Sustainable development, sustainable livelihoods and land reform in South Africa: a conceptual and ethical inquiry

Abstract

In this article various necessary conceptual linkages as well as contingent discontinuities between the concepts of land reform, sustainable livelihoods and sustainable development are studied. Exploring the complex relationship between land reform and sustainable development through a critical analysis of the concept of sustainable livelihoods, we argue that a strong ethical case for land reform as a component of sustainable development can be constructed by appealing to principles such as justice, equity and the obligations that we have towards fellow humans, as well as the environment, but fail to discharge if land reform is neglected. The case against land reform and its importance for sustainable livelihoods and sustainable development is also considered. We argue that this case is either inconclusive, or at best shows limits to the value of land reform in certain contexts only. It also suggests pitfalls to be avoided when land reform is being introduced, and can thus be regarded as enhancing the case for land reform that avoids such pitfalls. We furthermore argue that the complex set of relations that emerges proves to justify increased emphasis on implementation of land reform as a contribution towards sustainable development.

Notes

Robin Attfield is a Professor of Philosophy in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, Humanities Building, PO Box 94, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3XB, Wales. Email: [email protected]. Johan Hattingh is Director of the Unit for Environmental Ethics at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Email: [email protected]. Manamela Matshabaphala is a Lecturer in the Gradu- ate School of Public and Development Management, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. Email: [email protected].

The authors are grateful to the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the British Academy for funding the joint research project which gave rise to this article.

RW Dixon-Gough, ‘Land reform: the key to sustainable development’, in Dixon-Gough (ed), Land Reform and Sustainable Development, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999, p 1.

In this way we will also move beyond the tendency to see land reform, in both its narrower and wider sense, as ‘the key to sustainable development’, (emphasis added). Ibid.

Robert Chambers, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: A Strategy for People, Environment and Development, Commissioned Study no 7, Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex, 1987.

M Lipton, F Ellis & M Lipton (eds), Land, Labour and Livelihoods in South Africa, Vol 2, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Province, Durban: Indicator Press, 1996.

R Chambers & G Conway, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: Practices and Concepts for the 21st Century, Paper 296, ids, University of Sussex, 1992.

Chambers, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods.

Chambers & Conway, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods.

According to this definition, ‘Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, p 43.

Johan Hattingh & Robin Attfield, ‘Ecological sustainability in a developing country such as South Africa? A philosophical and ethical inquiry’, International Journal of Human Rights, 6 (2), 2002, pp 65–92. This paper also supplies a fuller discussion of the concept of development.

Ibid.

See Robin Attfield, Environmental Ethics: An Overview for the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003, ch 3.

An example of such an assimilation can be found in Barry Munslow & Patrick Fitzgerald, ‘South Africa: the sustainable development challenge’, Third World Quarterly, 15 (2), 1994, pp 227–242, esp p 231.

See Martin Adams, Breaking Ground: Development Aid for Land Reform, London: Overseas Development Institute (odi), 2000, pp 1–7.

In other parts of the world, for instance Eastern Europe, land reform is conceptualised by some simply to entail changes in land use, or changes in land management practices, both with a view to making land use more ‘environmentally friendly’. See Dixon-Gough, Land Reform and Sustainable Development.

See C de Wet, ‘Land reform in South Africa: a vehicle for justice and reconciliation, or a source of further inequality and conflict?’, Development Southern Africa, 14 (3), 1997, pp 355–362. See also Henry Bernstein's sceptical appraisal of the (technicist neopopulist) motives and effects (massive structural unemployment and poverty) of ‘new wave’ land reform the world over in his paper ‘Land reform: taking a long(er) view’, Journal of Agrarian Change, 2 (4), 2002, pp 433–463.

The history and effects of these dispossessions have been recorded in great detail, and need not be repeated here. See notes 20 and 29 for relevant bibliographical references.

See Essy M Letsoalo, Land Reform in South Africa: A Black Perspective, Johannesburg: Skotaville Publishers, 1987, foreword and p 18. See also note 35.

See Chambers, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods.

For the purposes of this paper, the history of dispossession that started in South Africa with the so-called Land Act of 1913 (see note 20) is not considered to be that of land reform in the sense that we have established in the section above devoted to conceptual analysis.

The Natives Land Act No 27 of 1913, The Natives Administration Act of 1927, and the Bantu Trust and Land Act No 18 of 1936 were the key instruments that reduced Black people in South Africa from landowners to landless tenants without representation in government. From the 1950s, ‘land reform’ in South Africa entailed the establishment of tribal homelands, and the resettlement of millions of people. Further discussion of this history can be found in M de Klerk (ed), A Harvest of Discontent. The Land Question in South Africa, Cape Town: idasa, 1991; and Richard Levin & Daniel Weiner (eds), ‘No More Tears’: Struggles for Land in Mpumalanga, South Africa, Trenton, NJ and Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, 1997.

See the website of the South African Department of Land Reform at http://land.pwv.gov.za/land_reform/redistribution.htm.

RF Rhode, TA Bejaminsen & MT Hoffman, Land Reform in Namaqualand: Poverty Alleviation, Stepping Stones and ‘Economic Units’, Occasional Paper No 16, Land Reform and Agrarian Change in Southern Africa, Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2001, p 10.

Box 12, in the draft version of the World Bank's Policy Research Report (prr), available on the internet for comment from the end of 2002 under the title, Land Policy for Pro-Poor Growth and Development.

See Susan Lund, ‘An overview of the land reform programme’, in J van Zyl, J Kirsten & HP Binswanger (eds), Agricultural Land Reform in South Africa. Policies, Markets and Mechanisms, Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp 547–562.

See AJ van der Walt, The Constitutional Property Clause: A Comparative Analysis of Section 25 of the South African Constitution of 1996, Cape Town: Juta & Co, 1997.

The Land Reform (Labour Tenants) Act, Act 3 of 1996, in fact introduced a new, but limited kind of property right for labour tenants. This entails that labour tenants can receive part of a piece of agricultural land, held in title by another person, to cultivate for their own account. See also note 32.

CG van der Merwe & JM Pienaar, ‘Land reform in South Africa’, in Paul Jackson & David C Wilde (eds), The Reform of Property Law, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997, pp 334–380, at pp 362f.

See note 20.

One of the earliest objections on moral grounds against the tyranny entrenched in the Land Act of 1913 can be found in Solomon Plaatje's book Native Life in South Africa Before and Since the European War and the Boer Rebellion, London: PS King, 1916.

Articles 17, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights are directly relevant in this regard. United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, New York: United Nations, 1948.

See World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, p 43.

One example is that of Communal Property Associations (cpas) where a number of individuals qualifying for a land subsidy can pool their resources and become co-owners of agricultural land. See also note 26.

See Section 25, as replicated in Van der Walt, The Constitutional Property Clause, p 17.

RSA Constitution, Section 24.

See Janet Small & Herald Winkler, Botho Sechabeng: A Feeling of Community, Johannesburg: Transvaal Rural Action Committee (trac), 1995.

PH de Necker, JJ Uys & JH van der Merwe, Urban and Periurban Farming in the Western Cape. Feasability of a Development Mechanism for the Private Sector, Publication No 35/1996 of the Institute for Geographical Analysis and the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Stellenbosch, 1996, pp 6–7, 43. See also ASM Karaan & N Mohamed, ‘The performance and support of food gardens in some townships of the Cape Metropolitan Area: an evaluation of Abilimi Bezekhaya’, Development Southern Africa, 15 (1), 1998, pp 75–76, 80.

Besides various earlier publications in this regard, an extensive defence of aggressive land reform practices in Zimbabwe is given by S Moyo in Land Reform under Structural Adjustment in Zimbabwe: Land Use Change in the Mashonaland Provinces, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2000. See also note 52.

By June 2003 the target (set by the anc in the 1994 elections) of redistributing 30% of land held by white commercial farmers to small (black) farmers was still not met. Bernstein, ‘Land reform’, 2002, p 457.

See K Deininger & J May, ‘Can there be growth with equity? An initial assessment of land reform in South Africa’, World Bank Working Paper 2451, 2000.

See the website of the South African Department of Land Reform (listed in note 24).

N Hamman & J Ewert, ‘A historical irony in the making? State, private sector and land reform in the South African wine industry’, Development Southern Africa, 16 (3), 1999, pp 447–454. See also p 113 of the draft version of the World Bank's 2002 Policy Research Report on Land Policy for Pro-Poor Growth and Development.

Interviews and discussions during field work in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.

Personal observations and interviews conducted during field work in the Western Cape Province of South Africa.

See David W Pearce & Jeremy J Warford, World Without End: Economics, Environment and Sustainable Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, p 249.

Robert Chambers, Rural Development. Putting the Last First, Harlow: Longman Scientific and Technical, 1983, pp 38–39, 151–152, 155, 166.

Development Bank of Southern Africa, sadc Agricultural Potential Assessment: The Spatial Organisation of Resources for Policy Planning, Development Paper No 147, University of Stellenbosch, 2001.

De Necker et al, Urban and Periurban Farming in the Western Cape; and Karaan & Mohamed, ‘The performance and support of food gardens’.

See Heidi van Deventer, ‘Using geographical information systems for mapping commercial farmers’ perceptions on land reform in Mpumalanga', unpublished Master's thesis, University of Stellenbosch, 2000, p 34.

See Johan van Zyl, ‘The farm size–efficiency relationship’, in J van Zyl et al, Agricultural Land Reform in South Africa, pp 259–309.

See the draft version of the World Bank's 2002 Policy Research Report on Land Policy for Pro-Poor Growth and Development. For discussions of this report, see the Oxfam website at www.oxfam.org.uk/landrights/africagen.htm.

Ambreena Manji, ‘Capital, labour and land relations in Africa. A gender analysis of the World Bank’s Policy Research Report on Land Institutions and Land Policy', Third World Quarterly, 24 (1), 2003, pp 97–114.

Concerns about the process of land reform in Zimbabwe have been raised in many instances. Examples include I Maposa, Land Reform in Zimbabwe. An Inquiry into the Land Acquisition Act (1992) Combined with A Case Study Analysis of the Resettlement Programme, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe (Harare?), 1995; TAS Bowyer-Bower & C Stoneman (eds), Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Constraints and Prospects, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000; and Human Rights Watch, Fast Track Land Reform in Zimbabwe, New York: Human Rights Publication Series, Vol. 14, No. 1 (A), March 2002. See also note 37.

Including the collapse of countless Communal Property Associations.

Various studies of different issues related to land reform in these provinces exist. They include van Deventer, ‘Using geographical information systems’. See also R Levin & D Wiener (eds), Community Perspectives on Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa, Chicago, IL: MacArthur Foundation, 1994.

See Deborah Sporton & David SG Thomas (eds), Sustainable Livelihoods in Kalahari Environments: A Contribution to Global Debates, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sheona E Shackleton, Charlie L Shackleton & Ben Cousins, ‘The economic value of land and natural resources to rural livelihoods: case studies from South Africa’, in Ben Cousins (ed), At the Crossroads: Land and Agrarian Reform in South Africa into the 21st Century, Bellville: Programme of Land and Agrarian Studies (plaas) and National Land Committee (nlc), University of the Western Cape, 2000, pp 35–67.

See Chambers, Sustainable Rural Livelihoods, p 22.

See JB Eckert, JN Hamman & JP Lombard, ‘Perceiving a new future: empowering farmworkers through equity-sharing’, Development Southern Africa, 13 (5), 1996, pp 693–712.

See D Cooper, MS Fakier & D Bromley, ‘Land reform and management of environmental impact’, in van Zyl et al, Agricultural Land Reform in South Africa, pp 589–599.

World Bank, South African Agriculture: Structure, Performance and Options for the Future, Discussion Paper No 6, Washington, DC: Southern Africa Department, World Bank, c1994.

D Cooper et al, ‘Land reform and management of environmental impact’, p 590.

This is one of the general points that Bernstein, ‘Land reform’, pp 441, 448, 451, had in mind in his scepticism about sustainable development (alongside efficiency and welfare) as a neopopulist motive for the global phenomenon of ‘new wave’ land reform since the 1970s.

See de Wet, ‘Land reform in South Africa’.

Manji, ‘Capital, labour and land relations in Africa’.

Strong support for such an integrated approach to land reform is found in World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Futur, p 141. See also Iftikhar Ahmed, ‘Sustainable livelihood and employment: pragmatic approaches’, in Iftikhar Ahmed & Jacobus A Doeleman (eds), Beyond Rio: The Environmental Crisis and Sustainable Livelihoods in the Third World, London: Macmillan, 1995, pp 317–362, esp pp 356–358.

Nigel Dudley, ‘World hunger, land reform and organic agriculture’, in N Dudley, J Madeley & S Stolton (eds), Land is Life: Land Reform and Sustainable Agriculture, London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1992, p 41.