The city of Durban is located in South Africa, near the Indian Ocean and in the KwaZulu-Natal province and is considered to be a biodiversity hotspot. The area is home to a threatened savanna and forest ecosystems and is home of the KwaZulu-Natal Sandstone Sourveld grassland. Over time, the metropolitan area has grown, and environmental and biodiversity concerns have not been seen as a priority for the city’s development. In order to change that and preserve the remaining biodiversity, the eThekwini Municipality’s Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department (EPCPD) developed a series of coordinated actions that include urban planning tools and strategies, biodiversity stewardship, protection initiatives, management and decision support in order to identify and protect areas for the conservation of biodiversity as well as the services biodiversity provides to Durban citizens. The EPCPD, included in the Development Planning, Environment and Management Unit, coordinates D’MOSS and further strengthens it with other proactive initiatives (e.g. strategic spatial planning, land acquisition, a drive for ‘green jobs’, etc.). 

Open space planning in Durban started to be discussed during a seminar in 1983 that brought together different people, stakeholders, town planners, academics and scientists. The rapid growth of the urban area was increasingly impacting Durban’s open spaces and it made more evident the need for a Durban Metropolitan Open Space System. As a result of this strong will, the first D’MOSS was produced and adopted by the then Durban City Council. The objectives of the project, in this first phase, were mainly oriented at pure conservation and interest of urban planners. 

The main objectives of D’MOSS are to maintain:

• As many functional ecosystems as possible
• The widest range of open space types (e.g. grassland, forests, wetland)
• Physical links between open spaces to allow for the flow of genetic material, energy, water and nutrients
• Physical links to and between significant sources of biodiversity (e.g. Pondoland and Maputaland centres of plant diversity) to prevent local species extinctions in the eThekwini Municipal Area
• Physical links along the coast, connecting river catchments to marine sources of biodiversity

The Durban Metropolitan Open Space System is designed to identify key open spaces such as different wide range types (forests, grasslands, etc.); corridors between open spaces to allow the flow of biodiversity; and physical links along the coast linking different marine sources of biodiversity and hiking trails. The area that was selected was incorporated into a GIS database after having drawn a set of relevant land-use types. The Open Spaces were mapped through the use of aerial photography and land cover percentage was refined to also include social and economic issues. Specific areas considered most threatened by development were given adequate protection and conservation. 

In 1989 D’MOSS became a formal policy layer in a restricted and mostly developed part of the former Durban Metropolitan Council. In 1999 D’MOSS was reconceptualised to not only focus on conservation but also to develop and maintain a socially, economically and environmentally sustainable open space system. 

The Open Space System kept expanding following the growth path of the municipal area until including the current EThekwini Municipal Area (EMA) and culminating in the Ethekwini Environmental Services Plan (EESMP) in the beginning of the 2000s. D’MOSS was further updated after the establishment of a fine-scale land class layer in 2008. 

In 2010 D’MOSS was included in the city’s land use schemes and two years later it was upheld by the High Court for its importance in local government planning. This update of D’MOSS were made through a Systematic Conservation Assessment (SCA). This included Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBA) that were previously not in D’MOSS, removed areas that had been transformed between the two iterations, changed areas based on biodiversity impact assessment outcomes and corrected mapping errors from the previous iteration. The total area changed from 74 446 hectares in 2010 to 79 074 hectares in 2016 and to 94 834 hectares in 2018. The remaining areas of D’MOSS excluding CBAs have been declared Ecological Support Areas (ESAs) and are considered important for different reasons such as connectivity for species in the landscape, provision of ecosystem services, and sites to be restored for habitat targets. 

To support D’MOSS, the eThekwini Municipality has also established a Biodiversity Stewardship Programme that focuses on building partnerships and incorporating technical and traditional knowledge systems. Its goal is to empower, guide and incentivise private and communal landowners to protect and manage environmental assets on their properties using sustainable use and management practices and increasing resources. 

The D’MOSS project is funded through eThekwini Municipality’s operational and capital budget.

The planning of biodiversity conservation has improved significantly, and has helped to decrease the threat against biodiversity assets in Durban. ​​Furthermore, D’MOSS has contributed to the attainment of provincial and national biodiversity conservation targets and provides a range of services to residents, including the formation of soil, erosion control, water supply and regulation, climate regulation, cultural and recreational opportunities, raw materials for craft and building, food production, pollination, nutrient cycling and waste treatment.

D’MOSS through the biodiversity stewardship programme has provided the local government with a better understanding of the conservation challenges in areas with traditional governance systems. 

In an urban area, in 2009, a Special Rating Area (SRA) environmental pilot project was established in the Giba Gorge Environmental Precinct (GGEP) in the Hillcrest area of Durban. The GGEP is a public-private partnership between the Municipality and property owners. The GGEP open space is part of the eThekwini Municipality’s jurisdiction and is managed through D’MOSS. 

The value of D’MOSS from an ecosystem services perspective was underscored in a World Bank report (Turpie et al., 2017) whereby property value had significantly increased in areas adjacent to managed areas such as GGEP. Furthermore, Turpie et al. (2017) estimated the total asset value of D’MOSS in eThekwini Municipality to be in the order of R47.8 billion and these assets give rise to ecosystem services flow worth in the order of R4.2 billion per year.

The Fire and Invasive Species Control (FISC), Working for Ecosystems and the Community Reforestation programmes have helped manage and restore habitats and contributed to the alleviation of poverty, job creation, and the development of skills of the citizens. 

The Durban Research Action Partnership between the municipality and the University of KwaZulu-Natal has helped to improve the knowledge on ecology in the local government.

A number of property owners who have land located in the D’MOSS layer made complaints about the restrictions placed on their land and lack of compensation. Some owners presented their case to the High Court claiming these actions were unconstitutional. The Court ruled that legislating for the environment through municipal planning was permissible.

The D’MOSS initiative adheres to best global practices in biodiversity management, with the goal to involve and integrate communities and various stakeholders in environmental management and conservation. Three decades on and D’MOSS keeps expanding and improving: the project could be replicated in similar areas, for example, any urban area located around one of the 36 Global Biodiversity Hotspots regions characterized by high levels of biodiversity and threatened due to human presence. 

Boon, R., Cockburn, J., Douwes, E., Govender, N., Ground, L., Mclean, C., ... & Slotow, R. (2016). Managing a threatened savanna ecosystem (KwaZulu-Natal Sandstone Sourveld) in an urban biodiversity hotspot: Durban, South Africa. Bothalia-African Biodiversity & Conservation, 46(2), 1-12.

Durban.gov.za. Durban Metropolitan Open Space System. [online] Available at: Link

McLean, C.T., Ground, L.E., Boon, R.G.C., Roberts, D.C., Govender, N. & McInnes, A. (2016). Durban’s Systematic Conservation Assessment. EThekwini Municipality, Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department, Durban, South Africa.

Metropolis (2021). Nature in and across cities: metropolitan approaches for biodiversity conservation, Metropolitan comparative studies.