SANBI is working in partnership with Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on Natural Capital Accounting (NCA) in South Africa, with a focus on ecosystem accounting. Here we provide information on what NCA is, South Africa's national approach to NCA, and SANBI's involvement in NCA initiatives, including accounts that have been developed through donor-funded projects.
NCA is a way of understanding our world and the choices we make as a society. NCA refers to the use of an accounting framework to provide a systematic, reliable and comparable way to measure and report on the stocks and flows of natural capital.
The stocks and flows are of individual environmental assets or resources, such as water, minerals, energy, timber, and fish, as well as ecosystem assets and ecosystem services in the terrestrial, freshwater and marine realms. NCA provides information that can support decision-making by showing how the environment is changing, how ecosystems contribute to society and the economy, and how human activities affect natural assets and the services they provide. For more information on NCA, have a look at the NCA Factsheet.
Stats SA has published a ten-year strategy for advancing NCA in South Africa which was co-developed with SANBI through a highly consultative process and with guidance from the NCA Strategic Advisory Group. The purpose of the strategy is to focus the efforts of Stats SA, SANBI, relevant government departments and other institutions on developing priority natural capital accounts to inform South Africa's sustainable development policy objectives. The strategy aims to ensure that NCA is widely used to provide credible evidence for integrated planning and decision-making in support of the development needs of the country. The vision is supported by five strategic goals, please see an overview below.
NCA uses the internationally agreed System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), a statistical standard developed by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) to measure the environment and its relationship with the economy. The SEEA provides a common framework for organising environmental and economic information, enabling countries to measure natural assets and resources, and track changes in their extent and condition and understand the benefits that flow from them, providing evidence of the many links between the economy, people and the environment.
South Africa's work in NCA has contributed to the development of global guidance on NCA and, in particular, the development of SEEA Ecosystem Accounting, which was adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in March 2021. The SEEA Ecosystem Accounting constitutes an integrated and comprehensive statistical framework for organising data about ecosystems and landscapes, measuring ecosystem services, tracking changes in ecosystem assets, and linking this information to economic and other human activity.
Using accounts to quantify natural capital and its benefits is generally done in biophysical terms, such as the extent of an ecosystem remaining in natural condition, the amount of water produced by a catchment, the volume of fish harvested from the marine environment, or the number of people visiting protected areas. Where it is useful and appropriate, information may also be expressed in monetary terms. However, often that is not necessary as monetary valuation is not a requirement of NCA, and many aspects of natural capital and ecosystem contributions can be captured through non-monetary statistics and indicators. There are many examples of things that are important to society that are measured in non-monetary terms, like literacy rates, unemployment levels or life expectancy and the same is true for many aspects of natural capital and ecosystem contributions.
SANBI has a long history in supporting the development of NCA in South Africa. Since 2014, SANBI has partnered with Stats SA to pilot and advance the application of ecosystem accounting, a subset of NCA. This work has involved collaboration with a range of partners, and has contributed to the development of global guidance on NCA.
SANBI's early involvement in ecosystem accounting included participation in the Advancing Natural Capital Accounting (ANCA) Project (2014-2016), implemented by Stats SA and SANBI in South Africa, and led globally by the UNSD in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), with funding from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).
Through the project, two pilot ecosystem accounts were developed in South Africa:
1. The National River Ecosystem Accounts for South Africa were developed with the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). They were published as an informal discussion document by SANBI in 2015.
2. The Land and Ecosystem Accounting in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (in collaboration with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife). These were pilot sub-national accounts and they informed the methodology for the development of national-level accounts.
This was followed by the Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (NCAVES) Project (2017-2021), in which SANBI and Stats SA, together with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and other partners, developed and tested further ecosystem accounts including:
1. Land and Terrestrial Ecosystem Accounts, 1990 to 2014
2. Accounts for Protected Areas, 1900 to 2020
The NCAVES project was led globally by the UNSD and UNEP, in collaboration with the CBD and with funding from the European Union. South Africa was one of five pilot countries participating in the project together with Brazil, China, India and Mexico. A synthesis report of South Africa's work in the NCAVES project is available and provides an overview of the accounts compiled and lessons from their development. A six-page summary of how NCA in South Africa was strengthened through the NCAVES project is also available here.
The Ecological Infrastructure for Water Security (EI4WS) Project (2018-2025) built on the ecosystem accounting work undertaken through the ANCA and NCAVES projects. It focused on demonstrating how ecological infrastructure can contribute to water security in South Africa. SANBI, in partnership with Stats SA, the DWS, DFFE, and other stakeholders supported the development of the following accounts:
1. Accounts for Strategic Water Source Areas, 1990 to 2020
2. Sub-national Water Resource Accounts, 2015 to 2021 (developed at a catchment level for the Berg-Breede and the Greater uMngeni demonstration catchments).
This project was funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), co-financed by project partners and implemented by the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA).
The Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR) Project (2025-present) is the most recent project involving NCA in South Africa.
The full project, “Scaling up ecosystem-based approaches to managing climate-intensified disaster risks in vulnerable regions of South Africa,” is led by SANBI in partnership with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), and is being implemented with provincial and district-level partners.
The project is funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and has an eight-year implementation period. It aims to improve the resilience of communities vulnerable to climate change-exacerbated floods, droughts and wildfires through ecosystem-based approaches, including catchment restoration, improved disaster preparedness and the integration of Eco-DRR considerations into planning and investment.
NCA forms part of the project's work to strengthen the evidence base for understanding the contribution of ecosystems to climate resilience and disaster risk reduction. The project is currently in its operationalisation phase, with implementation activities to follow from July 2027.
SANBI is also supporting the development of ecosystem accounts in other realms. The CSIR has developed Experimental Ecosystem Accounts for South Africa's Estuaries: extent, condition and ecosystem services accounts while SANBI's Marine Programme is supporting the development of accounts for marine ecosystems.
Stats SA has also produced a range of other natural capital accounts, including:
1. Water Accounts for South Africa, 2002
2. Mineral Accounts for South Africa, 1990 to 2010
3. Energy Accounts for South Africa, 2002 to 2009
4. Fishery Accounts for South Africa, 1990 to 2011
5. Experimental Biodiversity-Based Tourism Estimates for South Africa, 2013 to 2019 (these are not ecosystem accounts, they are biodiversity-related accounts) For further information, please visit Stats SA's website here.
6. Physical Energy Flow Accounts for South Africa, 2015 to 2021 (published in March 2025 - Stats SA subsequently released updated physical energy flow accounts covering 2022).
For more information on Natural Capital Accounting in South Africa, please visit the Statistics South Africa NCA webpage.
To be added to the national NCA stakeholder mailing list, please contact Robert Parry from Stats SA at RobertP@statssa.gov.za.
