Deagrarianisation and forest revegetation in a biodiversity hotspot on the Wild Coast, South Africa.

ABSTRACT: Deagraianisation is a worldwide phenomenon with widespread social, ecological and economic effects yet with little consensus on the local or higher level causes. There have been contested views on the causes and consequences of deagrarianisation on South Africa's Wild Coast, which is an international biodiversity hotspot. Using GIS, household interviews and ecological sampling, we compared the perspectives of current and former cultivators as to why some have abandoned farming, whilst also tracking the uses and woody plant cover and composition of fields abandoned at different periods. The GIS analysis showed that field abandonment had been ongoing over several decades, with a decline from 12.5 % field cover in 1961 to 2.7 % in 2009. The area of forests and woodlands almost doubled in the

SUBMITTER: Shackleton R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4053419 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature