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Researchreportno. 12

S C H O O LG O V E R N M E N TU N I V E R S I T Y O F T H E W E S T E R N C A P E

of

Edited by Stephen Turnerwith contributions by

Ben CousinsEdward Lahiff

and Poul Wisbourg

Land and agrarianreform in SouthAfrica: A status

report, 2002Norwegian Institute of

Human Rights,University of Oslo

Centre for InternationalEnvironment and Development

Studies, (Noragric)Agricultural University of Norway

Land and agrarian reform inSouth Africa:

A status report, 2002

Edited by Stephen Turnerwith contributions by

Ben Cousins, Edward Lahiff and Poul WisborgCo-published with the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights,

University of Oslo and the Centre for InternationalEnvironment and Development Studies at the Agricultural

University of Norway (Noragric)

Research report no. 12

Programme for Landand Agrarian StudiesAugust 2002

Norwegian Instituteof Human Rights

�It is not easy to challenge a chief�: Lessons from Rakgwadi

Land and agrarian reform in South Africa: A status report, 2002

Edited by Stephen Turner with contributions from Ben Cousins, Edward Lahiff and Poul Wisborg

Co-published by the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, the Norwegian Institute ofHuman Rights, University of Oslo and the Centre for International Environment and Devel-opment Studies (Noragric) at the Agricultural University of Norway

Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, School of Government, University of theWestern Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, Cape Town, South AfricaTel: +27 21 959 3733; Fax: +27 21 959 3732; E-mail: [email protected]: www.uwc.ac.za/plaas

Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies Research report no. 12

ISBN 1-86808-565-1

August 2002

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in anyform or by any means, without prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Copy editor: Stephen HeynsCover photograph: Edward LahiffLayout: Designs for Development

Typeset in TimesReproduction: House of ColoursPrinting: Hansa Reproprint cc.

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ContentsList of tables and boxes iAcronyms iiiPreface ivChapter 1: Background 1Chapter 2: The status of land reform in South Africa in 2002 4Chapter 3: Integration of environmental concerns into the land reform

programme 20Conclusion 27Bibliography 29

List of tables and boxesTable 1: Cost of land restitution programme to date 8Table 2: Land restitution claims settled at 31 March 2002 9Table 3: �Land reform projects�, beneficiaries and hectares transferred,

1994�2001 12

Box 1: Minister Didiza on Zimbabwe 4Box 2: Landlessness=Racism campaign 5Box 3: An integrated approach to land reform 7Box 4: Statement by the Chief Land Claims Commissioner 10Box 5: DLA key outputs: Strategic Implementation Programme 2001/02 11Box 6: Selected resolutions of the National Land Tenure Conference,

November 2001 16Box 7: Notes on TRANCRAA 17Box 8: DLA�s environmental planning guidelines and the principles of

Local Agenda 21 21Box 9: Definition of sustainable development 21Box 10: DLA principles for integrating environmental planning into land

reform 22


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iii

AcronymsCPA communal property associationCRLR Commission on the Restitution of Land RightsDFA Development Facilitation ActDLA Department of Land AffairsDPLG Department of Provincial and Local GovernmentEIA environmental impact assessmentEIMP Environmental Implementation and Management PlanIDP integrated development planIEM integrated environmental managementISRDS Integrated Sustainable Rural Development StrategyLA21 Local Agenda 21LDOs land development objectivesLRAD Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development programmeNDA National Department of AgricultureNEMA National Environmental Management ActNGO non-governmental organisationNIHR Norwegian Institution for Human Rights, University of OsloNoragric Centre for International Environment and Development Studies,

Agricultural University of NorwayPDAs provincial departments of agriculturePLAAS Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the

Western CapeSLAG Settlement and Land Acquisition GrantTRANCRAA Transformation of Certain Rural Areas ActURS Urban Renewal StrategyWSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development


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This is the second in a series of‘status reports’ on land andagrarian reform in South Africapublished by the Programme for

Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS).These reports set out to assess progress,problems and emerging perspectiveswithin the land sector. The first statusreport (Turner & Ibsen 2000) discussed theperiod from1994 to late 2000; this reportdiscusses further developments in thesector since 2000.

It is again written as part of the collabo-rative programme between PLAAS, theCentre for International Environment andDevelopment Studies (Noragric) at theAgricultural University of Norway, and theNorwegian Institute for Human Rights(NIHR) at the University of Oslo. The aimof the report is to contribute to the ongoingdebate on land and agrarian reform inSouth Africa, and to enhance the under-standing of the sector among Norwegiansand South Africans.

The original intention in writing thisreport was to focus on the relationshipbetween land and agrarian reform andsustainable development, and thus contrib-ute to debates taking place before andduring the World Summit on SustainableDevelopment (WSSD) in Johannesburg inAugust and September 2002. Those issueswill now be dealt with in a separate report,with contributions by several authors. Here

the focus is on assessing progress in landreform over the past two years.

As a prelude to this debate, Chapter 3of this report provides a critical analysis ofthe policy and guidelines of the Depart-ment of Land Affairs (DLA) for integratingenvironmental planning into the landreform process. It notes that although theseguidelines have been approved by theDirector-General, at the time of writingthey were still awaiting approval by theMinister.

Chapter 1 sketches the historical back-ground against which land and agrarianreform policies are being formulated andimplemented. Chapter 2 describes devel-opments and emerging themes since 2000and up to mid-2002, including land inva-sions, HIV/Aids and the effects of ‘theZimbabwe crisis’, and moves to an updateon implementation of the land restitutionand land redistribution sub-programmes,and an assessment of key problem areas.This is followed by a discussion of thedebates which are currently taking placearound the draft Communal Land RightsBill.

Chapter 3, as mentioned above, as-sesses the new DLA policy and guidelinesin relation to environmental planning. Thereport concludes with a summary of thekey issues which have emerged within thesector over the past two years, and withwhich government and civil society willhave to engage in the immediate future.

Preface

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Our previous status report onland and agrarian reform inSouth Africa summarised theways in which this disposses-

sion took place, and the kinds of povertyand livelihoods that it created (Turner &Ibsen 2000:2–4). Socially, the racism thatblack South Africans experienced at thehands of colonialists and settlers was notenormously different from that suffered bytheir counterparts elsewhere in Africa andAsia – at least until 1948, when it began tobe systematised and institutionalised in thelegislative programme of the NationalParty. Economically, the racial discrimina-tion inherent in the process of Europeansettlement was more rigidly enforced inSouth Africa than in many other colonies,through a programme of legislation thatstretched back into the 19th century. Theselaws were made and enforced partlybecause, as diamond and gold minesbegan to lay the foundations of the modernSouth African economy, African farmersresponded vigorously to the new marketopportunities for their crops. They out-performed white agriculture and, as pros-perous farmers, would not be available inadequate numbers for labour in the mines.They had to be deprived of their ruralrights and opportunities so that they would

not compete with the regime’s importantrural white farming constituency, andwould be forced to seek employment inthe mining and industrial sectors. At thesame time, they were deprived of fullurban residential and land-owning rights inorder to facilitate white employers’ controlof the work force, and maintain whitepolitical and economic dominance of thenation’s commercial heartland.

By the late 20th century and the end ofapartheid, there were two broad kinds ofSouth African rural poverty, associatedwith two kinds of livelihoods (Turner &Ibsen 2000:4):· There were still substantial numbers of

black people living in the white-ownedfarming districts that covered most ofthe country. These were either farmworkers, labour tenants or their depend-ants. Wages, working and living condi-tions had always been very poor.Changes in production methods andmarkets meant a constriction in the farmlabour force, increasing evictions andrural homelessness, and greater hard-ship for those who remained on thefarms.

· The majority of the rural populationwere concentrated in the bantustans ornative reserves that, in apartheid

Chapter 1: BackgroundIn 1994, South Africa started a new life as a democratic nation. Itfaced immense challenges. Multiple economic, social and politicaltransformations were needed to overcome the legacy of colonialism andapartheid. The racially-driven history of the prosperous South Africaneconomy had marginalised the black majority from access to resources andproductive opportunities, and deprived most of them of the right tobuild secure homes and livelihoods in the urban areas where the nation�swealth was concentrated.

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Land and agrarian reform in South Africa:


doublespeak, were the only legitimatehomes and territory of Africans. There,they supposedly owned land and couldpursue African livelihoods. In fact, theywere usually forced to combine sub-subsistence agriculture in these ‘home-lands’ with migrant labour for sub-subsistence wages in the mines andfactories of white South Africa. Landtenure and administration in the ‘home-lands’ was insecure and increasinglyineffective, constrained by apartheid’scorruption and distortion of indigenoussystems of governance.

Urban poverty mirrored these conditions.Influx control had some effect in limitingthe black population of the towns for mostof the apartheid era. Nevertheless, genera-tions were born, lived and died in thetownships established for various racialgroups. Rendered socially dysfunctionalby the migrant labour system and itsassociated control of family movements,the townships offered the hope of employ-ment and a reality of deep poverty formost of those who came to them. Theyoffered no land or housing rights compara-ble to those in the white residential areas,but they remained an economic and socialmagnet for those living in the poverty andisolation of the white farms and thebantustans. When influx control was liftedin the 1980s, the growth in townshippopulations accelerated, and extensivesquatter settlements appeared in andaround towns and cities of all sizes. Al-though it was not always recognised at thetime, the strongest component of the landcrisis that faced South Africa in 1994 wasthe need for secure title to residential land.

The dispossession of Africans fromtheir ancestral lands, the forced removalsthat were carried out in the name of apart-heid, and the systematic exclusion ofblacks from land rights and related oppor-tunities across most of the nation werecentral concerns in the policies of theliberation movements. Land and agrarianreform were thus key principles in theFreedom Charter of 1955 (Turner & Ibsen

2000:5), and remained core priorities forthe African National Congress as it built itsprogrammes during the 1980s and early1990s. The loss and lack of land rightswere among the most obvious injustices ofapartheid, and it is not surprising that themanner of their redress should have beenone of the most sensitive subjects in theprotracted negotiations that ultimately led toa democratic government and constitution.

Indeed, the South African Constitutionof 1996 requires the government toachieve several kinds of land reform. Itprovides for the restitution of propertyrights to those who lost them due to ra-cially discriminatory laws or practicessince 1913. It requires a land redistributionprogramme ‘to foster conditions whichenable citizens to gain access to land on anequitable basis’. It also addresses thetenure insecurity that undermines liveli-hoods. ‘A person or community whosetenure of land is legally insecure as a resultof past racially discriminatory laws orpractices is entitled, to the extent providedby an Act of Parliament, either to tenurewhich is legally secure or to comparableredress’ (Section 25).

The history of apartheid and ofdemocratic policy making up to the mid1990s clearly created the expectation thatland reform would be a central priority forthe new South Africa. When the newDepartment of Land Affairs began detaileddesign of the land reform programme in1994, it structured its work around thethree constitutional imperatives outlinedabove. Laws were passed to underpinprogrammes of land restitution andredistribution. Both activities startedslowly, but were able to show at least somepractical progress by the late 1990s. Therewere a number of other initiatives to tryand protect and enhance the rights andproduction opportunities of those livingand working on commercial farms; toreform the system of labour tenancy inKwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalangaprovinces; and to restructure access to anduse of municipal commonages.

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Chapter 1: Background

Deciding what to do about tenurereform for the communal areas in theformer bantustans was a more complexchallenge. Interim legislation was passedin 1996 to try and protect existing rights inthese areas. Meanwhile, pilot tenure reformprojects and protracted consultations anddrafting work tried to identify the mostfeasible way forward for communal landrights law. A Bill was ready for submissionto Parliament in 1999, but was deferredbecause of the general elections of thatyear. The Minister of Land Affairs wasreplaced after the election. The new Minis-ter decided on a significantly differentapproach to communal areas tenure re-form, which initially emphasised thepossibility of transferring this land tochiefs on behalf of the people they suppos-edly served and represented. Up to thetime of our previous status report, little hadbeen done to convert the new approachinto draft legislation.

By 2000, the restitution programme wasworking more quickly, following someadministrative streamlining. But scepticismremained about how many years and howmuch money would be needed for it to besuccessfully concluded, particularly sincemost of the more complex rural restitutionclaims had not yet been tackled. The redis-tribution programme had been broughtalmost to a halt by the protracted processof redesign introduced in 1999 by the newMinister. Her changes focused more on thepromotion of black commercial farmersthan on the poverty alleviation that hadbeen a prominent aim of previous redistribu-tion work. But much time and morale werelost by DLA as the Integrated Programme ofLand Redistribution and Agricultural Devel-opment went through its successive drafts.

This, in brief, is the background toSouth African land and agrarian reform aswe find them in 2002. We now present asummary update of developments in thesector since 2000.

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Major developments andemerging themes since 2000The initial, panicky speculation of 2000about ‘whether it could happen here’ hasgiven way to more measured debate, butnational attention continues to be morestrongly focused on land reform issuesthan it was before the Zimbabwean elec-tions and burgeoning farm invasions of thepast two years. White farmers in SouthAfrica have reacted, predictably, with callsfor stronger security measures to protecttheir property and their lives – not onlyagainst potential invasions, but also againstthe very real, continuing increase in ruralcrime. They have also called for moreeffective land redistribution, and havesupported moves by DLA to focus onsupporting emerging black commercialfarmers.

Not surprisingly, South African politicshas reacted to the Zimbabwean land crisisat various levels. None of the main partiesreferred to land reform in their generalelection manifestos in 1999 (Lahiff2001a:4). But over the last two years theyhave all made various pronouncements onthe subject, largely to the effect that SouthAfrican land reform needs to be acceler-ated and made more effective. At the sametime, despite various political signals ofsolidarity with Zanu-PF (the ruling party inZimbabwe), government has not radicallychanged its willing buyer-willing seller,demand-driven approach to land redistri-bution, and has remained reluctant toexpropriate land from white owners de-spite the legal powers it has to do so (seeBox 1). At a superficial level, governmentappeared to react to the Zimbabwean landcrisis with politically expedient pronounce-

Chapter 2: The status of landreform in South Africa in 2002Searching the South African press for references to land reform over thelast year and a half yields far more articles about Zimbabwe than aboutSouth Africa. The continuing tension over land in Zimbabwe has cast along shadow over the South African economy, and has intensifieddebate about whether South African land reform programmes will avert aZimbabwe-style crisis (Lahiff & Cousins 2001).

Box 1: Minister Didiza on Zimbabwe

‘Despite calls by various stakeholders at the recent Land Tenure conference in Dur-ban to expropriate land or interfere in the free-market use of land, [Minister of LandAffairs] Didiza says the emphasis “is on sustainable reform and thoughts of Zimba-bwe-style expropriation will not be entertained… The fact that we negotiate makes usvery different from Zimbabwe. While they also started out with a willing seller-willingbuyer principle, they digressed and chose expropriation. We are concerned withensuring we don’t create just such an imbalance’ (Business Day 3 December 2001).

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Chapter 2: The status of land reform in South Africa in 2002

ments. At the level of national budgetingand programme delivery, however, itcontinues to give land reform low priority.As 2002 wears on and land invasions northof the Limpopo make headlines less often,the ‘Zimbabwe effect’ on South Africanland reform debate seems to be fading.

Events in Zimbabwe have given par-ticular prominence to the question of landredistribution in South Africa. A noticeabletrend in this country over the last 18months has been increasing media atten-tion to ‘landlessness’. This has beenparticularly important because of its urbandimension. In fact, the primary element ofconcern in the land invasions that havemade the headlines has been people’s needfor land for housing. While many people’smain impression of land reform has beenthat it is a rural affair, the higher profile ofthese urban invasions has emphasised theland dimension of the low-income housingcrisis in the towns. The distinction betweenland for settlement needs and land forproduction purposes was never clear in thepredominantly rural land redistributionwork of the 1990s. Now it is increasinglyevident that a major effort is needed togive the rapidly swelling numbers of theurban poor land on which to house them-selves. The need to clarify and balance theurban and rural components of land re-form, and to rationalise the relationshipbetween land and housing policies, hasbecome more urgent.

Landlessness hit the headlines in July2001 when large numbers of squatters

invaded privately-owned land at Bredell inGauteng. Thousands of people ‘bought’plots at Bredell from the Pan AfricanistCongress, which opportunistically soughtto bring attention to itself and to the issueby orchestrating the invasion and ‘selling’the holdings to the homeless at R25 each.After a two-week stand off, governmentevicted the squatters and demolished some1 500 shacks that they had built, making anumber of public assurances to jitterymarkets and land owners that landinvasions would not be tolerated in thiscountry.

Although the Bredell crisis was quicklycontained on the ground, the issue oflandlessness has been more prominent inthe public consciousness since. A nationalLandless People’s Movement was estab-lished in July 2001. It adopted a LandlessPeople’s Charter during the United NationsWorld Conference Against Racism inAugust, under the slogan ‘landlessnessequals racism’ (see Box 2). There havebeen various gatherings and pronounce-ments on the issue since then, notably atthe national land tenure conference thatDLA convened in late November 2001.There have been threats by landless peopleto take land if the government will notmake it available, and repeated pronounce-ments by government that it will nottolerate land invasions or infringement ofproperty rights in South Africa.

Especially during 2001, the debate onlandlessness was also framed by thequestion of South Africans’ rights to land

The continued landlessness of the majority of black South African women and men –both rural and urban – is rooted in our country’s history of colonialism and apart-heid, but has been reinforced by the policy prescriptions of the World Bank, Interna-tional Monetary Fund and other organs of international finance capital which havedefined a narrow neo-liberal macroeconomic strategy for post-apartheid South Af-rica… A nation that remains rooted on land owned by the coloniser remains colo-nised. Colonialism and apartheid gave racism its material roots through land dispos-session. Racism cannot be defeated without uprooting this legacy by reclaiming thestolen land (Landlessness=Racism campaign 2001).

Box 2: Landlessness=Racism campaign

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and shelter, following the judgment of theConstitutional Court the previous year inthe Grootboom case. Irene Grootboom andothers had been repeatedly evicted fromvarious squatter settlements in the WesternCape. They contested the eviction with theargument that homeless South Africanslike themselves had a constitutional rightto shelter. The Constitutional Court foundin their favour, ordering government to setaside ‘a reasonable proportion of theirbudget to provide relief for people whohave no access to land, no roof over theirheads, and who are living in intolerableconditions or crisis situations’ (BusinessDay 19 July 2001). Once again, the focusof the attention arising from this case wason housing, and primarily on urban land-lessness, rather than land for farming withwhich the land reform programme hadmainly been concerned. While theGrootboom judgement has proved difficultto enforce, it has, nevertheless, helpedpublicise the plight of the poor and land-less in South Africa, and the obligation onthe government to promote access to land.

Another recurrent theme in commentaryon South African land reform over the lasttwo years has been the declining budgetsallocated to DLA for its programme. Thesedwindling allocations are linked to theunder-performance of DLA as, in the midstof protracted policy reappraisals, it failedto spend all the funds it had received fromthe National Treasury. These budgets havealways been a minuscule proportion oftotal government spending: 0.24% in2001/02, after DLA had underspent itscapital budget for 2000/01 by R125 mil-lion (Claassens & Wheelan 2002:5). TheFebruary 2002 budget also disappointedland activists, proposing that DLA’s shareof the government total decline from0.37% in 2001/02 to 0.34% in 2004/05(with a decrease in real terms of 9% overthe previous year’s budget). While thebudget for restitution is set to grow by 30%over that period, spending on land redistri-bution and tenure reform is set to shrink by25%. In the first ten months of its 2001/02

financial year, DLA reportedly spent only50% of its budget (Mingo 2002:11). Theunder-performance and declining budgetsof DLA partly reflect the long periods ofcomparative inactivity, strategic confusionand low departmental morale that resultedfrom policy reappraisals since 1999. Butthey also show that, despite events inZimbabwe and the heightened tensions inthis country over land invasions and landredistribution, government shows littlecapacity or desire to accelerate delivery ofland reform.

There have been significant shifts inresponsibility for land and agrarian reformsince 2000. The more obvious of these isthe stronger role that Minister Didiza hasgiven to the National Department of Agricul-ture (NDA), particularly in the execution ofthe Land Redistribution for AgriculturalDevelopment (LRAD) programme –although this is complicated by the fact thather national department has no operationalrole at farm level. That responsibility lieswith the nine provincial departments ofagriculture (PDAs), which are also partici-pating (some more vigorously than others)in LRAD.

A less obvious development has beenthe emerging role of local government inland reform planning and delivery. Manycommentators have called for a moresupply-driven, integrated approach to landreform design and implementation inpriority areas. Although DLA has acknowl-edged the desirability of moving in thisdirection (DLA 2001c), it has made littleprogress so far. But it has created morespace for local governments to help designand steer land reform in their areas. TheAmatole District Municipality in the East-ern Cape has been one of the pioneers inmerging land reform requirements into theIntegrated Development Plan that allmunicipalities are now required to prepareand execute. It has received R33 millionfor its Land Reform and Settlement Plan(for the central part of its area) through aframework agreement with DLA (see Box3). Most of this budget has been devoted

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to land reform for settlement, although someprovision has also been made for produc-tion. Agricultural land reform also receivessome attention from local governmentthrough participation in the district assess-ment committees that are being establishedto consider applications for LRAD grants.

The biggest issue in South Africathroughout this decade is likely to be HIV/Aids. DLA now assumes that 15–35% ofpotential land reform beneficiaries areHIV-positive, and that 20–35% of staff inthe various agencies supporting landreform are too (Business Day 30 May2002; see also Drimie & Heustice 2001). Itis reported that DLA is now consideringways to adjust its policies to reflect the factthat many land reform beneficiaries willnot live long enough to build sustainablelivelihoods for themselves and their fami-lies on the land they receive. These policychanges are intended to ensure that thosewith Aids benefit more from land redistri-bution. DLA’s HIV/Aids co-ordinator wasrecently quoted as saying that ‘We mayneed to consider how poverty alleviationcomponents [of programmes] may need tobe adapted to meet challenges posed byHIV/Aids. It is a threat to sustainableagricultural and rural development throughits systematic impact.’

These have been some of the mostprominent general themes and develop-

ments in South African land and agrarianreform since 2000. There have been anumber of additional developments in thevarious sub-sectors of the programme,which are summarised below.

Land restitutionSince 2000, there has been a rapid increasein the number of land restitution claimsthat have been settled. Of the approxi-mately 69 000 claims lodged, 29 877(43%) had been settled by 31 March 2002,although it should be noted that the man-ner in which these statistics are derivedappears to differ from that of previousyears (CRLR (Commission on Restitutionof Land Rights ) 2002a). The Commissionis currently undertaking a ‘validationproject’, with Belgian support, which aimsto validate all outstanding claims by 30June 2002. Validation means a checkwhether a land claim complies with therequirements of the Restitution of LandRights Act. Meanwhile, the President hasannounced that all land claims would befinalised by the end of 2004, which wouldrequire a dramatic increase in budgetaryallocations and has already been publiclyquestioned by some senior officials(Hooper-Box 2002). In the 2001/02 finan-cial year, the restitution budget of R136million had been used up by October, andthe shortfall of R100 million needed to

The strengths of the integrated approach to land reform as pioneered in the Amatolearea can be summarised as:

· a clear focus on, and commitment to, land issues by the District Council (‘ownership’of the policy area);

· a thorough process of public consultation;

· well-organised and articulate communities;

· effective NGOs with a clear vision of land reform…

· availability of a range of technical skills both within the District Council and oncontract from the private sector;

· active participation by all key stakeholders: government (local, provincial and na-tional), communities, NGOs, private sector and farmers’ unions (both as landownersand as potential beneficiaries) (Lahiff 2002:40).

Box 3: An integrated approach to land reform

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fund restitution activities for the year wastransferred from other DLA programmes.Mingo estimates that a six-fold increase inthe restitution budget will be required if theDecember 2004 target is to be met (Mingo2002:8).As in the previous years of the restitutionprogramme, it is important to distinguishthe greater number of urban claims settledfrom the smaller number of rural ones thathave been dealt with. One of the mainreasons why it has been possible to accel-erate the programme is that a ‘standardsettlement offer’ of R40 000 per propertywas introduced for urban claims (there isusually one property per urban claim). Itmay be seen from Table 2 that, althoughover 5 000 claims (involving a similarnumber of households) have been settledin Gauteng, no land has actually beenrestored there. This rapid progress with

involved in rural restitution claims, apolicy decision was taken to prioritise suchclaims in order to reach more people’(CRLR 2002b).

As in earlier years, some white farmowners have resisted the restitution proc-ess. There have been continuing calls formore frequent use of the expropriationpowers that the legislation confers on theMinister. The most prominent such case in2001 concerned the farm Boomplaats inMpumalanga, where an expropriationnotice was issued against the more recalci-trant of the two owners but subsequentlywithdrawn. Negotiations were restartedand a sale ultimately agreed. The farmerleft early this year, reportedly taking withhim every fitting that he could removefrom the farmhouse (Business Day 11January 2002). Meanwhile, other whitefarmers are making restitution claims oftheir own for land expropriated from themby the apartheid government for homelandexpansion. They claim, and the Commis-sion denies, that the slow treatment of theircases constitutes discrimination (BusinessDay 5 March 2002).

The urban restitution process can beexpected to continue along its currentrapid track, although some critics arguethat when the urban compensation consistsso largely of cash payments it cannotreally be called land reform – since there isno transfer of land or redress of skewedland ownership. The rural restitutionprocess remains more problematic. Therehave been several key issues and develop-ments in this regard since 2000.

The first of these concerns the size andcomplexity of the rural restitution chal-lenge, and the question whether govern-ment will be tempted to try a standard cashcompensation payment here too. Thiswould be a controversial solution. As inthe urban areas, it contradicts the commonassumption that restitution is about return-ing land to its rightful owners. But it mighttempt many claimants, and it would seemto be the only conceivable way in whichgovernment could meet its public target ofDecember 2004.

urban claims has led some observers tocaution that much more complex chal-lenges lie ahead when large rural claimshave to be tackled, each involving hun-dreds or even thousands of households.Others have argued that, up to recently,‘the state has actually prioritised, andcommitted most of its resources to, urbanclaims, perhaps due to pressure from thebetter organised and more vocal urbanclaimants or in order to be seen to bemaking headway in terms of numbers ofclaims settled’ (Lahiff 2002:16–7). Since2000, however, the Commission hasargued that rural claims need more atten-tion: ‘due to the large numbers of people

R million R million R million R million R million

Land cost 377

Financial compensation 951

Restitution Discretionary Grant 120

Settlement and Planning Grant 40

Solatium 6

TTTTTota lo ta lo ta lo ta lo ta l 1 4 9 41 4 9 41 4 9 41 4 9 41 4 9 4

Table 1: Cost of land restitutionprogramme to date

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A second development has been anemerging concern with the sustainability ofland use by rural restitution beneficiaries.In its earlier years, the restitution processwas criticised for making little or noprovision for planning or extension sup-port to those who regained their land.Now, various pronouncements of theCommission make increasing reference tothe need to promote sustainable develop-ment on restored land (see Box 4). Morethorough efforts are being made to linkbeneficiaries into the rural developmentplanning procedures that are graduallybecoming more coherent in some parts ofthe country. Again, the Eastern Capeappears to be leading the country in thisregard. There, the Regional Land ClaimsCommission has established a SettlementSupport and Development Planning Divi-sion for these purposes. On the other sideof the country, the Commission has takensteps to support the ≠Khomani San com-munity, who took ownership of six farmsthrough the restitution process in 1999.Since then the condition of the farms andtheir potential for supporting the communi-ty’s sustainable development has deterio-rated, and a manager has now been ap-pointed to support the Communal Property

Association (CPA). The Chief Land ClaimsCommissioner was quoted as saying that‘Overall, the government has now spentR1.4 billion on the acquisition of land.Any wise investor doesn’t just leave theircapital investment and turn their back…We must ensure that the capital we’veinvested in the acquisition of land will paydividends, at least for the community, overtime’ (Mail & Guardian 22 February2002). Meanwhile, however, there is littleto show that provincial departments ofagriculture can provide the extensionservices that restitution or other rural landreform beneficiaries need. Not only arethey losing their field capacity, but theytypically lack the technologies that small-scale farming needs (Turner 2001:2).

The third significant development hasbeen increasing attention to land claimsand restitution in the former homelands.While the restitution process has mostlybeen thought of as addressing claims forland now privately owned in the freeholdsector, two kinds of injustice are nowrecognised as deserving potential restitu-tion in the communal areas:· The first of these concerns the expro-

priation and resettlement undertaken aspart of the apartheid regime’s ‘better-

Table 2: Land restitution claims settled at 31 March 2002

No. of claimsNo. of claimsNo. of claimsNo. of claimsNo. of claims Househo ldsHouseho ldsHouseho ldsHouseho ldsHouseho lds Benef ic ia r iesBenef ic ia r iesBenef ic ia r iesBenef ic ia r iesBenef ic ia r ies Land restoredLand restoredLand restoredLand restoredLand restoredse t t l edse t t l edse t t l edse t t l edse t t l ed invo lvedinvo lvedinvo lvedinvo lvedinvo lved (hecta re s)(hecta re s)(hecta re s)(hecta re s)(hecta re s)

Eastern Cape 9 222 18 431 81 751 27 101

Free State 1 147 914 2 926 5 339

Gauteng 5 497 5 444 28 204 0

KwaZulu-Natal 7 233 12 034 70 015 61 691

Limpopo 508 7 660 34 408 28 874

Mpumalanga 254 3 409 15 054 18 504

North West 1 050 5 628 44 614 58 814

Northern Cape 410 3 783 19 156 221 759

Western Cape 4 556 4 942 36 115 5 255

TTTTTota lo ta lo ta lo ta lo ta l 29 87729 87729 87729 87729 877 62 24562 24562 24562 24562 245 332 243332 243332 243332 243332 243 427 337427 337427 337427 337427 337

Source: CRLR 2002a.

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ment’ process of forced land use plan-ning. The pioneer case was that of theChatha community in the Eastern Cape,which was forcibly relocated during‘betterment’ in 1962. In an out of courtsettlement in late 2000, it was agreedthat returning the community to theirformer land was impractical. In thiscase, a three-part package was decided.It comprised a cash payment of aboutR15 000 to each of the 334 claimanthouseholds; a contribution of R6.25million for community developmentpurposes; and upgrading of tenure on2 582ha of communal grazing land tofreehold ownership by the group(Lahiff 2002:20–1). In keeping withcurrent trends, a development plan hasbeen drawn up for this beneficiarycommunity.

· The second type of loss in the formerhomelands now being increasinglyaddressed by restitution concerns theexcision of land by the state for suchpurposes as agricultural projects, naturereserves and forestry. These losses were

widespread in areas such as the formerTranskei, where a number of restitutionagreements have now been achieved orare being negotiated. The long-standingclaim over the Dwesa-Cwebe naturereserve, for example, was settled in2001, when ownership of the reserve(which will continue to be dedicated toconservation) was handed over to acommunal property association. For-estry claims are complicated by thegovernment’s simultaneous commit-ment to the privatisation of state forests(Lahiff 2002:21–2).

Land redistributionThe flagship of DLA’s land redistributionefforts over the last two years has been theLand Redistribution for Agricultural Devel-opment programme. LRAD’s main empha-sis is on the transfer of agricultural land topeople from the formerly disadvantagedgroups who have the resources and thecommitment to build themselves up ascommercial farmers. As Lahiff (2001a:14)has pointed out, ‘nowhere is the shift in

As more and more land is being restored to both individual households and communi-ties, especially in rural areas, the question of land management which supportssustainable land use patterns, is being brought to sharp focus. Government support inthe form of a Planning Grant of R1 440 per household and a Restitution DiscretionaryGrant of R3 000 per household are just not enough to ensure that as people return toland that they will be able to utilise it in a way conducive to sustainable development.As a matter of deliberate and conscious policy, the Commission on Restitution of LandRights is acting as a catalyst, an agent for change, which links communities, whereland has been restored, with donor organisations… The land restitution programmeaims to encourage communities to seize the opportunities of utilising their restoredland for sustainable development, but it will take more than encouragement for com-munities to do this. It calls for material support… The challenge is for all people ofgoodwill… to join hands with the South African government, in working towards abetter life for all in the area of land reform, in general, and land restitution in particu-lar. Such a well considered, well planned and well-resourced approach will bringsobriety to the fire-eaters who want to push recklessly for land invasions, with direconsequences for all involved.

Next year, 2002, as South Africa hosts the World Earth Summit on sustainabledevelopment, we are challenged to think, and act, sustainable development in all we do.Chief Land Claims Commissioner Wallace Mgoqi, 2001.

Box 4: Statement by the Chief Land Claims Commissioner

11


emphasis more obvious than in the re-placement of an income ceiling (a maxi-mum of R1 500 per month per household)for qualifying applicants with a floor forown contribution (a minimum of R5 000per person)’. LRAD, which was discussedin more detail in the previous status report(Turner & Ibsen 2000:37–42), was offi-cially launched by Minister Didiza inMpumalanga in August 2001, although themechanism was also used for the transferof state land to former tenants at Port StJohns in the Eastern Cape in May of thatyear. LRAD is jointly implemented by theMinister’s two departments: the NationalDepartment of Agriculture and the Depart-ment of Land Affairs, and it was NDA thatreported in late March 2002 that 56 225haof land had so far been distributed underthe programme. A further 2 681 applica-tions were said to be under review (NDA2002:1).

DLA documentation claims that LRAD isthe agricultural component of thedepartment’s land redistribution programme,which also comprises a settlementcomponent and a component for non-agricultural enterprises, such as ecotourism.DLA’s strategic planning for 2001/02 (DLA2001a) puts it a little differently, specifyingthe following ‘policies and programmes’ toachieve the ‘key outputs’ shown in Box 5:· LRAD· state land disposal· tenure reform· labour tenants and farm workers· land for settlement· the Land Reform Credit Facility· DLA contributions to the Integrated

Sustainable Rural Development Strat-egy (ISRDS) and the Urban RenewalStrategy (URS).

The department’s formal strategic plan for2001/02 sheds more light on the structure

· Link land reform programmes to developmental objectives

· Implement land acquisition programme and new grant structure for LRAD

· Accelerate the pace of disposal of 669,000 hectares of state agricultural land

· Finalise tenure reform policy through relevant legislative amendments

· Align Deeds, Survey and Mapping functions to support land reform (in particulartenure reform)

· Target vulnerable groups, such as labour tenants, farm workers and landless commu-nities for resettlement within context of LRAD or ISRDS

· Link up with NDA to create agri-villages

· Implement tenure reform in ISRDS nodes

· Implement pro-active and effective land acquisition programme to fulfil redistributionpolicy objectives

· Assist with the acquisition of land to support Urban Renewal Programme

· Amend and align land administration legislation, especially with respect to communalland

· Implement decentralised delivery system ensuring synergy with local government

· Improve and expand monitoring and evaluation systems

· Align support services to land reform

· Develop a comprehensive Human Resource Plan (DLA 2001a).

Box 5: DLA key outputs: Strategic Implementation Programme 2001/02

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of redistribution activities. It proposes that305 000ha of land would be transferredunder ‘land reform grants’. Of this, 70%would be for LRAD and 30% would be forsettlement; 2.5% of the LRAD land wouldbe for ‘marginalised communities’. Thisdoes not necessarily mean the very poor.‘Marginalised communities’ are defined aswomen, youth, the disabled, labour tenantsand farm workers. Half of the land to betransferred for settlement purposes, on theother hand, would be dedicated tomarginalised communities, while 7% of thesettlement land grants would contribute tothe Urban Renewal Programme. The planalso intended that 669 000ha of state landwould be distributed during the year.

Unfortunately the most recent statisticsavailable from the DLA Directorate:Monitoring and Evaluation lump all formsof ‘land reform projects’ together. Theycombine land redistribution under bothLRAD and the older Settlement and LandAcquisition Grant (SLAG); commonageand farm share equity schemes; projectsunder the Extension of Security of TenureAct; and labour tenant projects, making itimpossible to judge the progress of thevarious sub-programmes.

Table 3 clearly shows the dip in thenumber of projects and area transferred

that resulted from the Minister’s 1999moratorium on the land redistributionprogramme, and the substantial increase in2000 after the moratorium was lifted andprojects in the pipeline were allowedthrough. In 2001 the total area transferreddipped again. DLA has been reported assaying this is because 2000 transfers hadbeen unnaturally high, and 2001 showed areturn to a more normal rate (Business Day6 December 2001). Another explanation isthat confusion over land redistributionprogrammes continued in 2001, withLRAD only just being launched and theformer SLAG now apparently restricted tosettlement projects without an agriculturalcomponent.

Although we do not have a full set ofdata to demonstrate the trend, anecdotalevidence suggests that the pace of the landredistribution programme has been pickingup over the last twelve months. LRADtransfers are starting to take off in someprovinces. SLAG continues to be used,although the criteria are not always clearand there is substantial variation fromprovince to province. State land disposalsthrough the land reform programme havealso begun. The decentralisation of decisionmaking to provincial offices of DLA seemsto have helped to speed up procedures.

No. of projects No. of households Land transferred (ha)

1994 2 565 6 598

1995 17 2 923 18 179

1996 41 4 289 54 448

1997 87 9 846 127 750

1998 183 12 249 238 708

1999 142 18 304 190 916

2000 214 25 964 248 338

2001 214 15 847 199 110

Unspecified 31 8 971 19 961

TTTTTota lo ta lo ta lo ta lo ta l 931931931931931 98 95898 95898 95898 95898 958 1098 0081098 0081098 0081098 0081098 008

Source: DLA.

Table 3: �Land reform projects�, beneficiaries and hectares transferred, 1994�2001

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While the previous SLAG programmewas widely criticised for confusing thedemand for land for residential purposeswith the need for land for agriculturalproduction, the switch to LRAD wouldonce again seem to miss the point. Therigid distinction between land for residen-tial and productive use may make sensefrom a planning perspective, but it fails tocapture the multiple needs of rural house-holds which typically include both types ofland as part of a diverse livelihood strat-egy. Focusing exclusively on the smallminority of households able and willing toengage in full-time commercial farming,while resigning the majority to the ‘settle-ment’ or ‘food security’ sectors, is toignore the reality of rural life in much ofSouth Africa. Overall, the redistributionprogramme shows little sign of being ableto tackle the landlessness and poverty thatought to be its primary concerns. Indeed, itis the restitution programme that shows amore active concern with rural livelihoods.Meanwhile, the commonage programmethat had proved so popular in provinceslike the Free State seems to have beenabsorbed into LRAD, although in practicethere is confusion about whether or howthe programme can still be applied. Theofficial position is that the commonagegrant facility remains available, as a wayof improving people’s access to municipalland. But the pace of the commonageprogramme is slowing down (a total of57 grants have been made so far), and itappears that DLA does not want thisfacility to be seen as an alternative to theLRAD package.

LRAD does show an improved degreeof collaboration between DLA and thenational and provincial departments ofagriculture, something that earlier critiquesof South African land reform had calledfor. It is ironic that this flagship of the landreform programme is perceived by manyin DLA as an imposition from the NationalDepartment of Agriculture. NDA, on theother hand, has little or no operationalresponsibility or capacity for LRAD; and

the commitment of PDAs to the pro-gramme is far from assured.

A further continuing concern in SouthAfrican land redistribution is the failure ofthe programme to adopt a more proactiveapproach to area-based planning and landacquisitions. DLA refers to focused pro-grammes in ISRDS nodal areas, but for aslong as the ISRDS lacks effective visionand additional resources, this is unlikely tohave much impact on poverty or landaccess. Indeed, the majority of the projectsidentified to date in the 13 nodal areas arepredictably focused on infrastructure(DPLG 2001). The District AssessmentCommittees introduced to review LRADapplications provide a welcome degree ofdepartmental co-ordination, but not neces-sarily spatial coherence. Land redistribu-tion in rural South Africa continues to beinfluenced more by existing propertyowners than by the needs (‘demands’) ofthe rural poor. In the current buyer’smarket for South African farm land, gov-ernment is missing important opportunitiesfor land transfers on a significant scale(Business Day 4 January 2001). Presum-ably government is reluctant to adopt amore interventionist stance lest this beinterpreted as interference in the freemarket and Zimbabwe-style expropriation.Market stability and international investorconfidence are clearly higher priorities atpre-sent than land redistribution. While theneed for urban land redistribution has be-come much more urgent, as shown by theevents of 2001 at Bredell, the policy re-sponse in this sector is even less co-ordinated than it is for agricultural landredistribution. Government’s rural targetremains the redistribution of 30% of SouthAfrica’s agricultural land to black farmerswithin 15–20 years (DLA 2001c). Atcurrent rates that target is unlikely to bemet. But considering the rate at which ruralblack South Africans are redistributingthemselves to the urban areas, it is alsoessential to have a target and a coherentprogramme for making residential landavailable there.

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Land tenure reformFor most of 2001, little seemed to happenwith regard to land tenure reform. FollowingMinister Didiza’s decision to shelve theprevious draft Land Rights Bill, DLA staffand consultants worked for many monthson a new version that would express therevised policy she had intro-duced. Thechanged approach envisaged the transferof land in the communal areas to ‘Africantraditional communities’ (earlier referencesto ‘tribes’ became less common), with amuch stronger role for chiefs in theadministration – or conceivably theownership – of communal land.

By the end of the year, the revised Billwas at an advanced stage of preparation.To its credit, DLA organised a large na-tional land tenure conference in Durban atthe end of November to debate its ideas.But the department did not officiallyrelease the Bill either before or at theconference. An unofficial draft was leakedshortly before the conference, but manyparticipants did not see it and there werestrong calls for a more transparent consul-tation process following the conference.Chiefs, the landless, land NGOs, commer-cial farmers’ organisations, researchers andother interest groups were all well repre-sented at the conference, during which theapproach of the proposed new Bill washeavily criticised. DLA – without havingformally tabled the Bill – accepted thatmuch more work would have to be doneon it. At the core of the controversy wasthe concept of transferring land to ‘Africantraditional communities’, and the corre-spondingly powerful role that this wouldconfer on chiefs. The fundamental dividewas between those who believe that com-munal areas residents should choose whatsystem of land management they preferand those who say that chiefs shouldautomatically be granted a leading role.

Linked to the powers of the chiefs isthis concept of ‘community’, and howmembership of such a land-owning groupwould, or could fairly, be defined. Decid-ing what an ‘African traditional commu-

nity’ is, or who belongs to it, or on whatterms, would at best be highly contentious.Many observers believe that there is nodemocratic way in which it could work,because of the ethnic and political dimen-sions to any such process, and the difficul-ties of defining individual rights withingroups (Claassens 2001).

For this reason, some civil societygroups proposed that the starting point ofthe Bill should be recognition of the defacto land tenure rights which exist on theground, whether or not these are framed interms of ‘community rules’. These rightswould derive from verifiable realities andpractices such as length of occupation, andestablished patterns of occupation and use.

In a handout distributed at the Novem-ber 2001 conference, the National LandCommittee’s Technical Committee onTenure Reform asserted that:

Under apartheid hundreds of thou-sands of people were forcibly re-moved from farms and ‘black spots’and dumped in areas under thejurisdiction of chiefs recognised bygovernment. The de facto rights ofthese people do not derive from‘shared rules’, but from the fact oftheir established occupation andland use, and from acceptance ofthese by their neighbours.…..the nested character of mostsystems of communal land rights,within a hierarchy of neighbour-hoods, sub-villages, villages, wards,chieftainships, (and sometimes‘tribes’ or even ‘nations’) makesdefinition of ‘community’ intrinsi-cally difficult. Where precisely willthe boundaries of the ‘community’ lie?The danger in assuming that thereexist easily identifiable ‘communities’with ‘shared rules’ is that this worksto shore up the power of traditionalleaders, who may or may not enjoythe support of people under theirjurisdiction.

A related concern that arose at the confer-ence is that of institutional support for land

15


rights holders. What sort of agencies andofficials should support the initial adjudi-cation of land rights as a new tenuredispensation is enacted, and how shouldthe ongoing functions of land administra-tion be performed? Over the years therehas been much discussion about appoint-ing land rights officers and establishingland boards analogous to those of Bot-swana. These ideas were raised again atthe conference, but there would appear tobe a strong reluctance on the part of thestate to create new, and potentially costly,structures to oversee the administration ofcommunal land.

There was no clear outcome to thedebate at the conference, beyond a com-mitment by DLA to follow a public consul-tation process on the revisions that wouldhave to follow. Some of the resolutionstaken by the conference and recorded byDLA are reproduced in Box 6. They showthat opinions remained divided about therole of chiefs in communal areas landtenure and management.

Meanwhile, further redrafting of the Billis under way. This time, DLA has soughtthe direct inputs of a wider range of aca-demic and NGO advisers. The latestreported plans were that the departmenthoped to present the Bill to Parliament inSeptember 2002. At the time of writing thatseems unlikely, especially since in Aprilfundamental conceptual problems werestill being reported by a member of theMinister’s review committee:

The outcome of the drafting processis still unclear. On the one hand, thetraditional leader lobby is stillvociferously making known its claimsfor a central and guaranteed role inland allocation and use. On theother, NGO activists and policyanalysts are arguing for strong andprotected land rights based onestablished occupation and use,(rather than on community member-ship and agreed rules), and for afree choice by rights holders of thelocal land administration body. Fromthe side of the state, Cabinet is likely

to be reluctant to commit significantresources to institutional supportstructures on a wide scale, and tofavour a ‘minimalist’ piece of legisla-tion. Missing as yet from the debatesare the voices of the rural communi-ties to be affected by the new law …Public consultation on the draft Bill,as is required by law, will open theprocess to a wider range of politicalforces and influences than has beenthe case thus far (Cousins 2002:6).

The Durban conference also addressed arange of other problems of tenure insecu-rity, particularly those faced on commer-cial farms by labour tenants, farm workers,ex farm workers and their dependants. Thelast two years have seen little improvementin the status of these groups, who continueto face evictions and exploitation despitelegislation – such as the Extension ofSecurity of Tenure Act and the LabourTenants Act – that is meant to protect theirrights. While state officials and representa-tives of commercial agriculture called foramendments to the law, representatives offarm residents pointed out that the authori-ties’ failure to implement the existing lawwas largely to blame for the continuingplight of farm dwellers and labour tenants.

In most of South Africa’s communalareas since 1994, residents have had tocontend with a dysfunctional land tenureand management system. But, in one partof the country at least, there has been somemovement on land tenure reform in recentyears. In the former ‘coloured’ reserves ofthe Northern Cape, the Transformation ofCertain Rural Areas Act (TRANCRAA) of1998 is now being put into effect. Insparsely populated districts that are largelyfree of chiefs but certainly not devoid ofpolitics, TRANCRAA is effectively SouthAfrica’s first attempt at comprehensivetenure reform for communal areas. It isaimed at removing discrimination, protect-ing residents’ formal and informal rightsand ensuring democratic governance ofthe former reserves. It is intended ‘toprovide for the transfer of certain land tomunicipalities and certain other legal

16



entities; the removal of restrictions on thealienation of land; matters with regard tominerals; the repeal of the Rural Areas Act,1987, and related laws; and to provide formatters connected therewith.’ It defines‘legal entities’ as, (a) a municipality; (b) acommunal property association; or (c)another body or person approved by theMinister in general or in a particular case.The Act applies to land that has long beenused in common by the communities andheld in trust by the State, as well as to

farms more recently bought for the benefitof these communities and currently ownedby municipalities.

The implementation of the Act wasdelayed pending municipal demarcationand elections late in 2000. This created asituation that required careful and urgentattention. The Act presupposed communalareas that coincided with local governmentstructures (the former transitional localcouncils), while these areas have now beenamalgamated into larger municipalities.

· Checks and balances to be put in place when land is transferred to communities toprotect individuals’ land rights against abuse.

· Policies that confirm indigenous knowledge systems need to be developed.

· Comprehensive research/review to be undertaken on land rights, security of tenureand land administration.

· Broad consultation with and participation of stakeholders in new land reformlegislation.

· Communities and rights holders to have freedom of choice of tenure within thenational policy and laws.

· Customary law rules should be developed in line with the requirements of theConstitution.

· Tenure security concept should be understood to exist within different ownershipsystems, provided rights are defined and protected.

· [Communal Land Rights Bill should provide] clear definition of community, groupsand individuals and their respective rights.

· Accountability of community ownership structures.

· Relations between institutions of traditional authorities, local government structuresand other land administration bodies must be clearly defined and established.

· Need to recognise traditional leadership institutions in land administration in commu-nal areas.

· Need to provide support and capacity to traditional leaders and institutions tocarry out their role and functions in land administration in democratic, effective,efficient, participatory, fair and accountable manner.

· Need to build on the best practices of land administration among institutions of tradi-tional leadership.

· Legislation to provide clarity and security of rights in a balance between the group/community and its constituent members.

· Provide a range of tenure options, including ownership via ‘commonhold title’ (DLA2001c).

Box 6: Selected resolutions of the National Land Tenure Conference,November 2001

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TRANCRAA stipulates an 18-monthtransition period during which people candecide on which ownership and manage-ment option they prefer. The transitionperiod started in January 2001, and com-munities have established committees tostudy the implications of different optionsand prepare the referendum at the end ofthe period. The transition period got off toa rather slow start, and is likely to beextended. The deadline for submitting thefinal reports and recommendations to DLAis expected to be January 2003. Commu-nity information and consultation pro-grammes that lead to genuine, informeddecision making require strong advisorysupport from government and NGOs.TRANCRAA experience clearly showsthat much hard and costly work has to gointo achieving tenure reform on theground.

The ongoing debate about tenurereform for the communal areas has led tosome criticism of TRANCRAA. Like theCommunal Property Associations Act, it is‘minimalist’ legislation that sets out proce-dures for transfer of ownership withoutspecifying what many would say is neces-sary detail about the content of rights orthe institutional framework. As is nowbeing recognised, tenure reform legislation(and indeed the CPA Act) needs to specifythe substantive rights that are entailed, andhow they can be asserted. It must set outwhat sort of staffing and institutionalstructure is going to underpin the newtenure dispensation. TRANCRAA does not

do any of these things, and some observerstherefore predict post-transfer disputes anduncertainty. There are calls for the pro-posed Communal Land Rights Bill to beapplied to the TRANCRAA areas as well,so that these shortcomings can be rectified.A uniform land rights and administrationframework could then apply across allSouth Africa’s communal areas, withadequate scope for local rights holders tochoose how land ownership and administra-tion are configured in their particular areas.

Attitudes and strategiesWhat do the last two years’ experience ofland and agrarian reform tell us aboutofficial attitudes and intentions? The twomost public concerns in the sector havebeen developments in Zimbabwe andurban housing land shortages at home, andthe most visible reaction of governmenthas been to assure South Africans and theoutside world that the Zimbabwe scenarioof land invasions and expropriation willnot be allowed to happen here. Despite asomewhat higher profile for concernsabout poverty, and the high-levelcommitments to the still largely invisibleIntegrated Sustainable Rural DevelopmentStrategy, government has not seen fit totransfer more resources to land and agra-rian reform. Nor has it taken adequatesteps to achieve a co-ordinated publicprogramme against landlessness, althoughthere are welcome moves towards betterintegration of public planning and

Box 7: Notes on TRANCRAAIn a context of severe economic constraints, do ‘rights to land’ and TRANCRAA mat-ter? Indications that they do are people’s investment in the process, the current mobili-sation of stakeholder groups and the fact that people debate rights in the context ofnew enterprises. Given severe land shortage and extreme levels of unemployment,secure ownership of common land appears a useful, but ambiguous, contested and farfrom sufficient element in a process of democratisation and rural empowerment.People living in and off the Namaqualand commons need comprehensive economicand democratic empowerment to complement tenure reform (Poul Wisborg, from noteson TRANCRAA prepared for this status report).

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management in the sector. One is MinisterDidiza’s tighter joint management of thevarious departments of agriculture andDLA and another is the growing role oflocal government in land reform planningand implementation. This is supported bythe increasing decentralisation of DLAfunctions to district offices.

Overall, however, government stillseems to judge that land and agrarianreform does not need to be a high priority.It appears to be calm about one of the mostpotentially troublesome dimensions of theproblem, namely the role of the chiefs incommunal areas land tenure andmanagement. It has given strong emphasisto mopping up the restitution issue, withthe laudable but unlikely claim that allrestitution will be finalised less than threeyears from now. Indeed, there are signs ofa strategy that would identify restitution asthe only significant priority in land reform.In other words, once restitution is finalised,land reform may be said to have beenachieved. LRAD might conceivablycontinue at the present modest scale,leading to a partial de-racialisation ofcommercial agriculture. Urban settlementprogrammes and facilities may be rationa-lised and made more efficient. Such astrategy neglects the much more complexchallenges of land reform as part ofsustainable development for the rural poor.DLA claimed last year in its Budget sub-mission that it had ‘revised its land reformprogramme to support sustainable ruraldevelopment policies and interventions’.What it actually meant by this was that itwas rolling out LRAD (DLA 2001d:599).

Government may be accurate in itsestimation of the level of public concern.While there have been flashes of landhunger and some demonstrations and

campaigns, civil society as a whole hasbeen apathetic and disorganised withregard to land and agrarian reform. Despitefierce pronouncements, the ‘fire eaters’disparaged by the Chief Land ClaimsCommissioner – such as the LandlessPeople’s Movement – appear to be havinglittle effect. Various calls for a national landsummit have been ignored. Over the last12 months, civil society’s preparations forthe World Summit on Sustainable Develop-ment have lacked direction and impact,and have often descended into acrimoni-ous personal and institutional politics.

The previous status report concludedthat, while land and agrarian reform wasunlikely to be a high public priority in themedium term, the steadily increasing crisisin the rural sector may lead to it becominga much more urgent concern in ten years’time (Turner & Ibsen 2000:48). This reporthas found no convincing evidence that amajor transformation of land holding thatcan promote livelihoods and combatpoverty on a significant scale is any closernow. Where there has been movement inthe last two years has been in the strongerfocus on urban landlessness. Governmentmay judge that, if it can deal with thatissue and make convincing progress withrestitution, the rest of land and agrarianreform will not need priority attention.

As the World Summit approaches, whatsigns have there been of more effectiveattention to the environmental impact andsustainability of land and agrarian reformin South Africa? As we have reportedabove, the restitution programme has madea number of commitments to better supportfor beneficiaries in developing sustainablelivelihoods, and a broader programme ofintegrating environmental concerns intoland reform is being planned within DLA.This is discussed in more detail below.

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South African land reform andAgenda 21The conclusions and decisions that resultfrom such an assessment ought to bepresented in South Africa’s NationalSustainable Development Strategy. Thatdocument does not yet exist and we under-stand that it will not be published untilafter the World Summit.

In the meantime, there are two subsidi-ary questions we can ask. First, does theSouth African approach to sustainabledevelopment take adequate account of thenecessary role that land reform must play?An earlier summary assessment concludedthat it does not (Turner 2001). Secondly, isthe land reform programme itself designedso as to make an optimum contribution tosustainable development? That questioncan be answered at various socio-eco-nomic and environmental levels. Here, werestrict ourselves to reviewing the pro-gramme’s approach to environmentalconsiderations.

The previous status report in this series(Turner & Ibsen 2000) outlined howissues of environmental impact andsustainability were recognised quite earlyin the South African land reform pro-gramme, and how this led to a Danish-supported project on ‘the integration ofenvironmental planning into the landreform process’. That project concludedits drafting, training and pilot field work

in 2001 with the publication of DLApolicy and guidelines on the subject(DLA 2001e, f).

DLA makes it clear that it considersthese guidelines to conform to the princi-ples of Agenda 21, and to contribute toSouth African development of LocalAgenda 21 (LA21) approaches:

Both the guidelines and Agenda 21share common ground in that theypromote a developmental approachthat seeks to integrate social, eco-nomic and environmental factors…[The guidelines] may be seen as atool in LA21 that promotes sustain-able development at the local levelthrough land reform projects (DLA2001f:225.)

The guidelines list the ways in which theyhave taken the principles of LA21 intoaccount (see Box 8).

DLA environmental guidelinesand the national policyframeworkWithin the provisions of the South AfricanConstitution with regard to environmentalrights, the apex legislation is the NationalEnvironmental Management Act (NEMA),which sets out national principles forenvironmental and sustainabledevelopment policy. NEMA includes adefinition of sustainable development (seeBox 9), with which DLA aligns itself in its

Chapter 3: Integration ofenvironmental concerns into theland reform programmeSouth Africa is preparing to host the World Summit on SustainableDevelopment. It is therefore important for the nation to decide whetherits own policies and programmes reflect global sustainable developmentprinciples and priorities (Turner 2001).

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environmental planning guidelines (DLA2001f:2). The Act requires all governmentdepartments to draw up an EnvironmentalImplementation and Management Plan(EIMP). DLA was the first department toprepare such a plan. Its EIMP is congruentwith the principles and approaches that itsets out in its policy and guidelines forenvironment and land reform, and wasapproved in 2000.

Land reform projects must also complywith the environmental impact assessment(EIA) requirements of the EnvironmentalConservation Act, and satisfy NEMA’srequirements for Integrated EnvironmentalManagement (IEM). The guidelines saythat they ‘contribute towards synergybetween LA21, Integrated DevelopmentPlan (IDP) and Integrated EnvironmentalManagement (IEM) processes’ (DLA

2001f:226). There is some uncertainty asto whether the guidelines, as published,will be adequate from the IEM perspective.NEMA is apparently being revised in thisregard and the guidelines make varioussuggestions as to how compliance can beachieved.

Application of DLAenvironmental guidelinesHaving set out a number of principles forintegrating environmental planning intoland reform (see Box 10), DLA nowanticipates a three-phase planning modelfor land reform. The first,conceptualisation phase would establishwhat the project might do and whether itfalls broadly within the department’spolicy and budgetary frameworks. Asecond phase of pre-feasibility assessment

The guiding principles of LA21 listed below have been internalised into the guidelinesin the following ways:· integration (the guidelines advocate co-operative governance to ensure sustainable

land reform projects)

· informed decision making (the guidelines combine biophysical and human elementsin all decision-making processes)

· strategic (the most appropriate interventions are located to ensure sustainability whilenot adding unduly to the land reform process)

· participatory (participatory approaches are central to many of the methods used inthe guidelines)

· precautionary (the guidelines encourage land reform participants to adopt an ap-proach that takes the environment into account at an early stage in the project cycle)

· continual improvement towards sustainability (the guidelines see the process ofachieving sustainability in land reform projects as an incremental one)

· long-term focus (continual monitoring of land reform projects is stronglyencouraged) (DLA 2001f:225–6).

Box 8: DLA�s environmental planning guidelines and the principles of Local Agenda 21

NEMA defines sustainable development as:The integration of social, economic and environmental factors into planning, imple-mentation and decision-making so as to ensure that development serves present andfuture generations (DLA 2001f:2).

Box 9: Definition of sustainable development

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would apply an ‘Environmental DecisionSupport Tool’ to assess the current environ-mental status of the project land, and toestimate the likely impacts of the land-usechanges that the project would introduce.This assessment would lead to a decisioneither to proceed with more detailedplanning; to reconceptualise the project orto reject it completely. It might also iden-tify the need for an EIA. Phase 3, if ithappens, would involve detailed projectplanning, including land capability assess-ment and preparation of a business plan.

During most of the life of the projectthat led to DLA’s environmental policy andguidelines, the focus was on their applica-tion to the land redistribution process, andspecifically on projects funded by theSettlement and Land Acquisition Grant.Ever since the initial study on environmen-tal issues in land reform (Turner et al.

1997), questions have been raised aboutthe extent to which DLA could insist onenvironmental studies and precautions inrestitution awards. In restitution, ‘the DLAis presented with a set of already acceptedrights’ (DLA 2001e:14). It was assumedthat the application of environmentalprinciples to tenure reform would be amuch more diffuse process in which broaderplanning and management systems wouldbe more influential than those of DLA.

By the time DLA’s policy and guide-lines were completed, however, the charac-ter of what DLA calls its ‘products’ hadchanged significantly. Fortunately, theplanning project was able to allow for this.The guidelines present detailed recommen-dations on environmental assessment andplanning procedure for:· the IDP planning process as it affects

land reform

· Land is a national asset and its efficient, sustainable use and management is theprimary responsibility of the Department of Land Affairs.

· While DLA holds the primarily responsibility for land, it cannot fulfil this mandate onits own and must work creatively and constructively with other spheres, especiallydistrict municipalities, and other line function departments, especially departments ofagriculture and environment affairs.

· Environmental planning cannot only be done on a project basis, but must be donefirst at a district-wide, strategic level.

· The environment dos not consist solely of animals and plants which have to be pro-tected against people. It is made up of the entire range of resources on which peopledepend for livelihoods, sustenance and well-being.

· Planning for environmental management must be done in a participative, inclusiveway, involving all participants in decision making, not just officials.

· Project planning for land reform must be phased, with an increasing level of cost,effort and detail following each phase, and with each phase providing the opportunityfor the project to be reconceptualised.

· In a land reform project, the beneficiaries’ livelihoods should be derived from multi-ple sources, not a single source.

· Land must be suitable for the uses to which it will be put under the land reformproject.

· DLA has an ongoing responsibility for monitoring land use patterns and activities onland reform projects after transfer, to ensure that the land resource is not being deva-lued for future generations (DLA 2001e:5–7).

Box 10: DLA principles for integrating environmental planning into land reform

Chapter 3: Integration of environmental concerns into the

land reform programme

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· LRAD projects· commonage projects (the implication

being that DLA continues to be in-volved in these)

· restitution projects· a range of ‘tenure and settlement’

projects, such as activities under theExtension of Security of Tenure Act, theInterim Protection of Informal LandRights Act and the Land Reform (La-bour Tenants) Act.

Missing from this list, of course, is theSLAG itself, although we understand thatSLAG-funded projects continue to beimplemented by some provincial offices ofDLA. If a clearer distinction arises betweenagricultural and settlement projects –which seems to be happening – it may benecessary for the environmental guidelinesto give attention to specific procedures forresidential projects.

Planning principlesA number of appropriate planning princi-ples run through DLA’s environmentalguidelines. The guidelines call for ‘achange in mindset’, summed up in a tablethat starts by urging a shift from a conser-vation perspective to one that views theenvironment ‘as a management issue inpromoting sustainable development’ (DLA2001f:8). The recommended proceduresare dedicated to achieving sustainablelivelihoods, and the sustainable livelihoodsapproach frames the guidelines’ recom-mendations on land-use planning methods.Land reform business plans, for example,are required to specify how sustainablelivelihoods will be achieved (DLA2001f:124). The guidelines point out that‘land use plans will only succeed if theseare locally acceptable’ (DLA 2001f:185)and urge planners to consider the motivesof land reform participants: do they intendto produce mainly for the market, or willproduction be ‘needs-based’? However, itappears excessive to insist on, rather thanfacilitate, multiple livelihood strategies forland reform beneficiaries, as Box 10 onDLA’s principles appears to suggest.

The guidelines outline and endorsecommunity-based natural resource ma-nagement concepts. An extensive checklistis presented for monitoring the creationand operation of common property institu-tions, quoting and elaborating on the workof Cousins (1995) (DLA 2001f:129). Theguidelines recognise that much of theresource degradation with which the ruralpoor of South Africa must contend resultsfrom the ‘environmental racism’ that theysuffered under apartheid (DLA2001f:226). There is a strong emphasis onparticipatory and gender-responsiveplanning approaches. Recommendedoptions for environmentally sound cropand livestock production include the use ofindigenous knowledge (DLA 2001f:190).

It is significant that DLA’s detailedguidelines begin by explaining how landreform planning should fit into the IDPprocess that is now required of all munici-palities (DLA 2001f:4). Later, they say thatthey are written within the context of thesix-volume IDP manual now being pre-pared by the Department of Provincial andLocal Government. The guidelines emergefrom the Directorate in DLA that has alsobeen responsible for the DevelopmentFacilitation Act (DFA) and its requirementfor land development objectives (LDOs),which were meant to dovetail into the IDPprocess. Much of the last few years’ expe-rience with IDPs, the DFA and LDOs hasbeen cumbersome and bureaucratic. TheDFA was intended as interim legislation,and is to be repealed by a Land Use Man-agement Act that is currently in draft form.This Act will build on the approach of theDFA, but integrate it with spatial planningprinciples. It will require municipalities todraft Spatial Development Frameworks aspart of their IDPs.

Meanwhile, however, DLA’s environ-mental policy and guidelines, with theiremphasis on integration into the IDPprocess, are a welcome response to thegrowing recognition that land reformprojects carried out in isolation from other

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development planning are unlikely to beefficient or sustainable.

This evolution in DLA’s planningapproach represents a change from theoriginal assumption that the environmentwould have to be considered on a precau-tionary basis, as a potential obstacle inland reform planning. Instead, there is agrowing recognition of the environment asopportunity, offering a range of livelihoodpossibilities that beneficiaries and plannersneed to assess. DLA is thus moving be-yond a concern with environmental impactassessment and land transfer planning to amore proactive involvement in sustainablelivelihood planning with beneficiaries andlocal authorities. So far, however, there hasbeen limited practical application of theseprinciples – although we have noted thegrowing commitment of the Land ClaimsCommission to sustainable livelihoods,and the work of some Provincial Offices ofDLA in integrating land reform withinIntegrated Development Plans (IDPs) at thedistrict level.

Technical principlesFrom a technical perspective, the guide-lines start from the assumption that mostland reform projects will cause a change ofland use or land-use intensity, and that theimpacts and sustainability of this changeneed to be assessed. They apply the con-cept of ecosystem goods and services, andargue that human use of or demand forthese services should not exceed the rate atwhich they can be supplied (DLA2001f:23). They assume that resourcequality and quantity can be measured andurge the development of biophysical andsocio-economic indicators of sustainability.

Inherent in the guidelines is the as-sumption that the productive potential ofnatural resources is relatively static andpredictable, and that land uses must workwithin this envelope of natural potential.There are two ways in which this assump-tion may be inaccurate. First, it is increas-ingly accepted that non-equilibrium mod-els more accurately describe the behaviourof arid and semi-arid environments, and

that to apply fixed expectations of produc-tive capacity in such conditions is unhelp-ful. The guidelines do not refer to thesearguments. Secondly, it is now well knownthat the type of production system appliedto a given natural resource base can sig-nificantly influence the kinds and levels ofoutput achieved, while remaining withinthe bounds of environmental sustainability.The guidelines do implicitly acknowledgethat various adjustments to labour input orsoil fertility management, for example, canaffect the way in which land potential andsustainability are appraised. Overall,however, the guidelines adopt the precau-tionary assumption that linear trends ofresource degradation can be set in motionby inappropriate land uses, and that landreform planning must guard against this.Their discussion of land use planningapproaches sums up the technical princi-ples being applied:

The quality of the land and the wayit will be used determines thenumber of people it can supportsustainably. Human carrying capac-ity (the number of people a givenarea can support, including all landuses such as grazing, cropping,fuelwood collection and watersupply) is normally defined by themost limiting resource. Humancarrying capacity must be assessedin a socio-economic context andaddresses issues such as the level ofrequired inputs (financial resources,technology) and management (DLA2001f:30).

The overall technical style of the DLAguidelines well reflects the evolution ofofficial thinking about the environmentalsustainability of land use in South Africa.That evolution remains incomplete andcontentious. More conventional technicalthinking and more recent paradigms are allincluded in the guidelines, but not alwaysfully reconciled. The clearest example ofthis is the core presentation of methodsand tools (DLA 2001f Section 6). Thisbegins with a detailed explanation of theEnvironmental Decision Support Tool (see



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page 21), followed by an equally detaileddiscussion of the better-known conceptsand paradigms of land evaluation, landcapability assessment and land-use plan-ning. It is not made clear how the two setsof methods are expected to relate to eachother in practice.

The discussion of land-use planningincorporates many participatory principles.The guidelines stress that land-use plan-ning should not be a way of telling peoplewhat to do, but rather of helping themidentify the options they have (DLA2001f:176). More conventionally, how-ever, they present the land capabilityclassification system developed by theKwaZulu-Natal Department of Agriculture.They largely skirt the contentious issue ofrangeland carrying capacity and appropri-ate stocking rates, but present withoutmuch comment the concept ofovergrazing, and make it clear that this is asignificant hazard in land reform planning.Keeping within the conventional percep-tion of climate and veld behaviour, theyurge that the assessment of carrying capac-ity for extensive grazing uses ‘must bebased on [the] worst scenario’ (DLA2001f:200). They urge, too, that IDPsassess the risk of overgrazing, and ‘deter-mine the livestock carrying capacity of theland’ (DLA 2001f:129). In discussion ofthe subdivision of commercial farms forland reform purposes (a common sce-nario), the guidelines appropriately arguefor the development of a land market thatmeets the needs of small-scale farmers, butwarn that small farms for dryland cropproduction will usually be commerciallyunsustainable (DLA 2001f:228–9).

From guidelines to practiceAlthough the policy framework is certainlynot yet completely stable in South Africa,DLA has now slotted its environmentalapproach into the complex structures ofSouth African environmental policy as awhole. But at the time of writing, thepolicy (and hence the guidelines) have stillnot been approved by the Minister. The

lengthy delays in securing Ministerialapproval mean that, although the Director-General of Land Affairs has approved bothdocuments, he is unable to send them tothe provincial offices of DLA with adirective that they be used. Despite wide-spread endorsement of the guidelines fromother agencies of government, DLA itselfhas yet to act.

As in so many fields of South Africanpolicy, the broader challenge now is toconvert the policy into practice. An enor-mous framework of legislation and proce-dure is now in place, although it changesconstantly as various elements are revisedby the responsible government agencies.What remains to be seen is how much of adifference DLA’s environmental policy andguidelines make to the bulk of its projectwork, over and above the encouragingpilots that have already been achieved.Although the procedures have been de-signed to be as efficient as possible, pro-ceeding to detail only when the need isclear, following the environmental guide-lines undeniably adds to the labour ofpreparing any kind of land reform project,as will any attempt to move beyond landtransfer planning to livelihood planning.The only way that DLA can contemplatethis is by shifting most of the load to otheragencies, through integration of its plan-ning task with those of other agencies. TheIDP process – still in its infancy in most ofthe country – should be the core vehiclefor this integration, as DLA recognises.But the institutional and bureaucraticcomplexities of this integration are daunting.

More immediately, for DLA, there is thequestion of whether its environmentalguidelines and procedures will be adoptedby colleagues in provincial departments ofagriculture as they prepare LRAD projects.The National Department of Agriculture’sEnvironmental Implementation and Man-agement Plan for NEMA notes that agricul-ture is likely to play a stronger role in landreform, and that it will be using the DLAguidelines in its LRAD implementation.

For the time being, however, there islittle field implementation of DLA’s

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environmental guidelines in any kind ofland reform project, because the documentis still stacked in the Pretoria headquartersawaiting distribution after Ministerialapproval. Some provincial land reform staffin the guideline project’s two pilotprovinces, Free State and Mpumalanga, arefamiliar with the guidelines and are able touse them to a limited extent. They have alsobeen used on a preliminary basis in theWestern Cape. Assuming that the guidelinesare ultimately approved, a major training

task will lie ahead in order to familiariseDLA and other land reform workers in allnine provinces with them. Some furtherDanish funding is anticipated to supportthis training work.

DLA thus has its conceptual house inorder with regard to the environmentalimplications of land reform and the waysin which land reform can contribute to sus-tainable development. But its current insti-tutional difficulties mean that land reform isnot contributing much to this goal at present.



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The policies adopted by government haveleft the structure of the rural economylargely intact or, in the case of liberalisa-tion of agricultural markets and cuts inagricultural support services, have createda climate that is unhelpful to new, re-source-poor entrants. Much of the explana-tion for this can be found in the govern-ment’s macro-economic policies that,through their reliance on free markets,private investment and export-orientedgrowth, strongly favour economic effi-ciency over social equity. While policies ofblack economic empowerment go someway towards meeting equity goals, theseare predicated on assisting emerging blackentrepreneurs to take their place withinestablished structures, rather than on afundamental restructuring of the economyin favour of the poor and marginalised.

Political priorities, and preferences, areclearly expressed in the budgets and policyinstruments of the state. In the case of landreform, it can be safely concluded that theeffective aim of the government is amodest transfer of agricultural land –probably no more than 4% in the 15 yearsfrom 1994 – limited to areas voluntarilyreleased by the existing landowning class,and favouring a small minority of the ruralblack population, selected on the basis oftheir skills, material resources and entre-preneurial spirit. Such a programme isdeliberately designed to pose no threat tothe existing landowning class, nor to theexisting land market. It is also clearlyincapable of meeting the needs of the greatmass of the rural poor, particularlymarginalised groups such as women,youth, the unemployed, the disabled and

households affected by HIV/Aids. Unlessspecific policies are developed that targetthe needs of such groups, outside of themarket-based ‘emergent farmer’ approach,it is unlikely that land reform in SouthAfrica will meet its equity goals.

In such a scenario, talk of sustainabledevelopment amounts to very little. Main-tenance of the existing landholding pat-tern, albeit with a few black owners along-side the majority of whites, will notachieve the efficiency gains – in terms ofproductivity, household benefits and localeconomic development – implied in a shiftfrom large-scale, capital-intensive produc-tion to small-scale, labour-intensive meth-ods. The ongoing denial of opportunitiesfor economic activity to large proportionsof rural people – through either formalemployment or small-scale agriculture –represents a vast waste of human potentialthat the country can ill-afford, and placesan unbearable burden on an alreadyoverstretched urban informal sector. It alsoperpetuates the survival strategies of thedesperately poor that depend on unsustain-able use of the limited natural resources –be it residential land, firewood or watersources – to which they can gain access.

A key objective of sustainable develop-ment should be to encourage people awayfrom economically inefficient and environ-mentally destructive activities towardsmore economically, socially and environ-mentally beneficial ones. With a large,poverty-stricken and poorly educated ruralpopulation, comprehensive land andagrarian reform offers South Africa per-haps the only opportunity for achievingthis on a substantial scale. There is little

ConclusionDespite some successes, the South African land reform programme hasnot to date lived up to its promise to transform land holding, combatpoverty and revitalise the rural economy.

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doubt that, despite current weakness incommercial agriculture, South Africa’sagricultural sector can support many timesthe number of people it currently does,given appropriate land redistribution ofland and sufficient support services. Therecan also be little doubt that while paidemployment is probably the first priority ofthe rural poor, there are millions of peopleable and willing to engage in agriculture,either as full-time farmers or as part of adiverse livelihood strategy. The challengefacing policy makers is to create an envi-

ronment that can bring this about andsustain it over the long term. The currentmarket-based approach, which starts fromthe premise that the existing structure ofthe rural economy must be preserved, isclearly incapable of bringing this about.

If sustainable development in SouthAfrica is to be any more than rhetoric, itmust address fundamental questions ofhow the economy is structured, how assetsand other benefits are distributed, and howmass poverty is created and perpetuated.Land is probably a good place to start.

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