Long-term Vegetation Change Before and After Converting from Livestock farming to Game Ranching in Asante Sana Game Reserve, South Africa

Although wildlife production is widely considered beneficial for semi-arid environments, few studies have reported on the long-term environmental effects of converting from livestock production to game ranching. Asante Sana Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape has centuries old land use history, during which it was cultivated and heavily overgrazed by domestic livestock with associated loss in vegetation productivity and subsequent soil erosion. After 1996 game ranching was adopted in the reserve, with observed positive results on vegetation productivity. This thesis investigates the long-term (1987-2017) spatial and temporal change in vegetation in the reserve. It documents the change in vegetation types and cover using Landsat Top of Atmosphere (TOA) reflectance multispectral data and Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI). Correlative relationships between vegetation cover and different drivers (e.g. rainfall, fire and stocking density) are explored using generalized linear mixed models and the implications of the findings for reserve management are discussed. The results show that the relative area of Thicket has increased over time at the expense of Grassland and Shrubland while Bare-ground has expanded into Shrubland and Thicket. A ground-truthing exercise revealed a significant (p