Accounting for Biodiversity and Extinction: The Case of South African National Parks

This paper responds to calls for more normative research on biodiversity accounting and reporting. It develops a model for reporting on biodiversity informed by earlier work on biodiversity reporting, ecological reporting and extinction accounting as well as the guidance on integrated and sustainability reporting developed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) respectively. The resulting ‘integrated biodiversity reporting mode’ is designed to provide a more nuanced tool for reporting on biodiversity. While the model is intended to be used by multiple organisations, its application is illustrated using the South African National Parks (SANParks). A detailed content analysis of the SANParks’ annual reports over seven years (2013–2019) is used to identify different types of disclosures, categorised according to the type of environmental information being reported and the associated capitals outlined by the IIRC. Applying the model to SANParks reveals how it is possible to provide a more detailed report on biodiversity than would be the case if only existing reporting frameworks are used. The proposed reporting model is not without challenges, but it can be applied to report more effectively on biodiversity-related risks and the interconnections between biodiversity and the different resources/capitals which are required to manage it. As a result, this paper contributes to the debate on how to report on biodiversity and demonstrates how the largely theoretical work on biodiversity reporting can be applied in practice.