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Animals and humans regularly make trade-offs between competing objectives. In Addo Elephant National Park (AENP), elephants (Loxodonta africana) trade off selection of resources, while managers balance tourist desires with conservation of elephants and rare plants. Elephant resource selection has been examined in seasonal savannas, but is understudied in aseasonal systems like AENP. Understanding elephant selection may suggest ways to minimise management trade-offs. We evaluated how elephants select vegetation productivity, distance to water, slope and terrain ruggedness across time in AENP and used this information to suggest management strategies that balance the needs of tourists and biodiversity. Resource selection functions with time-interacted covariates were developed for female elephants, using three data sets of daily movement to capture circadian and annual patterns of resource use. Results were predicted in areas of AENP currently unavailable to elephants to explore potential effects of future elephant access. Elephants displayed dynamic resource selection at daily and annual scales to meet competing requirements for resources. In summer, selection patterns generally conformed to those seen in savannas, but these relationships became weaker or reversed in winter. At daily scales, resource selection in the morning differed from that of midday and afternoon, likely reflecting trade-offs between acquiring sufficient forage and water. Dynamic selection strategies exist even in an aseasonal system, with both daily and annual patterns. This reinforces the importance of considering changing resource availability and trade-offs in studies of animal selection. Conservation implications: Guiding tourism based on knowledge of elephant habitat selection may improve viewing success without requiring increased elephant numbers. If AENP managers expand elephant habitat to reduce density, our model predicts where elephant use may concentrate and where botanical reserves may be needed to protect rare plants from elephant impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African National Parks (SANParks) makes use of strategic adaptive management (SAM) to achieve its primary mandate of biodiversity conservation. This involves an iterative adaptive planning, management and review cycle to ensure appropriate alignment of stakeholder values with conservation objectives, to address the uncertainty inherent in complex social- economic-ecological systems and to learn explicitly whilst doing so. Adaptive management is recognised as the most logical framework for continuous improvement in natural resource management; nevertheless, several challenges in its implementation remain. This paper outlined these challenges and the various modifications to SANParks' adaptive planning and management process that have emerged during its development. We demonstrated how the establishment of a regular Science-Management Forum provides opportunities for social colearning amongst resource managers and scientists of a particular park, whilst providing other positive spin-offs that mature the SAM process across the organisation. We discussed the use of particular conceptual constructs that clarify the link between monitoring, management requirements and operational endpoints, providing the context within which Thresholds of Potential Concern (TPCs) should be set, prioritised and measured. The evolution of the TPC concept was also discussed in the context of its use by other organisations, whilst recognising its current limitations within SANParks. Finally, we discussed remaining implementation challenges and uncertainties, and suggested a way forward for SAM. Conservation implications: This paper outlined practical methods of implementing SAM in conservation areas, beyond what has already been learnt within, and documented for, the Kruger National Park. It also highlighted several implementation challenges that prove useful to other conservation agencies planning to adopt this approach to managing complex ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South African National Parks (SANParks) makes use of strategic adaptive management (SAM) to achieve its primary mandate of biodiversity conservation. This involves an iterative adaptive planning, management and review cycle to ensure appropriate alignment of stakeholder values with conservation objectives, to address the uncertainty inherent in complex social-economic-ecological systems and to learn explicitly whilst doing so. Adaptive management is recognised as the most logical framework for continuous improvement in natural resource management; nevertheless, several challenges in its implementation remain. This paper outlined these challenges and the various modifications to SANParks' adaptive planning and management process that have emerged during its development. We demonstrated how the establishment of a regular Science-Management Forum provides opportunities for social co-learning amongst resource managers and scientists of a particular park, whilst providing other positive spin-offs that mature the SAM process across the organisation. We discussed the use of particular conceptual constructs that clarify the link between monitoring, management requirements and operational endpoints, providing the context within which Thresholds of Potential Concern (TPCs) should be set, prioritised and measured. The evolution of the TPC concept was also discussed in the context of its use by other organisations, whilst recognising its current limitations within SANParks. Finally, we discussed remaining implementation challenges and uncertainties, and suggested a way forward for SAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite extensive evidence of the influences of elephant on woody trees in savannah habitats, effects on trees in the succulent thickets of the Eastern Cape are relatively poorly described. Our study investigates the role and intensity of elephant impacts on Pappea capensis and the relatively rare Boscia oleoides in an arid thicket-Nama Karoo mosaic habitat of the Greater Addo Elephant National Park. We show that roughly 19% of the B. oleoides and nearly half of the P. capensis individuals recorded showed signs of elephant impact. Elephant often toppled our study trees, and where these individuals were uprooted, mortalities occurred: B. oleoides ∼ 44% of the impacted trees (4 individuals); P. capensis ∼ 22% of the impacted trees (29 individuals). Conservation implications: Whilst this study is restricted by limited spatial and temporal replication, P. capensis mortalities caused by elephant occurred at a rate exceeding that of other processes. Our results provide insight into the severity of the measured changes and the need to reduce the impacts. However, it would be critically important to establish the specific driver of elephant-tree interactions before any management intervention is implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]