Land Reform, Range Ecology, and Carrying Capacities in Namaqualand, South Africa

Abstract

In South African rangeland management, there is a long history of using the notion of carrying capacity as a central planning tool for environmental conservation and agricultural modernization. Today, in the new South Africa, the “need” for livestock keepers to adhere to a defined carrying capacity in order to conserve rangeland resources and to achieve economic development remains an institutionalized “fact.” In this article, we use interviews, livestock and rainfall data, policy documents, and aerial photos to discuss the idea of carrying capacity as it is currently used in the implementation of land reform in Namaqualand in the Northern Cape Province. This article is a contribution at the interface of human ecology and political ecology, linking environmental issues to economic constraints, land rights, social justice, and values. Policymakers and extension services usually see carrying capacity as a purely technical issue. We argue that this is problematic because it gives privilege to environmental sustainability and to one particular perception of the ideal landscape at the expense of livelihood security and poverty alleviation. It also perpetuates the colonial myth that the private ranch system is an ideal one, independent of disparate production goals and unequal economic opportunities and constraints, and it ignores evidence going back more than half a century that the Namaqualand range is capable of sustaining livestock densities far greater than those recommended. The winners that emerge from the current policy focus on carrying capacity are the few emergent black commercial farmers as well as conservationist interests; the losers are the majority of poor stockowners in the communal areas.

Key Words:

• carrying capacity
• land reform
• Namaqualand
• political ecology
• South Africa

Acknowledgments

This research draws on four different research projects from two different collaborations. First, there is two of the authors' participation in an EU-funded multidisciplinary research program carried out in Leliefontein between 1998 and 2004, which focused specifically on the dynamics of rangeland management, comparing neighboring communal and commercial systems (“Global change and sustainable communal rangelands of Southern Africa,” INCO-DC: ERBIC 18CT970162, followed by “Maposda—Management and policy options for the sustainable development of communal rangelands and their communities in Southern Africa,” INCO-DEV: ICA4/CP/2000/50006). The other is a research collaboration between the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of the Western Cape and the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. This collaboration benefitted from two sources of funding: the Norwegian Embassy in Pretoria (2000–2005) and joint funding from the Norwegian Research Council and the National Research Foundation in South Africa (2002–2005).

We are grateful to Professor Timm Hoffman for constructive criticism of an earlier draft; to Louis van Wyk for patience in answering endless questions and for providing much needed assistance in navigating the huge Namaqualand veld; to Nuchey van Neel and to the late Francois Jansen for invaluable assistance during field work; to the Department of Agriculture in Springbok for providing data on rainfall and stock numbers; to the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape, the network “Custom and Conflict in Land and Water Management in Africa” (Copenhagen), and St. Anthony's College at the University of Oxford for hosting seminars where this paper was presented and discussed; to the Surplus People Project and Legal Resources Centre for sharing their knowledge and experiences; to four anonymous reviewers for thoughtful and very useful comments; to editor Karl Zimmerer for his guidance in making this a publishable paper; and, finally, to the farmers and other residents of Concordia and Leliefontein for their patience and tolerance toward the researchers who have passed through their lives over recent years.

Notes

Notes: Consultation and referenda regarding tenure reform have been carried out, although no decision on the transfer of ownership from the state to either Municipalities or CPAs has yet been made by the Minister. Redistribution has been undertaken within the Municipal Commonage Programme, effectively enlarging the communal area of Namaqualand by more than 30 percent.

Note: SSU figures for 2002 and 2003 were adjusted from the original, which included livestock also on the new Concordia farms, by multiplying the totals with the fraction of area represented by the old commonage.

Note: The two major reductions in small stock units (SSUs) are a result of multiyear droughts between 1903–1907 and 1998–2000.

1. By “institutional fact” we mean a particular type of “knowledge” or scientific understanding, which has become embedded and routinized in bureaucratic institutions.

2. A discourse can be identified as a shared meaning of a phenomenon, which can be small or large and shared by a small or large group of people. Through written and oral statements, discourses are produced, reproduced, and transformed (Adger et al. 2001).

3. Earlier studies of the South African land reform policy using a geography-based political ecology perspective have been carried out by McCusker and Weiner (2003) and McCusker (2004).

4. Concordia was visited during December 2002, September–October 2003, and September–October 2004. Research in the Leliefontein communal area has been carried out on a regular basis since 1998.

5. Our own research was carried out in areas that span both the summer rainfall (typical African savanna system) and winter rainfall (Succulent Karoo) systems.

6. Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act 31 of 1996 (initially intended to apply only for two years, but renewed annually pending the application of new land tenure legislation).

7. Extension of Security of Tenure Act, 1996, and Land reform (Labour tenants) Act 3 of 1996.

8. The Communal Property Associations (CPA) Act 28 of 1996 provides a new legal framework for group ownership and democratic governance and about 500 CPAs have been established around South Africa, primarily in connection with restitution or redistribution of land to groups.

9. Through 2000 the program was mainly implemented through a Settlement/Land Acquisition Grant (SLAG) of up to R17, 000 per household. In order to be eligible for this grant, applicants had to be poor and to have an income below a certain level. From 2001, the government, with a new Minister for Agriculture and Land Affairs Ms Thoko Didiza, extended the deadline for redistribution of 30 percent to 2015. Government then introduced the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) program, which gave the National Department for Agriculture and its provincial offices increased responsibility for land redistribution (S. Turner 2002). LRAD offers grants of between R20,000 and R100,000 to beneficiaries able to contribute a minimum of R5,000 in cash or labor.

10. TLCs replaced the management boards of the apartheid era and governed each of the “rural areas” from 1995 to 2001 in anticipation of a new local government structure.

11. Traditionally, Nama herders exploited the various agro-ecological zones between the coastal plain, the mountainous escarpment zone, and the summer rainfall grassland interior through seasonal transhumance. Commercial farmers mimic this pattern today through the ownership of multiple farms in different agro-ecological zones.

12. Kraal means “pen” or “enclosure” in Afrikaans and kraaling usually means to keep livestock in an enclosure at night.

13. One Large Stock Unit (LSU)=six Small Stock Units (SSUs). Generally speaking, large stock are cattle, horses, and donkeys and small stock are sheep and goats.

14. The reports of these South African commissions also inspired colonial governments in East Africa to destock rangelands used by Africans and to manage these lands using the notion of a fixed carrying capacity (D. Anderson 2002).

15. The idea that “nothing will be left” as a result of exceeding the carrying capacity is frequently expressed within this discourse on communal range management (see Hongslo and Benjaminsen 2002).

16. While the park paid lip service to ideas of participation by funding school buildings outside the park and hiring locals to erect the rhinoceros-proof park fences (there are no rhinos as yet), small stock herding and other local land uses, which are not seen as sustainable, have been excluded from the park area.

17. Note also that the Concordia commonage is located some 20–30 km from Springbok, where rainfall was measured, and that local variations in rainfall may be substantial.

18. Livestock statistics for Leliefontein prior to fencing in the mid twentieth century are derived from government records (Surveyor General; District Commissioners), apart from the first entry, which is an estimate of cattle numbers only, based on the knowledge of the resident missionary at the time.

19. This fence-line study was conducted in Paulshoek, one of the more remote Leliefontein villages.

20. Leliefontein Bestuurplan vir die Meentgronde (Leliefontein Management Plan for the Commons) 2000. Kamiesberg Municipality and Kamiesberg Munisipaliteit Weidingsregulasies (Kamiesberg Municipality Grazing Regulations) Notice 18, Northern Cape Province Provincial Gazette of 1 April 2002.