Browsing by Author "Atkinson, Doreen"

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    Management of some commons in southern Africa: Implications for policy
    (Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape, 2006) Atkinson, Doreen; Taylor, Michael; Matose, Frank
    Profound transformations in communal land tenure systems are taking place in parts of southern Africa that have resulted from decades of interventions, particularly the shrinking of the commonage through capture of extensive tracts of lands by private interests. Some policies have been into place that envisage improved management of common rangeland resources through privatisation. However, empirical evidence is lacking as to what extent these may have been successful. Traditional management systems in communal areas have been broken down to the extent that many of them are now more characteristic of open access systems. An alternative to meeting the challenge of managing resources in common rangelands is to develop community-based rangeland resource management systems that build on the strengths of traditional management approaches. Therefore a call is made on the use of indigenous knowledge systems and empowering communities to manage their rangeland resources, in order to prevent open access and promoting improved rangeland management and more sustainable livelihoods.
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    People-centred environmental management and municipal commonage in the Nama Karoo
    (Institute for Poverty Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), 2005) Atkinson, Doreen
    Land reform is a key part of government policy, spurred politically by the claims of the landless, as well as the land reform pressures in countries like Zimbabwe. It is clear to national and provincial governments that land reform should be speeded up. Municipalities are, therefore, being placed under a lot of political and governmental pressure to increasingly make their commonage land available to emergent farmers. The effective management of municipal commonage can contribute to land reform, food security, local economic development and sustainable natural resource use. Commonage land is, in many towns, the only natural resource available to poor communities. The issue of resource utilisation in the Karoo is becoming ever more pressing, to address the question of ‘how the vast and biologically diverse, but unproductive Karoo region should be used in a country with a growing land-hungry population’ (Dean & Milton 1999:xxii). This sets the stage for an urgent inquiry into land-people interactions – particularly with reference to some kind of people-centred development – but as yet, this issue has not been confronted systematically in an interdisciplinary way. This paper makes the following argument: Municipalities need assistance with establishing viable commonage management systems; such systems need to be based on the voluntary and committed participation by the users (that is ‘people-centred’); and this, in turn, requires an understanding of the emergent farmers’ knowledge base of the environment. This paper considers the prospects for commonage use in the arid areas of South Africa, notably the Nama-Karoo, or non-succulent Karoo, characterised by small shrubs and grass species. This geographic area should be differentiated from the Succulent Karoo of the Namaqualand and southern Cape areas, which have different rainfall and vegetative patterns. The Nama Karoo is the northern part of the Karoo, and is the largest biome in South Africa. It is characterised by low and variable rainfall, mainly in the summer months. It stretches up to the southern Free State. This geographical demarcation is also significant because of its land tenure characteristics. The phenomenon of ‘commonage’ in the Nama-Karoo area refers to municipally-owned land, whose overriding purpose has been for the use of urban residents.
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    The role of local government in common pool resource management: the case of municipal commonage in the northern cape
    (University of Western Cape, 2004) Henseler, Anja; Lahiff, Edward; Atkinson, Doreen
    Municipal commonage has the potential to make a major contribution to land redistribution in South Africa. During the Apartheid era, land under the control of local government was leased out to commercial farmers at commercial rates, which ensured an important source of income for municipalities. Post-1994, municipalities have been tasked by the Department of Land Affairs with making land available to the previously disadvantaged and thus managing and administering the commonage for purposes of poverty alleviation.