The City of Cape Town has adopted the Cape Town Biodiversity Spatial Plan 2025 to inform and guide spatial planning, environmental assessment and natural resource management by a wide range of sectors.

Currently, conserved land in Cape Town covers 55 697ha – 22.72% of the municipal area.

The Cape Town BioNet 2024 map illustrates the biodiversity network and selects terrestrial and aquatic features that are critical for conserving native biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem function at the landscape level:

• Protected Area
• Conservation Area
• Critical Biodiversity Area 1a (irreplaceable high and medium condition)
• Critical Biodiversity Area 1b (irreplaceable low condition, connectivity)
• Critical Biodiversity Area 1c (irreplaceable low condition)
• Critical Biodiversity Area 2 (optimal)
• Ecological Support Area 1 (natural or semi-natural ecological condition)
• Ecological Support Area 2 (intensively modified ecological condition)
• Other Natural Area (not required to meet biodiversity targets)

The updated policy includes:

• The Cape Town BioNet 2024, the fine-scale, systematic, biodiversity spatial plan with updated and new input layers, categories aligned to the national categories and new spatial products (map).
• The Cape Town BioNet 2024 is now referred to as a Biodiversity Priority Areas Map based on a recent sector shift to avoid misinterpretation. Further updates to legislation and strategies were also made, and a policy name change was adopted to align to the Western Cape Biodiversity Act, 2021.

The City says the Cape Town Biodiversity Spatial Plan 2025 cannot grant or take away development rights. Rather, it is an informant for decision-making.