Grazing into the future: Policy making for South African communal rangelands

Peter Scogings, Theunis de Bruyn and Susanne Vetter

Development Southern Africa, 1999, vol. 16, issue 3, 403-414

Abstract: This article reports on a symposium held at Fort Hare University in July 1998. Its objective was to assess the current state of knowledge on communal rangelands and identify issues important for policy making. This was done in the light of concerns about recent policy reform. Uncontrolled access to resources and the lack of services were identified as the main constraints on socio-economic development in the communal rangelands, and inadequate forage during the dry season was recognised as a general constraint on livestock production, irrespective of mean annual rainfall. Government policies must recognise these issues and the social and ecological heterogeneity of communal rangelands in South Africa. The conclusion with the most far-reaching implications, however, was that degradation has occurred in some, but not all, communal rangelands and is most likely to occur in arid areas. This finding is in direct contrast to the current base for agricultural policies in South Africa, which assumes that livestock have little impact on rangelands.

Date: 1999
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03768359908440088 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:deveza:v:16:y:1999:i:3:p:403-414

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CDSA20

DOI: 10.1080/03768359908440088

Access Statistics for this article

Development Southern Africa is currently edited by Marie Kirsten

More articles in Development Southern Africa from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().