The Waterberg area (the total district) has been declared as a Bioregion according to NEMBA act 10 of 2004. This was gazetted on 4 Jan 2019, gazette no. 2966, Limpopo Provincial Gazette. It was published with concurrence of the Minister.

The Waterberg Bioregional Plan is a legal planning tool and is based on the earlier Limpopo Conservation Plan. Land is zoned according to biodiversity importance and land use guidelines stipulates the activities allowed in each zone. 

A bioregional plan serves to guide land-use planning, environmental assessments, authorizations, and natural resource management across various sectors whose policies and decisions affect biodiversity. It achieves this by offering a detailed map (above) of biodiversity priority areas, known as Critical Biodiversity Areas (CBAs) and Ecological Support Areas (ESAs), along with guidelines to support informed land-use planning and decision-making. The bioregional plan is therefore a useful tool for addressing the need to take biodiversity into account in land-use planning and decision-making, in order to promote sustainable development.

The spatial component of the Waterberg District Bioregional Plan is built on the Critical Biodiversity Areas and Ecological Support Areas identified in the Limpopo Conservation Plan v2 (LCPv2), a systematic biodiversity plan developed by LEDET. This plan has been further refined to align with other key spatial frameworks in the district, including the Waterberg Environmental Management Framework (EMF), the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve, and municipal Spatial Development Frameworks (SDFs).

The Waterberg District Bioregional Plan aligns with the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (No. 10 of 2004) and adheres to the standards set out in the DFFE’s 2009 Guideline on Bioregions and Bioregional Plans.

It is important to note that the spatial maps in the Waterberg Bioregional Plan (WBP) differ from those in the Limpopo Conservation Plan (LCP) due to further refinements made in the WBP prior to its official gazetting. As such, the Waterberg Bioregional Plan should be the primary reference for planning and conservation considerations in the region.