ISSN

0075-6458 (PRINT)
2071-0771 (ONLINE)

Focus and scope

Koedoe: African Protected Area Conservation and Science is the premier open access journal in research on the conservation of natural and cultural assets in protected areas, particularly in Africa. Acknowledging the human and biophysical dimensions of many conservation issues, Koedoe accepts topical papers from all relevant natural and social science disciplines, including inter-disciplinary investigations and perspectives.

In existence since 1958, Koedoe aims to provide a forum that facilitates the integration and sharing of learning about protected areas that have become increasingly important in maintaining habitats, species, ecosystem services and in ensuring socio-environmental resilience at many levels. Africa’s unique natural and cultural heritage, together with some of the largest protected areas in the world, are of critical significance.

The abstract highlights the importance of protected areas and natural and cultural heritage sites and it concludes with a 50-word summary statement termed ‘Conservation implications’, in which authors succinctly highlight the core outcomes of their research and the implications thereof for conservation practice. Global biodiversity faces increasing pressures and protected areas become increasingly important in ensuring environmental resilience through the maintenance of habitats, species and ecosystem services. Africa’s unique socio-ecological systems, together with some of the largest protected areas in the world, are globally important. As tourism initiatives are frequently centred on protected areas, they provide economic stimulus in otherwise marginalised regions. Consolidated protected areas are becoming increasingly fragmented under pressure from development and other global environmental change drivers, so the need to disseminate reliable scientific and policy information is essential.

Koedoe works towards understanding, documenting and mitigating the negative influences of human development on conservation areas within the context of complex socio-ecological interactions. It publishes stimulating original research, essays and short papers on issues of general interest, in-depth and critical reviews, book reviews on new releases and checklists, which lay the foundation for the development of more scientific research and management.

Historic data

In the 1950s it was decided that the research conducted in South Africa’s national parks was of sufficiently high quality to be published in a specialist journal. Seeking such a research portal for Africa, the launch of Koedoe was welcomed and the first issue was published in 1958. Published annually by the then National Parks Board and biannually since 1989, more than 1000 articles have been published in the journal and it continues to grow. What does Koedoe mean? The word 'Koedoe', which is the title of the journal, is the Afrikaans term for Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), the large and graceful antelope that is the corporate logo of the South African National Parks. Koedoe has stimulated research and added immeasurably to our knowledge of South Africa’s biodiversity and its appropriate management. In addition, articles in Koedoe have included a number of checklists and reports of species new to science. When the journal started the Afrikaans subtitle was, Tydskrif vir wetenskaplike navorsing in die Nasionale Parke van die Unie van Suid-Afrika, and the English, Journal for scientific research in the National Parks of the Union of South Africa. Today the subtitle 'African Protected Area Conservation and Science' aims to provide a forum for all aspects of protected area science and management in order to facilitate integration and shared learning. Koedoe publishes original articles on all aspects of conservation science, as well as on policy and management-related issues. Scanning the output of the journal over the decades provides clear evidence of how, from early and tentative scientific ventures in the national parks of South Africa, knowledge of species has grown. In later years, the emphasis in science changed and more articles in Koedoe appeared on patterns of vegetation and habitats and articles on identification and collection of species gave way to ecosystems research. Koedoe has also spread its reach over the years, and early concentration on scientific research in the Kruger, Kalahari Gemsbok and Addo Elephant National Parks has adapted to include all South Africa’s national parks as well as conservation areas under other structures, and even those protected elsewhere in Southern Africa. Koedoe has covered a variety of fields, producing baseline information as foundation on which management plans and monitoring programmes are built today. Koedoe aims to be a bridge where people from all over Africa can meet and share their conservation knowledge. To this end we have introduced a new structured abstract format that concludes with a section entitled 'Conservation implications' in which authors are explicitly requested to defend the relevance of their work to a broader constituency. Disseminating reliable scientific and policy information is increasingly vital as global biodiversity faces increasing pressures. Protected areas become more and more important in order to maintain habitats, species, ecosystems and to ensure environmental resilience. However, the protected areas are increasingly fragmented and under pressure from development and global climate change. Africa’s unique socio-ecological systems, together with some of the largest protected areas in the world, are of critical significance. Koedoe publishes stimulating original research, essays, short communications on issues of general interest, in-depth and critical reviews, monographs on large data sets and complicated issues and book reviews on new releases. We welcome your submission to the journal.

Publication frequency

The journal publishes one issue each year. Articles are published online when ready for publication and then printed in an end-of-year compilation. Additional issues may be published for special events (e.g. conferences) and when special themes are addressed.

Types of articles published

Read full details on the submissions guidelines page.

Open access

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. Learn more about the journal copyright, licensing and publishing rights.

Review process

The journal has a double-blinded peer review process. Manuscripts are initially examined by editorial staff and are sent by the Editor-in-Chief to two expert independent reviewers, either directly or by a Section Editor. Read our full peer review process.

Marketing

AOSIS has a number of ways in which we promote publications. Learn more here.

Membership

AOSIS is a member and/or subscribes to the standards and code of practices of several leading industry organisations. This includes the Directory of Open Access Journals, Ithenticate, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, CrossRef, Portico and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Learn more here.

All articles published in the journal are included in:

• CABI
• Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection, Science Citation Index Expanded, SCIE (previously known as ISI)
• Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Other Coverage: BIOSIS Previews, Zoological Record
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• EBSCO Host
• GALE, CENGAGE Learning
• Google Scholar
• Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers, Level 1
• ProQuest
• SciELO SA
• SCOPUS

We are working closely with relevant indexing services to ensure that articles published in the journal will be available in their databases when appropriate.

The full text of the journal articles is deposited in the following archives to guarantee long-term preservation:

• Portico
• AOSIS Library
• SA ePublications, Sabinet
• South African Government Libraries

AOSIS is also a participant in the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) initiative. LOCKSS will enable any library to maintain their own archive of content from AOSIS and other publishers, with minimal technical effort and using cheaply available hardware. The URL to the LOCKSS Publisher Manifest for the journal is, https://koedoe.co.za/index.php/koedoe/gateway/lockss. Please inform us if you are using our manifest as we would like to add your name to the list above.

A journal's Impact Factor was originally designed in 1963 as a tool for libraries to compare journals, and identify the most popular ones to subscribe to. It was never intended to measure the quality of journals, and definitely not the quality of individual articles.

The Impact Factor is a journal-level measurement reflecting the yearly average number of citations of recent articles published in that journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field; journals with higher Impact Factors are often deemed to be more important than those with lower ones. Therefore, the more often articles in the journal are cited, the higher its Impact Factor.

The Impact Factor is highly discipline-dependent due to the speed with which articles get cited in each field and the related citation practices. The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication varies highly amongst disciplines. Accordingly, one cannot compare journals across disciplines based on their relative Impact Factors.

We provide several citation-based measurements for each of our journals, if available. We caution our authors, readers and researchers that they should assess the quality of the content of individual articles, and not judge the quality of articles by the reputation of the journal in which they are published.