4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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Browsing 4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions by SDG "Life on land"

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    Assessing habitat selection of grassland rodents in the Cradle of Humankind
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Pinto, Catiuscia-Jade; Mackay, Megan; Pillay, Neville
    Habitat selection is a decision-making process undertaken by animals to select an appropriate environment suitable for fulfilling their survival and reproductive needs. These decisions are driven by a complex of biotic and abiotic factors. Habitat selection relies on how an animal interacts with its environment and is species-specific. The vegetation structure and composition influence how smaller animals, such as rodents, obtain food and cover, and are thus critical for their survival. The aim of my study was to assess the population demography and habitat selection of nocturnal rodents in two grassland sites located within the Cradle of Humankind Nature Reserve, Krugersdorp, Gauteng Province, South Africa. I obtained rodent data using Capture-Mark-Recapture (CMR) methods, and vegetation data were obtained through randomised quadrate sampling. The following six rodent species were sampled, Gerbilliscus leucogaster, Lemniscomys rosalia, Mastomys coucha, Micaelamys namaquensis, Mus minutoides and Otomys angoniensis. Rodent abundance differed between summer and winter, with winter showing a higher abundance, but richness and diversity indices did not differ significantly between sites or seasons. The three most common species, G. leucogaster, M. coucha and O. angoniensis, were selected for further population demography analyses. The demography of G. leucogaster, was mostly associated with the season since seasonal fluctuations were observed in their population size (higher in summer), reproductive activity (more active in summer) and body condition (higher in winter). Mastomys coucha was the most abundant species in the study, since it had the highest number of sampled individuals in both summer and winter, although its demography was not influenced by external factors (e.g.,, season, vegetation height, vegetation cover) recorded in both summer and winter. Otomys angoniensis had a positive relationship with vegetation height and rodents’ body condition. The three species were able to coexist with one another due to differences in foraging strategies, reproductive strategies, spatial and dietary partitioning, which help to facilitate habitat selection and illustrate that habitat selection is species specific. Key words: Rodents, habitat selection, Gerbilliscus leucogaster, Mastomys couch
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    Environmental impact assessment performance in an african context: case studies from Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, and Tanzania)
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Aljareo, Abdulhakim; Schwaibold, Ute; Watson, Ingrid
    The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) system is a worldwide environmental policy tool, which has been introduced and adopted both in developed and developing countries. The EIA system is internationally acknowledged as an essential instrument to support sound decision-making in pursuit of sustainable development. Many countries have established the requirement for EIAs in their respective environmental legislative frameworks. However, considerable concerns are often raised about the inadequate performance of the EIA system in developing countries. The African developing countries have introduced EIA as an environmental policy implementation tool to their environmental policy and legal framework for environmental protection and management, as well as sustainable development promotion. However, the EIA system performance in the African developing country context is regarded as limited. The country context of the developing countries has been perceived to influence the performance of the EIA system. Fundamentally, the assessment of EIA system performance focuses on particular key EIA systemic components and EIA report, having limited consideration of the country context influence on the EIA system performance, and so does not provide a thorough understanding of the real causes of the limited EIA performance in the African context. Focusing on the EIA system performance in the African developing country context, an evaluation approach for EIA system performance and country context was developed. The developed approach was applied to four case studies from the southern African context (South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, and Tanzania). This was to evaluate EIA system components, EIA report, and country context. The research findings indicate that EIA system performance is limited due to the influence of the context of the case study countries. It was found that, despite the presence of the EIA legislative frameworks, EIA competent authorities, EIA procedural steps, and EIA reports in the case studies, different shortcomings have been identified such as misinterpretation of EIA provisions, limited EIA timeframes, incomprehensive EIA guidelines, insufficient provisions for conducting EIA follow-up and auditing. A further finding was the insufficient EIA report legal requirement which mirrored in the inadequate quality of the evaluated EIA reports. The most important v finding of this research is that EIA system performance depends on its country context. There is a clear relationship between country context of the case studies and EIA system development, implementation, and enforcement, thereby influencing EIA system performance. The key country context elements that were found to affect EIA system performance are the country legal, political, and socio-economic context, and the EIA stakeholders’ capacity. The consequences of the limited EIA stakeholders ‘capacity coupled with the inadequate country legal context due to insufficient laws to support justice in the administrative decisions, and access to information, had a significant impact on EIA system implementation and enforcement. The developmental state pressure on the EIA administration due to socio-economic challenges associated with political context issues such as interference and pressure also affected EIA system implementation and enforcement. The EIA system development was also influenced by the development state presented by the demand for economic development due to issues such as poverty and unemployment and the lack of political will and commitment to the EIA system. Based on this, a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between EIA system performance and the country context in Africa is required which can be achieved by using the developed evaluation approach in this study, to identify the possible measures for improving EIA system performance.