stewardship behaviours.
Encouraged citizen actions:
  • Become an engaged and moral citizen (Ojala & Lidskog 2011).

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