Accounts for Protected Areas report, 1900 to 2020

The accounts for protected areas were compiled at the national, provincial and biome level, showing the size and composition of the protected area estate from 1900 to 2020 across seven different types of protected areas. This period was divided into 11 accounting periods, with 20-year intervals from 1900 to 1960, ten-year intervals from 1960 to 2000, and five-year intervals from 2000 to 2020. These accounts have been produced as part of the Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (NCAVES) project, which was implemented from 2017 to 2021, led globally by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) and United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) with funding from the European Union (EU). In South Africa, the NCAVES project was led jointly by Stats SA and the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). This report is published by Statistics South Africa, and produced in collaboration with SANBI and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), as a discussion document in the Natural Capital Series to contribute to advancing the knowledge on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) through application in a developing country context, including on using information from NCA to monitor progress against achieving the goals of the National Development Plan and the global Sustainable Development Goals.