The management of South Africa’s biodiversity, particularly at a landscape level, requires working beyond the boundaries of protected areas and mainstreaming biodiversity objectives into land-use planning and decision-making. This includes mainstreaming into the policies and practices of production sectors that might impact on biodiversity. Mainstreaming biodiversity therefore involves a range of role players in a landscape, working together and sharing the responsibility for biodiversity management and conservation (cooperating). There is a growing body of examples of public-private cooperation for biodiversity and ecosystem management in South Africa but they are largely un- or partially documented. These examples present a wealth of knowledge and experience from which lessons can be extracted. As part of a larger Project on Ecosystem Services (ProEcoServ)  funded by the UNEP and led by the CSIR, SANBI commissioned a project to showcase public and private cooperation for biodiversity and ecosystem management in South Africa. The project built on a baseline report, developing case studies from five examples of public-private cooperation for biodiversity and ecosystem management in South Africa:

• Shared interest in gaining clarity: the Wetland Offset Guideline Collaboration Case Study   
• Partnerships for water secure futures through water stewardship: the Water Futures Partnership Case Study  
• Shared response to shared disaster risk: Insurance Sector Collaboration Case Study 
• Forestry, fire and biodiversity at Izanqawe: the Izanqawe Case Study  
• Shared interests for wine and biodiversity: WWF-SA Biodiversity and Wine Initiative Case Study 

Looking at these examples of public-private cooperative efforts, the project sought to extract lessons, recommendations and challenges experienced that would build or strengthen future cooperative efforts and raise awareness around public-private cooperative efforts as a means to improve ecosystem management. This is captured in a review report and a presentation  that communicates the main lessons and messages extracted through this work. The target audience is the international development community, as well as national audience, both inside and outside the biodiversity sector.