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come involved in citizen science would greatly enhance the profile of amphibians. Networking between the zoo and aquaria associations and researchers would be a vital part of ensuring that the general public becomes involved.
Recommendations and solutions 1. School programmes: the following educational resources are currently missing for mainstream South African learners. The production of this material is encouraged and is a strategic priority. a. A basic teaching pack that is based on South African frogs (rather than textbook material that covers frogs from elsewhere) could be produced and distributed free to schools across the country. This would allow for incorporation of local information into school programmes, and raise awareness regarding local frogs and their diverse life-histories. b. Books written for South African school learners raising awareness on the importance of local amphibian diversity and conservation would allow for those interested to learn more. Similarly, websites with accessible information on local amphibians would provide more material for teachers and learners. c. Class science projects that are based on amphibians would raise awareness to a higher level and perhaps allow students to become citizen scientists. A special teaching pack should be created that provides the basic ideas and know-how for science projects that could be conducted at the school. The better resourced schools could link in their observations using digital cameras and keep databases of amphibian observations. 2. Young researchers a. The HAA website is the logical venue to promote all amphibian research possibilities in South Africa, and to increase the number of students that choose to study in this field. If this website is maintained in a vibrant and attractive style, with forums, advertisements regarding opportunities, and examples of the types of research that are ongoing, it will be the best forum to attract new researchers. 3. Provincial and national conservation organisations a. When working on provincial or national reserves, researchers and environmental impact assessment (EIA) consultants must invite field rangers to accompany them during sampling. In this way, researchers obtain extra help, but also
informally train the field rangers. Even if that training is not taken to full capacity, generating some interest in amphibians will increase the capacity of the conservation organisations. 4. General public a. The digital revolution in photography makes it relatively easy to provide images of amphibians together with locality data from anywhere in South Africa to a central data storage and processing facility. These ‘virtual museums’ have been a great success in national and international programmes (e.g. SARCA, SABCA, iSpot). In addition to providing valuable locality data, records on disease, range expansions and invasions might also be recorded. Such schemes are dependent on the general public getting feedback from websites, including identifications and range maps. This, in turn, is dependent on the small current capacity of amphibian professionals and informed volunteers that could assist. Examples are given in Box 1. b. Citizen scientists can also conduct amphibian monitoring in their own back gardens. These types of data would greatly assist amphibian conservation efforts. c. Although the number of professionals is small, there are many organisations which engage in education for the general public on a regular basis, and by building a network between these potential partners and researchers, the aims could be achieved. Working with partners also requires co-ordination so that messages that go out to the public are not mixed and do not contain spurious or unhelpful information. PAZAAB is an existing group which may facilitate this process.
Hurdles and obstacles Our present ability in South Africa to carry out capacity building, especially for the general public, must grow extensively in order to reach the shortterm objectives set out in this document as well as future strategies. The minimal number of researchers (see Table 1) who are focused on either research issues or environmental impact assessments requires a boost from the bottom up with more employed conservationists with herpetofauna as a top priority as well as a concomitant increase in public interest and participation. Although the herpetological community currently lacks the human capital to carry out further capacity building required, there is the potential to seed such initiatives strategically in schools and universities to build future human capital in herpetology. While there is no dedicated funding for producing new materials for schools, or for carrying out recommendations listed above, we hope that setting