National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, 2004 (Act No. 10 of 2004)

In 2003, Donaldson estimated 5 the population size of A. ferox to be in excess of 100 000 individuals. Prior to this, Newton and Vaughan (1996) estimated that during the 1990's, 400 tonnes of dried leaf exudate was obtained from the leaves of around 10 million plants, suggesting that the population could be in orders of magnitude greater than that indicated by Donaldson (2003). Parker and Bernard (2008) suggested that the species has become synonymous with the Eastern Cape, having observed large stands of A. ferox reaching densities of more than 10 plants/km2. A more recent study conducted in the province, recorded higher densities of between 4.3 and 7.3 individuals/m2 in the communal area near Seymour Town (Melin et al. (2017). These numbers however, cannot be extrapolated to the entire range of the species owing to the differences observed in plant numbers within and between subpopulations (DEA, 2014). A resource assessment conducted in 2014 failed to accurately estimate the size of the A. ferox population in South Africa (DEA, 2014). Nevertheless, the species is considered to be common throughout its national distribution range which is estimated to be around 168 000km2 (Figure 3).