The need for biokineticists in the South African public health care system

Background: Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are increasingly prevalent within South Africa. Physical inactivity is a significant, independent and modifiable risk factor increasing the prevalence of NCDs.Discussion: The integration of physical activity programmes into the primary health care system through multidisciplinary platforms is thus advocated for and envisioned to be more cost-effective than current practices. However, currently within the primary health care setting of South Africa, there is an absence of health care professionals adequately equipped to develop and implement physical activity programmes. Biokineticists, whose scope of practice is to improve physical functioning and health through exercise as a modality, are ideally suited to developing and implementing physical activity programmes in the public sector. Yet despite their evident demand, the role of the biokineticist is not incorporated into the national public health care system.Conclusion: This short report calls firstly, for the inclusion of biokinetics into the public health care sector, and secondly, for the funding of multidisciplinary community health programmes supporting education, healthy eating and physical activity levels.Keywords: noncommunicable disease, physical activity, community health programme, primary health car

Evaluating herbivore management outcomes and associated vegetation impacts

African savannas are characterised by temporal and spatial fluxes that are linked to fluxes in herbivore populations and vegetation structure and composition. We need to be concerned about these fluxes only when management actions cause the system to shift towards a less desired state. Large herbivores are a key attribute of African savannas and are important for tourism and biodiversity. Large protected areas such as the Kruger National Park (KNP) manage for high biodiversity as the desired state, whilst private protected areas, such as those adjacent to the KNP, generally manage for high income. Biodiversity, sustainability and economic indicators are thus required to flag thresholds of potential concern (TPCs) that may result in a particular set of objectives not being achieved. In large conservation areas such as the KNP, vegetation changes that result from herbivore impact, or lack thereof, affect biodiversity and TPCs are used to indicate unacceptable change leading to a possible loss of biodiversity; in private protected areas the loss of large herbivores is seen as an important indicator of economic loss. Therefore, the first-level indicators aim to evaluate the forage available to sustain grazers without deleteriously affecting the vegetation composition, structure and basal cover. Various approaches to monitoring for these indicators were considered and the importance of the selection of sites that are representative of the intensity of herbivore use is emphasised. The most crucial step in the adaptive management process is the feedback of information to inform management decisions and enable learning. Feedback loops tend to be more efficient where the organisation’s vision is focused on, for example, economic gain, than in larger protected areas, such as the KNP, where the vision to conserve biodiversity is broader and more complex. Conservation implications: In rangeland, optimising herbivore numbers to achieve the management objectives without causing unacceptable or irreversible change in the vegetation is challenging. This manuscript explores different avenues to evaluate herbivore impact and the outcomes of management approaches that may affect vegetation