An alternative approach to veld condition assessment in the non‐grassveld regions of South Africa

Abstract

Traditional veld condition assessment methods score veld either in terms of its ‘state of health’ or its value for a specific land‐use objective. This is problematic and we propose that ‘veld condition’ should simply be a descriptive index, devoid of value judgement. The index should convey multivariate information about the current state of the vegetation at a site in the same way that a cow's breed, sex or age (all descriptive indices) convey multivariate information about that cow, to which different people can attach a value. We propose that the position which a sample site occupies in multivariate space (from ordination analysis) should be its descriptive index (or condition). Different land‐users can then all use the same descriptive index, but may interpret it differently, depending on their objectives. It should be noted that simply using multivariate statistics to analyse floristic data does not mean that the vegetation is being assessed according to the approach outlined in this paper.

Die kondisie van veld word tradisioneel bepaal in terme van ‘gesondheidtoestand’ daarvan of die waarde daarvan vir ‘n spesifiek bepaalde benuttingsdoelwit. Dit lei tot komplikasies en ons stel voor dat veldkondisie ‘n beskrywings‐indeks, vry van waarde toekenning, moot wees. Die indeks moet inligting omtrent die huidige toestand van veld in ‘n gebied oordra in die selfde wyse waarop ‘n koei se teellyn, geslag of ouderdom (almal beskrywende indekse) omvattende inligting daaromtrent oordra, waarvan mense verskillende waardetoekennings kan heg. Ons stel voor dat die posisie van die perseel binne ‘n multivarierende omgewing (van uit ordinasie analise) die kondisie indeks is. Verskillende landverbruikers kan dan van dieselfde beskrywingsindeks gebruik maak maar nagelang van hulle doelwitte verskillend interpreteer. Daar moet besef word dat deur eenvoudig multivariasie statistiek te gebruik om floristiese data te analiseer, nie beteken dat die plantegroei volgens die multivariasie benadering in die studie omskryf, beoordeel word nie.

Additional index words:

• Condition
• ecological status
• karoo
• savanna
• thicket
• vegetation assessment