Grazing into the future: Policy making for South African communal rangelands

This article reports on a symposium held at Fort Hare University in July 1998. Its objective was to assess the current state of knowledge on communal rangelands and identify issues important for policy making. This was done in the light of concerns about recent policy reform. Uncontrolled access to resources and the lack of services were identified as the main constraints on socio‐economic development in the communal rangelands, and inadequate forage during the dry season was recognised as a general constraint on livestock production, irrespective of mean annual rainfall. Government policies must recognise these issues and the social and ecological heterogeneity of communal rangelands in South Africa. The conclusion with the most far‐reaching implications, however, was that degradation has occurred in some, but not all, communal rangelands and is most likely to occur in arid areas. This finding is in direct contrast to the current base for agricultural policies in South Africa, which assumes that livestock have little impact on rangelands.

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Respectively, Post‐doctoral Fellow and Doctoral Student, Department of Livestock and Pasture Science, University of Fort Hare, Alice; Master's Student, Department of Botany, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch. The Foundation for Research Development (FRD) provided us with generous sponsorship. Norman Owen‐Smith, Charlie Shackle‐ton, Patrick Masika, William Beinart and an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged for their contributions to this article.