Box 3.2 Plant Invasions in South Africa’s National Parks
South Africa has 19 national parks that cover about 3.9 million ha spread
across six terrestrial biomes (first figure below). As is the case with protected
areas globally (Foxcroft et al. 2013), South Africa’s national parks are
increasingly affected by alien plant invasions. A total of 752 alien plant
taxa have been recorded in these national parks, of which 386 are known to
have naturalised somewhere in South Africa (cf. Foxcroft et al. 2017 and
Supplementary Appendix 3.1). The three parks with the highest number of
taxa are Kruger NP (363), Table Mountain NP (251) and Garden Route NP
(243) (first figure below). Of these, 139 plant taxa are considered ‘transformer’ species in South African’s national parks (Foxcroft et al. 2019).
The highest numbers of transformer species are found in Table Mountain
NP (74), followed by Garden Route NP (63) and Kruger NP (59). The number
of NEM:BA-listed taxa is highest in Kruger (118), followed by
Table Mountain (114) and Garden Route (98).
Distribution of South African National Parks, indicating total number of alien plant taxa
(Foxcroft et al. 2017) and, in brackets, the number of transformer species (Foxcroft et al.
2019)
(continued)
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