People-centred environmental management and municipal commonage in the Nama Karoo

Abstract

This paper examines the problem of managing municipal commonage land in the Nama Karoo, which is increasingly being used by black or coloured emergent farmers. Many of these live in the towns and have very little agricultural experience or knowledge, and some are unemployed farmworkers. The paper presents findings from a survey of emergent farmers who use municipal commonage in Philippolis in the southern Free State. It uses the sustainable livelihoods approach to suggest that environmental knowledge is a key asset for small farmers, and that suitable approaches to agricultural extension need to be adopted to promote ecological knowledge. It suggests that ecological knowledge needs to play a more prominent role in people-centred, participatory developmental approaches so as to strengthen municipal commonage management and prevent the rapid desertification of commonage land.

1. Introduction

Land reform is a key part of government policy, spurred politically by the claims of the landless and by land reform pressures in countries like Zimbabwe. It is clear to national and provincial governments that land reform should be expedited. In South Africa, municipalities own large parcels of land that were rented out to commercial farmers in the past. Municipalities are now facing pressure from local communities and the Department of Land Affairs to make their commonage land available to emergent black or coloured farmers.

The effective management of municipal commonage can contribute to land reform, food security, local economic development and sustainable natural resource use. Commonage land is, in many towns, the only natural resource available to poor communities.

This paper considers the prospects for commonage use in the arid areas of South Africa, notably the Nama Karoo, or non-succulent Karoo, which is characterised by small shrubs and grass species and has a low and variable rainfall, mainly in summer. This northern part of the Karoo, the largest biome in South Africa, stretches from Laingsburg in the Western Cape northwards to the southern Free State. Its geographical demarcation is significant because of its land tenure characteristics, primarily as privately owned commercial land. Here ‘commonage’ means municipally owned land, the overriding purpose of which is now to provide livelihoods for poor urban residents, since it is the only land available for the landless and the poor.

The issue of resource use in the Karoo is becoming ever more pressing. We need to address the question of ‘how the vast and biologically diverse, but unproductive karoo1 region should be used in a country with a growing land-hungry population’ (Dean & Milton, 1999: xxii). In this context, ‘land hunger’ means the desire to keep livestock in greater numbers than are ecologically sustainable. Commonage farmers have repeatedly expressed their need for additional land at subsidised land prices or rental.

This sets the stage for an urgent inquiry into land–people interactions – particularly with reference to some kind of people-centred development. Until now, there has been a lack of understanding of the kind of people who use the commonage, their livelihood activities and their knowledge base. This paper is one of the first attempts at such a study in the Nama Karoo. Based on a survey of 28 commonage users, undertaken in Philippolis in the southern Free State in May 2005, it shows that commonage users have very uneven levels of knowledge of farming and the environment and that this poses specific challenges for agricultural extension services.

2. A History of Agricultural Impact

The main reason for the heavy environmental impact of modern agriculture in the Karoo is the imposition of land use practices inherently incompatible with indigenous ecosystems. The early white colonial pastoralists adopted migrant herding strategies similar to those of the Khoikhoi herders. Transhumance (migration with livestock to more productive areas as and when seasons or rainfall dictate it) is an appropriate and sustainable environmental management strategy in the Karoo. An arid, ‘event-driven’ ecological system with infrequent and patchy rainfall can only be used on an opportunistic basis by highly mobile human groups taking advantage of very localised conditions (Smith, 1999: 243).

But by the early 1800s the large transhumance cycles, using common lands, were replaced by ‘perpetual quit-rent tenure’, which gave property holders permanent agricultural rights and security of freehold tenure, on a surveyed area, in exchange for an annual rental. White frontier farmers established constant patterns of settled subsistence, characteristic of northern European environments, which were fundamentally at odds with an arid environment. Settlement around privately owned water sources and rangeland meant that grazing orbits shrank dramatically. Livestock was herded from rangeland to water source to kraal on a daily basis, partly as a protection from predators. This kraaling system has been blamed for a great deal of the degradation of the Karoo rangelands (Hoffman et al., 1999: 264). It was only with the erection of large numbers of windmills and the advent of fencing in the late 19th century that new management systems were initiated. These enabled different types of rotational grazing systems, which allow the veld to rest, ideally for at least 120 days, and are preferably synchronised with rainfall episodes (Tainton & Danckwerts, 1999: 186).

In the context of municipal commonage, which is currently used communally by large numbers of renters with growing numbers of livestock, fundamental questions arise about the suitability of various management approaches. These are discussed briefly below. But no matter which management approaches are adopted, there remains a need to focus on the users' knowledge base.

3. Municipal Commonage – A Strategic Resource

In the southern provinces of South Africa, municipalities own vast tracts of agricultural land. This phenomenon is primarily found in rural towns in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape and the Free State. Many modern municipalities inherited public land from their 19th century predecessors. In some cases, for example in Aberdeen, this was church land that was later sold to municipalities. Historically, municipalities administered commonage agricultural land for the benefit of white urban residents, who used it to keep horses, milch cows and some sheep.

Until the 1950s, a system of open access applied. In principle, everybody could thus make use of these lands, but they were meant especially for the poorer (white) village residents to build or enhance their livelihoods. Subsequently, white residents tended to lose interest in small-scale agriculture, and this land was increasingly let to commercial farmers, at relatively high rents. This formed a valuable source of municipal revenue.

Since 1997, municipalities have increasingly terminated the commercial farmers' leases and begun making the land available to the new class of urban poor – the urban black residents. The legal arrangements were often unclear or inadequate and in most cases the black farmers used the land communally. This paper reflects on the new ‘emergent farmers’ on the commonage, the black livestock owners who keep livestock on this land.

The extent of municipal commonage land in South Africa is considerable. A survey conducted by Benseler (2003) showed that there are at least 112 795 ha of commonage lands in the Free State. In the Northern Cape there are at least 367 871 ha (Buso, 2003). An important factor is that commonage is usually found in arid and semi-arid areas in South Africa, including the Karoo, Namaqualand, the Kalahari of the Northern Cape, the grasslands of the Free State and the Eastern Cape, and the scrublands of the southern parts of the Eastern Cape. Philippolis, the case study area, is located in the northernmost part of the Karoo (the ‘false Karoo’), which is a transition zone between the Nama Karoo and the Free State savanna.

Municipal commonage land faces four problems in particular: demographic pressures leading to ‘land hunger’, municipal administrative difficulties, the weakness of commonage farmers' representative committees, and environmental degradation. Currently, as part of the government's land reform programme, municipalities can obtain financial and other forms of support to convert commonage into a livelihood and developmental resource for their poor residents. According to the White Paper on Land Policy:

In large parts of the country, in small rural towns and settlements, poor people need to gain access to grazing land and small arable garden areas in order to supplement their income and to enhance household food security. The Department of Land Affairs will encourage local authorities to develop the conditions that will enable poor residents to access existing commonage, currently used for other purposes. Further, the Department will provide funds to enable resource-poor municipalities to acquire additional land for this purpose. (Department of Land Affairs, 1997: 50)

The demand for commonage land is intensifying because of rapid urbanisation. The farming sector is shedding jobs at an alarming rate. In the 11-year period from 1988 to 1998, a staggering 140 000 agricultural jobs were lost in South Africa, a decline of almost 20 per cent of the agricultural labour force (Simbi & Aliber, 2000: 1). The reasons for this significant demographic trend are partly political (farmers' fears of land tenure legislation), and partly economic (farmers have to compete in difficult agricultural markets, with virtually no tariff protection). The majority of evicted or unemployed farmworkers drift to the nearby towns. In the Free State, for example, the small towns are showing the most rapid rate of growth, amounting to an average increase of 3.5 per cent in population per annum (Marais, 2004). Typically, these residents now live in shanty homes on the edges of towns, in severe poverty that is often exacerbated by extremely poor environmental health conditions. Yet many of these residents do have some agricultural skills, as a survey of 32 ex-farmworkers in eight towns in the southern Free State and Northern Cape revealed (Atkinson, 2003: 76). Table 1 indicates the valuable human resources which may be going to waste.

Table 1: Skills levels of ex-farm workers

Subject	N
Welding	10
Animal care and disease management	19
Farm methods, management and entrepreneurship	23
Driver's licence and tractor driving	9
Repair of farm vehicles and equipment, e.g. windmills	15
Literacy	2
Sheep shearing	17
Construction	4
Domestic work	3
Gardening	1

The influx of people into the small towns has substantially increased the pressure on municipal commonage. Many of these new arrivals would like to farm, and some have attempted to do so, either on municipal commonage or by keeping stock in their backyards (with deleterious consequences for environmental health). These land holdings currently offer virtually the only land reform option available to aspirant urban based agriculturalists and the constantly increasing numbers of urban poor who want to use this resource to maintain their livelihoods. The demand for commonage land is widespread; for example, a workshop with the commonage users in the Karoo-Hoogland Municipality (Sutherland–Fraserburg–Williston area) in September 2003 revealed that there were already 37 commonage users, and 107 people on the waiting list who wanted to access commonage. The Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) programme, sponsored by the Department of Land Affairs, remains out of reach for all but a very few applicants, owing to high land prices and poor capital resources.

In most cases, commonage land is leased to black and coloured farmers on a communal basis, at subsidised rentals. These stock farmers' committees are not fully fledged communal property rights institutions, because they lack title to the land (the land is under municipal ownership) and because the lease arrangements are often poorly drafted. This creates an authority vacuum: neither the municipality nor the livestock committees are sufficiently skilled or organised to manage the land. The result is that many towns have agricultural camps of often degraded land that are too small for commercial agriculture, but which offer the historically disadvantaged urban poor an important last resort for making a living.

In such a context, the concept of ‘carrying capacity’ is controversial. Some commonage users are suspicious that carrying capacity is enforced by the government to justify racially based motives for reducing their livestock numbers. The emerging farmers interviewed raised the point that they already have more livestock than the land that has been allocated to them is able to support. They argue that the real problem is not too much livestock, but too little land (Cartwright et al., 2004: 127). As poverty increases, land hunger increases too, because small-scale livestock farmers want to extend their herd numbers – often beyond the level of sustainable grazing. This does not necessarily mean that emergent farmers are using their existing land optimally. Indeed, it appears that they emphasise livestock quantity instead of quality and might well achieve better results by managing their existing livestock better (Sutherland commonage workshop, September 2003). But given their existing levels of knowledge, experience and capital, commonage farmers have a single goal – to get access to more land.

Several research agencies have become concerned about municipalities' inability to manage their agricultural lands (commonage) in a developmental and sustainable way (see for example Anderson & Pienaar, 2003). Commonage is difficult to manage where municipalities are under pressure from urban residents asserting their rights to use it for survival, as well as for some commercial agriculture. For many municipalities, the transition to pro-poor commonage use has greatly increased their management responsibilities. They are having great difficulty managing commonage because communal agriculture was never a municipal function. In fact, under Schedules 4 and 5 of the 1996 Constitution neither ‘environmental management’ nor ‘agriculture’ are listed as municipal functions. These have always been executed by national and provincial government departments. Municipalities do not have experience of community based natural resource management, and the symptoms of their failure to deal with the problem are often reflected in the poor maintenance of infrastructure and the deteriorating condition of the veld.

The difficulties of dealing with large and complex groups of farmers, who often cannot afford to maintain infrastructure, have little incentive to limit their stock numbers, or have poorly developed institutional rules, have placed a heavy burden on the shoulders of overworked municipal officials. A significant amount of research (Anderson & Pienaar, 2003; Buso, 2003; Benseler, 2003, 2004; Cartwright et al., 2004; Atkinson et al., 2005) has highlighted the administrative difficulties of the municipalities, the poor management practices of the commonage committees, the unresolved attitudes of the Department of Land Affairs, and the patchy support of the provincial Departments of Agriculture.

However, despite the difficulties, municipal commonage remains a valuable asset for development. In many small towns it is by far the greatest developmental asset for the poor, and often makes an important contribution to household food security. Furthermore, many township residents are in fact erstwhile farmworkers who have some experience and skill in cultivation or stock farming.

Commonage land therefore offers opportunities and challenges. What is becoming evident is that commonage management and development needs to be ‘people-centred’, i.e. conducted with and by the users themselves. This will require the users to actively devise appropriate rules for the use of commonage. At present, very few municipalities have the facilitation skills to promote such participation, although in one or two cases (such as Sutherland and Hopetown in the Northern Cape), NGOs such as the Surplus People's Project (SPP) and FarmAfrica are playing an important role in devising people-centred management systems.

4. Environmental Degradation of Municipal Commonage

In the context of poor municipal capacity, heavy pressure on the commonage land is likely to lead to varying degrees of desertification. Interviews with municipal officials in the Free State (Buso, 2003) and Northern Cape (Benseler, 2003) show that:

• Overgrazing was reported as a problem by 27 out of 46 towns in the Free State and by 16 out of 26 in the Northern Cape.

• Soil erosion was identified as a problem by eight towns in the Free State and four in the Northern Cape.

• Difficulties with noxious weeds were reported by nine towns in the Free State.

A study in Khai Ma Municipality (Pofadder area) suggests that there are several reasons for overgrazing (Benseler, 2004: 23). Firstly, commonage is characterised by poor water distribution and infrastructure. The animals concentrate on the few water points and overgraze the land in that area, although the rest of the commonage may be in good condition. Secondly, the marketing channels and opportunities for the sale of stock are inadequate. This situation is exacerbated by the generally poor condition of the livestock. Thirdly, although extension officers provide environmental awareness guidance, people fail to comply with the grazing recommendations. Fourthly, emergent farmers do not reveal the true numbers of their stock on the commonage, which makes it difficult for municipalities to enforce grazing regulations. Finally, there are unclear institutional relationships between municipalities and stock users' associations.

Very little has been written about the environmental aspects of commonage land, and it is an urgent necessity that a thorough assessment be done, and preferably repeated at regular intervals. The Karoo requires a stocking rate of at least ten hectares per animal unit (AU) in the east to more than 60 ha/AU in the western Karoo, and in drought years the veld may not be able to support even these levels of stocking (Vorster, 1999: 294). Fencing has to be located according to veld ecotopes (i.e. areas of general soil, topographic and terrain uniformity), to manage resting and grazing in accordance with the needs of the species that make up each ecotope and to reduce area-selective grazing.

But rapidly increasing use of the commonage suggests that overgrazing is taking place in various localities (Atkinson et al., 2005). Overgrazing can have serious consequences. Thinning of vegetation caused by grazing leads to increased runoff, higher soil temperatures, increased soil moisture evaporation and accelerated erosion. Regular trampling by livestock can reduce the soil's absorption capacity. Furthermore, overgrazing may suppress the growth of perennial plants, leading to a dominance of annuals. Perennial grasses or palatable long-lived shrubs do not have dormant seeds (as do annuals) and may become locally extinct if disadvantaged by persistent heavy grazing. This can lead to a sudden shift in favour of unpalatable species (Palmer et al., 1999: 218).

In the Karoo, different levels of grazing have different impacts. When grasses are removed by grazing, the result is a change from a multi-species, productive landscape into a single-species low-production one. ‘It is almost certain that artificially high intensities of herbivory [as happens when large numbers of domestic livestock are allowed to graze a small area], typical of current management strategies, will continue to alter community structure in karoo vegetation’ (Midgley & van der Heyden, 1999: 106). Given the intense grazing pressure on municipal commonage land, this statement has great strategic significance.

However, the issue of overgrazing is subject to debate, and opinions differ as to the predominant cause of desertification. While conventional agricultural scientists believe that overstocking leads to desertification, proponents of the ‘disequilibrium rangeland ecology’ approach deny this and point to a wide range of other environmental causal factors. In terms of such ‘disequilibrium’ (Behnke, 1992) or ‘state-in-transition’ analyses of rangeland dynamics (Westoby et al., 1989: 266), stocking rates in accordance with carrying capacity do not guarantee stable rangeland productivity. There may be other environmental conditions, caused by complex interactions of events and factors (mainly rainfall events, episodes of seed production, topography, and soil nutrients) (Novellie, 1999: 180). These theorists argue that temporary localised declines in productive capacity, resulting from droughts or episodes of intensive grazing, do not constitute degradation. They therefore suggest that it is inappropriate to adopt a single stocking rate throughout the Karoo. Appropriate stocking rates should be site-specific. It follows, then, that conservation efforts should be based on an understanding of the dynamics governing veld ecology, the manner in which grazing varies, and the innate response of the veld to environmental factors.

The ‘disequilibrium’ or ‘state-in-transition’ approaches to veld management raise far-reaching land tenure questions. Disequilibrium theorists argue that communally used land may be more efficient than privately owned land. By sharing land parcels, farmers may be able to stock their lands fairly heavily, as long as they can use ‘opportunistic’ or tracking strategies traditionally used by African pastoralists. An ‘efficient opportunism’ can be encouraged by certain support programmes, such as providing more water points for livestock, encouraging forage cultivation for years of low rainfall, and improving indigenous breeds of livestock (Cousins, 1996: 9–10).

As noted above, much commonage land is now overgrazed, with little prospect of immediate recovery. Like the stocking rates, the reversal of grazing-induced change is a controversial topic in the Karoo. Research has shown that resting alone is not sufficient to initiate rehabilitation (Palmer et al., 1999: 219). Much more vigorous additional measures need to be taken.

The disagreement between ‘equilibrium’ and ‘non-equilibrium’ theorists has prompted vigorous debate in the academic literature (for example, Illius & O'Connor, 1999; Sullivan & Rohde, 2000). With regard to commonage, however, this debate is somewhat beside the point, because both these approaches require a significant level of ecological knowledge. For equilibrium theorists, a thorough knowledge of veld conditions is required in a sensitive ecology such as the Karoo, to manage stocking levels appropriately. For non-equilibrium theorists, management strategies such as livestock mobility and supplementary feeding can be used to minimise the impact on vegetation. But the situation on municipal commonage resembles precisely the kind of settings (such as refugee settlements and overcrowded ‘homeland reserves’) where there are high concentrations of livestock regardless of the availability of forage. The non-equilibrium theorists admit these settings do not allow for ‘opportunistic management decisions’ (Sullivan & Rohde, 2000: 1599). The nub of the matter is that commonage users on highly stocked and restricted commonage camps need a significant level of ecological knowledge to manage the veld–stock relationship.

There are several ecological dimensions to the arid Karoo areas which are of potential significance for farming. Scientific studies have verified this but it remains an open question how many commercial and emerging farmers have a working knowledge of environmental issues such as:

• The toxicity of some Karoo shrubs to domestic livestock, and the competitive and reproductive advantage of such shrubs in rangelands.

• The impact of different types of sheep on the environment.

• The enormously destructive impact of goats on the environment (Sigwela et al., 2003; The Spectator, 2005).

• The impact of sheep and goats on flower production, which can reduce the seed production of palatable shrubs (Milton et al., 1999: 188).

• The role of small hills (koppies) as seed banks (hillside vegetation is often vulnerable to destruction by goats).

• The role of plant litter fall (dead leaves) in promoting the fertility of the soil and infiltration of water (Sigwela et al., 2003: 1522).

• The impact of defoliation on crusting of the soil.

• The role of insect pollinators in the procreation of many plant species in the Karoo (Esler, 1999: 128), including bees, wasps, butterflies and beetles.

• The role of ants and termites in concentrating organic matter in patches underground, thereby influencing the local distribution of moisture and plant nutrients in the soil.

• The importance of termite mounds, which function as larders, storing grass seeds (Milton et al., 1999: 193).

• The impact of large numbers of livestock on the soil, such as urine and dung deposits, which promote nitrogen recycling and seedling establishment (Hoffman et al., 1999: 269).

Whether one favours the ‘disequilibrium’ approach, or the principle of constant stock rates, the emergent farmers' environmental knowledge base remains important. As an example, an experiment by the National Botanical Institute has shown that super-intensive grazing in the Karoo (2000 animals on one hectare!) is possible, and even desirable, because it reduces selective grazing. It does however require a maximum of three days per camp, and a sophisticated knowledge of livestock management (Farmer's Weekly, 2006: 44).

5. Sustainable Livelihoods and The Issue of Knowledge

In the light of these arguments, an important line of inquiry is what local commonage farmers know about environmental change. In fact, the disequilibrium approach places a premium on emergent farmers' environmental knowledge, because successful management of the environment depends on understanding a wide range of factors that may influence local environmental conditions. In this context, local thinking about degradation and how it should be managed is a key variable.

The importance of farmers' ecological knowledge is generally understated in the literature. In the rather sparse published literature on municipal commonage (mainly Anderson & Pienaar, 2003), land degradation is ascribed primarily to the weak definition of use rights, and not to farmers' limited ecological knowledge. Similarly, the literature on common property institutions tends to focus on areas where indigenous communities have lived and managed their resources for a long time, and where indigenous knowledge has accumulated over centuries (for example, Gonsalves & Mendoza, 2006: 287–8). In South Africa, commonage farmers are truly ‘emergent’ farmers, often making their first attempts at farming, many of them with very little ecological knowledge and little background in farming, or only the proletarian experience of being farmworkers on commercial farms – hardly an environment conducive to building up ecological knowledge.

At this point, it is worth reminding ourselves of the value of the sustainable livelihoods (SL) paradigm. The SL approach is asset based, focusing on financial assets (such as savings, remittances, loans), natural assets (land, water, forests), infrastructural assets (equipment, storage, buildings, roads), social assets (community organisation) and personal assets (health, skills, experience, education and knowledge) (Carney, 1998: 7). Of all these, knowledge is the most difficult to understand and assess, because there are typically no formal indicators of people's level of knowledge. Even educational qualifications may radically misrepresent the situation. These difficulties may explain why, even within the SL framework, the issue of ecological knowledge has not received much attention, despite its evident importance. New concepts such as ‘agroecology’ (Altieri, 2002), which advocate skill-intensive, participatory approaches with farmers to maintain or reinstate vegetational diversity and soil fertility, place a premium on farmers' ecological knowledge.

6. A Case Study of Philippolis, Free State

The particular circumstances of commonage users must be appreciated. Not only have black and coloured people been constrained in their access to land for over a century, but many of the recent generation of emergent farmers (on municipal commonage) have lived in towns for a long time. The recent immigrants to the towns tend to be farmworkers. Is it likely that some or most commonage users would still have sufficient environmental knowledge to engage in opportunistic farming practices? This needs to be investigated empirically.

Philippolis is a small town in the southern Free State, 180 km south of Bloemfontein and 60 km north of Colesberg. By 2001, it had a total of 7304 people, of whom blacks were in the majority (3734), coloureds a significant part (2465) and whites in the minority (1105 people) (Global Insight, 2006). It is the oldest settlement in the Free State, dating from its days as a mission station in the 1820s. Subsequently it became the capital of the Griqua kingdom (until 1862), and thereafter was sold to the Free State Republic.

From 1862 to 2000 Philippolis had its own municipality. In 2000, it was absorbed into a larger municipal entity, called Kopanong Municipality. Kopanong includes eight other towns: Trompsburg (the municipal capital), Fauresmith, Jagersfontein, Edenburg, Springfontein, Gariep Dam, Bethulie and Reddersburg. Each of these towns is now managed by a ‘Unit Supervisor’ and basic clerical and technical staff. Policy making emanates from the headquarters in Trompsburg.

Philippolis was one of the first municipalities in the Free State to make commonage available for local black stockholders. It took this decision in 1998, and thereby pre-empted much of the political conflict which came to characterise commonage access in towns such as Trompsburg. Its municipal commonage of 3491 ha is divided into five sections (called ‘camps’) and used for livestock farming. These have been gradually leased to local black users, at reduced rentals.

In the Philippolis survey, a total of 28 commonage farmers, half the current commonage users, were interviewed. Commonage farming is largely, but not exclusively, a male domain, with about 80 per cent of the livestock owners in the survey being men. Table 2 shows that commonage farming is attracting primarily middle-aged and elderly people and Table 3 shows their employment profile. For some users, commonage farming supplements urban wages or pensions; for others, it is a full-time activity.

Table 2: Age profile of Philippolis commonage users

Age bracket	N
20–40 years	3
41–60 years	15
61 + years	10
Total	28

Table 3: Employment profile of Philippolis commonage users

Employment status	N
Full-time	11
Odd jobs/piece work	5
Retired/unemployed	12
Total	28

The commonage land in Philippolis is used exclusively for livestock ownership, with no cultivation taking place. Of the 28 interviewees, the majority (20 people) own large stock (cattle), 16 own small stock, such as sheep and goats, ten own pigs, and two own horses and donkeys (mainly for transport). The survey divided the commonage users into four somewhat arbitrarily demarcated categories, as shown in Table 4, which indicate that there is a continuum of farming scale on the Philippolis commonage. The number of animals owned by these 28 commonage farmers differs widely, but the survey found that virtually all wanted to increase their livestock holdings. This will have significant implications for their commonage use.

Table 4: Categories of livestock ownership

Group	Livestock ownership category	N
Group 1	Up to 10 head	16
Group 2	Between 11 and 30 head	6
Group 3	Between 31 and 100 head	4
Group 4	More than 100 head	2

The vast majority of current commonage users in South African towns are historically disadvantaged in terms of learning and experience opportunities (see Table 5). Most never had the chance to acquire the knowledge needed to run a commercial farm. They are drawn either from the urban working class (mainly in small or medium-sized towns) or from the ranks of farmworkers who have lost their jobs. Both categories of people tend to be poor, although there are cases of wealthier middle-class black people also owning livestock on the commonage.

Table 5: Professions of commonage users

Profession	N
Unemployed	15
Gardener/labourer	2
Municipal worker	5
Domestic worker	2
Full-time commonage user	2
Other	2
Total	28

When the survey was conducted, the commonage users were asked to identify grasses, Karoo bushes and problem plants. The results show an uneven spread of basic ecological knowledge. They were asked whether they recognised which grasses (Table 6) and which Karoo bushes (Table 7) were palatable or unpalatable for sheep. There was little correlation between the size of the farmers' herds and their level of knowledge about grasses and Karoo bushes; some who owned sizeable herds had modest levels of knowledge (Table 8). They were also asked whether they knew of any pest plants, i.e. plants that are exotic and multiply uncontrollably (Table 9).

Table 6: Recognition of Karoo grasses

Degree of knowledge	N
Poor knowledge: no correct answer	1
Fair knowledge: 2–3 correct answers (out of 4)	7
Good knowledge: 4 correct answers (out of 4)	20
Total	28

Table 7: Knowledge of Karoo bushes

Degree of knowledge	N
Poor knowledge: 0–1 correct answer	4
Slight knowledge: 2–4 correct answers (out of 9)	11
Fair knowledge: 5–7 correct answers (out of 9)	8
Good knowledge: 8–9 correct answers (out of 9)	5
Total	28

Table 8: Cross-tabulation of level of livestock holding and knowledge of Karoo bushes

No. of livestock	Poor knowledge	Slight knowledge	Fair knowledge	Good knowledge
1–10 head	1	6	5	4
11–30 head	2	2	2	0
31–100 head	1	2	0	1
More than 100 head	0	1	1	0
Total	4	11	8	5

Table 9: Knowledge of pest plants

Degree of knowledge	N
Poor knowledge: no correct answer	5
Fair knowledge: 1–2 correct answers (out of 5)	13
Good knowledge: more than 2 correct answers (out of 5)	10
Total	28

The commonage users were asked where they had learnt their veld knowledge. Table 10 shows that most cannot be regarded as having ‘indigenous knowledge’ in any orthodox sense. Their ecological knowledge draws largely on their experience as farmworkers, although a minority draws on their parents' and grandparents' knowledge base. The survey cross-tabulated the interviewees' knowledge of Karoo bushes with their previous residence on farms, and there does appear to be a greater likelihood of ecological knowledge associated with previous farm life (Table 11).

Table 10: Source of veld knowledge

Source of knowledge	N
On white farm/from white farmer	18
Parents/grandparents	6
No one	2
Other commonage users	2
Total	28

Table 11: Source of commonage users' ecological knowledge

Source of knowledge	Previous residence on farms	No previous residence on farms
Poor knowledge	3	1
Slight knowledge	8	3
Fair knowledge	8	0
Good knowledge	4	1
Total	23	5

When asked which aspect of their existing knowledge they considered to be the most useful for farming in their experience thus far (they could give more than one response) they responded as indicated in Table 12. Clearly, their focus had hitherto been primarily on knowledge about livestock, and very little about the veld. They were then asked what kind of knowledge they would most like to acquire (they could list more than one). The responses are shown in Table 13. The interviewees still focused primarily on livestock and farming techniques, although a significant minority were interested in learning about the veld. But knowledge of ecology is clearly not an overriding concern for the commonage users of Philippolis.

Table 12: Commonage users' views on knowledge needed for farming

Source of knowledge	Number of mentions
Livestock/diseases/feeding	16
Veld and pasture	2
Infrastructure	3
Right attitude	6
None	6
Total	33

Table 13: Knowledge that commonage users would like to acquire

Source of knowledge	Number of mentions
Veld	9
Stock and diseases	12
General farming	11
Financial management	1
Total	33

7. Promoting Farmers' Knowledge

There are significant regulatory aspects to the issue of overgrazing. The Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act (CARA) (Act No. 43 of 1983), for example, prescribes that:

• Every land user shall by means of as many of the measures set out in the regulations … as are necessary in his situation, effectively restore or reclaim the land on his farm unit on which excessive soil loss due to erosion occurs or has occurred.

• Suitable vegetation shall be established on the land concerned in order to expedite the restoration and reclamation thereof.

• The land concerned shall be fenced off and withdrawn from grazing until such time as vegetation has been sufficiently restored or established.

This means that commonage users are legally required to undertake some kind of environmental restoration. This will require significant environmental knowledge on their part, as a key ingredient of rehabilitation strategies.

Similarly, in terms of Section 2(4) of the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) of 1998, ‘the development, use and exploitation of renewable resources … [should] not exceed the level beyond which their integrity is jeopardised; and the costs of remedying environmental degradation must be paid for by those responsible for harming the environment’. According to Section 28, every person who causes significant degradation must take reasonable measures to prevent this from continuing. This is an obligation placed on an owner of the land (in the case of commonage, a municipality), or a person who has a right to use the land (such as a commonage user). Such measures may include actions to ‘inform and educate’ employees (although other users are not mentioned) about using the resource without causing degradation (Section 28(3)(b)).

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) has urged the provision of agricultural extension services. It draws attention to the poor levels of ecological awareness of the nature, causes and consequences of land degradation and the remedies for reversing it. Few local communities can access information relevant to their management needs. The Department argues that local indigenous knowledge is often poorly mobilised for land management and extension services are inadequate. ‘Generally, but especially in the local sphere, people lack adequate insight into the nature and consequences of land degradation, and the means available to them for addressing the problem’ (DEAT, 2005: 68).

In the Karoo, where the ecosystem is easily disturbed by overgrazing, it is important that commonage farming operations be conducted with substantial knowledge of veld maintenance, so that sustainable livelihoods are created. The Philippolis survey suggests that environmental knowledge is unevenly distributed, owing to commonage users' varying personal experience. Longer-term users (particularly those with previous experience of agriculture) are likely to have more environmental knowledge than new ones. Furthermore, those who do have agricultural and ecological knowledge are sometimes disadvantaged by the need to farm communally in contexts where their expertise may be ignored or discounted by the rest of the group. The breakdown of local knowledge has negative consequences for biodiversity, and where common property institutions are fragile environmental management is particularly poor, because ecological principles are not enforced.

Is a revival or a reintroduction of ecological knowledge possible in the Karoo? Some researchers claim that it is, particularly where extension officers learn to work with communities, create confidence and trust, and allow for mutual learning in an atmosphere of openness (Kothari et al., 1998: 46). As it stands now, agricultural extension is a function of provincial Departments of Agriculture, which have their own difficulties with shortages of funding and staff. In the case of commonage farmers, agricultural extension services have been inadequate. Not only are Departments of Agriculture understaffed, or based at offices long distances away from the small towns, but many of their officers have a fairly low level of knowledge and experience themselves (Anderson & Pienaar, 2003: 23). This phenomenon is not confined to South Africa. Participatory approaches of expert–farmer cooperation are highly desirable, but they require a rehabilitation of agricultural knowledge services, which are in an appalling state in many countries (Koning & Smaling, 2005: 9).

There is a clear need for ongoing farming mentorship, which should include ecological knowledge. Such arrangements, possibly with carefully selected neighbouring commercial farmers, will add greatly to commonage users' knowledge base. The South African Agricultural Sectoral Education and Training Authority (AgriSETA) is already investigating the promotion and professionalisation of farmer mentoring relationships (personal communication, Michiel van Niekerk, CEO, AgriSETA, 5 September 2005).

8. A Precedent for Karoo Farmers: The Conservation Farming Project

The ecosystem services approach formed a key part of the Conservation Farming Project launched by the National Botanical Institute (NBI) in various localities in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, which came to an end in mid-2004. In the Karoo, a set of commercial farms was selected in the Beaufort West area (NBI, 2004). The objectives of the project were, inter alia, to identify and evaluate the economic and ecological costs and benefits (in terms of biodiversity, carbon sequestration, ecosystem stability and resilience, and response to climate change) of farming practices. Ecosystem services are defined as processes of natural ecosystems that support human activity and sustain human life. They encompass all the benefits we derive, directly or indirectly, from the effective functioning of the ecosystem. Specific ecosystem services and ecological processes which are important to farmers can be identified, both by outsiders (such as ecologists) and – significantly – by farmers themselves. Ecosystem services maintain biodiversity and produce ecosystem goods, such as wild game, forage, timber, firewood and natural fibres. The project aimed to evaluate the role of conservation farming as part of national and regional strategies to conserve biological diversity in South Africa (O'Farrell & Collard, 2003: 1517).

The Conservation Farming Project was of major importance because it introduced questions of biodiversity into a study of agricultural practices in the Karoo. Previous efforts to conserve biodiversity were a function of conservation agencies who concentrated mainly on game reserves, or only on specific threatened species. The term ‘agrobiodiversity’ has recently been coined to describe the elements of biodiversity that have direct or potential value for agriculture (see the definition of the United States Department of Agriculture at http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic). It encompasses many types of biological resources tied to agriculture, including:

• genetic resources – the essential living materials of plants and animals;

• palatable plants and crops, including traditional varieties, cultivars, hybrids and other genetic material developed by breeders;

• livestock (small and large, lineal breeds or thoroughbreds) and freshwater fish;

• soil organisms vital to soil fertility, structure, quality and soil health;

• naturally occurring insects, bacteria and fungi that control insect pests and diseases of domesticated plants and animals;

• agroecosystem components and types (polycultural/monocultural, small/large scale, rainfed/irrigated, etc.) indispensable for nutrient cycling, stability and productivity; and

• ‘wild’ resources (species and elements) of natural habitats and landscapes that can provide services (for example, pest control and ecosystem stability) to agriculture.

The challenge is to balance future environmental resources with short-term current agricultural earnings and also bridge the gap between environmental services and commercial value.

The value of the Conservation Farming Project was that it made a start in analysing and reconciling these divergent factors – at least for large-scale commercial farmers in the Karoo. One issue which was investigated was farmers' perceptions of ecosystem services: ‘Societal values may significantly influence the way in which various aspects and components of the landscape are considered and therefore managed’ (O'Farrell & Collard, 2003: 1517). The project included a social survey and numerous participatory events (mainly workshops with farmers). The social assessment set out to determine the causes of prevailing attitudes among farmers, and to determine why they resort to particular land uses and farming practices. A strong emphasis was placed on securing the support of commercial farmers, who shared their knowledge with the scientists.

O'Farrell & Collard (2003) observed that commercial farmers usually have an intimate knowledge of their farming areas. Unfortunately, the issue of emergent farmers or commonage users was not addressed in the NBI project reports. As O'Farrell (n.d.: 5) notes:

Ecosystems are in decline worldwide largely due to poverty, ignorance of their value to humans and inadequate mechanisms to encourage investment to maintain them … The lack of awareness of the value of ecosystem services and the conflict between short-term gain over long-term value is a factor which can drive the conversion of natural ecosystems to human-controlled systems, at the expense of ecosystem functioning, and long-term economic stability.

The question is the degree to which this statement characterises commonage farming, and how commonage users can increase their knowledge of the ecosystem services that their veld provides. Commonage users and emergent farmers need a much better understanding of these services, so that the Karoo veld can be used sustainably and according to changing climatic conditions. Engaging with commonage users to expand their ecological knowledge base poses clear challenges for government departments of agriculture and environmental affairs.

9. Conclusion

Rural poverty in South Africa is intensifying, leading to dysfunctional urbanisation patterns. The rural livelihoods of poor townsfolk in the Karoo will require innovative strategies, such as peri-urban commonage stock farming. This needs to be attended to as a matter of urgency, on account of urban people's desperate need for land on which they can conduct small-scale farming.

The Philippolis survey illustrated the commonage users' uneven and generally inadequate level of ecological knowledge. The SL approach is a useful theoretical paradigm for highlighting the importance of people's knowledge assets (or lack thereof), and the obstacles to using their knowledge to the best effect. Extension officers and farming mentors need to come to grips with the lived experience of commonage users, so that their ecological knowledge can be expanded for the sake of rapid but sustainable land reform and poverty alleviation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Doreen Atkinson∗

∗ ∗Visiting Professor, Centre for Development Support, University of the Free State. The research on which this paper is based was funded by the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, and the May and Stanley Smith Fellowship of the University of the Free State.

Notes

^∗Visiting Professor, Centre for Development Support, University of the Free State. The research on which this paper is based was funded by the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), University of the Western Cape, and the May and Stanley Smith Fellowship of the University of the Free State.

¹Botanists refer to the ecological type as karoo (lower case spelling).