Guiding Strategy
A key value consideration for national parks and marine protected areas as public-good is founded on the inter-dependence of ecological, human and economic well-being and their promotion of shared natural and cultural heritages as well as their contribution to building national solidarity and pride.
Effective conservation relies on integrating sound management actions and rigorous scientific research with effective knowledge exchange between these functions. SANParks’ embedded scientists facilitate this, acting as knowledge conduits between science and management. Simultaneous engagement with the scientific community and park-based conservation practice helps to address priority knowledge needs (including through external research networks), translation and communication of new findings to decision-makers and stakeholders. Timely and effective creation and two-way flow of knowledge requires scientific credibility and management pragmatism. This is achieved through various functions and associated activities including formal research (including experiments, publications and successful achievement of postgrad degrees), and more emergent and informal learning (such as learning by doing, action research and a myriad societal engagements). The research group’s diverse expertise and sizeable scope of functions enables SANParks to create and maintain vital bridges, including between the social and ecological; science and management; the protected area agency and academia, science and policy (at multiple scales) and SANParks and a wide range of external stakeholders.
Intellectual ecosystem services, including education opportunities, capacity building and scientific knowledge, underpin the public value of national parks for science and science for parks. SANParks provides and actively supports access to parks as field and marine “laboratories” across a diversity of biomes and in varying socio-economic contexts, providing platforms and benchmarks for understanding change and actions at multiple scales (e.g. related to climate, disease, pollution and other drivers of environmental change), and supporting tertiary education. In addition, SANParks-driven, collaborative and leveraged science (national and international) supports management and policy decisions in parks and contributes to national and international public dialogues.
SANParks’ Research Strategy (2019) presents 11 key themes
These contribute towards supporting, growing and guiding the science function. It ensures that SANParks has access to relevant, timely and robust thinking and science to inform decision-making in an uncertain and changing context.
