Rural Resources Rural Livelihoods Working Paper Series
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RURAL RESOURCES RURAL LIVELIHOODS WORKING PAPER SERIES Research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council Global Environmental Change Programme Phase III Project: ‘Dryland Degradation in Africa: Land, Water and Local Governance’ Paper No 7 LAND, WATER AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE IN SOUTH AFRICA: A Case Study of the Mutale River Valley by EDWARD LAHIFF January 1997 Acknowledgments This case study forms part of a project entitled Dryland Degradation in Africa: Land, Water and Local Governance, being undertaken by the Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. It is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (U.K.), under Phase III of its Global Environmental Change Programme. I wish to tha nk Professor Henry Bernstein, of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for his constant help and encouragement in the preparation of this report. Thanks are also due to the farmers, local representatives and government officials of Tshiombo and the Lower Mutale for their willingness to share their knowledge and experience with a stranger; to Marc Wegerif, Chris Wood and Carola Addingdon for their generous hospitality and friendship during my time in South Africa; to Catherine Lawrence of SOAS for preparing the maps; and to Dr Philip Woodhouse, of IDPM, for his patience and help. Full responsibility for any errors, of course, rests with myself. This study is dedicated to the memory of my friend and co-worker, Lawrence Phala. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations i List of Figures and Tables ii Chapter One Introduction 1 Chapter Two Environmental Policy and Local Government in South Africa: The Institutional Context 2.1 Introduction 4 2.1 Environmental policy 4 2.3 Water policy 6 2.4 Land policy 9 2.5 Structures of local government 13 2.6 Chiefs and Tribal Authorities 15 2.7 Elected local government 18 Chapter Three Venda: The Rise and Fall of an 'Independent' Homeland 21 3.1 Introduction 21 3.2 History 26 28 3.3 Demography and settlements 3.4 Social and economic conditions Chapter Four Overview of the Mutale River Valley 31 31 4.1 Introduction 34 4.2 Rainfall and climate 34 4.3 Geology and vegetation 35 4.4 Study sites 4.5 River flow Chapter Five Tshiombo Case Study 38 5.1 39 Introduction and methodology 43 5.2 District overview 5.3 45 Tshiombo irrigation scheme 46 5.4 Government services at Tshiombo 5.5 50 Social aspects 54 5.6 Land holdings 5.7 57 Water and the irrigation system 60 5.8 Agricultural production 5.9 62 Crop marketing 62 5.10 Transport 63 5.11 Farm labour 65 5.12 Ploughing methods 66 5.13 Purchased inputs and credit 5.14 Livestock Chapter Six Lower Mutale Case Study 70 71 6.1 Introduction and methodology 72 6.2 District overview 76 6.3 Social and economic aspects 82 6.4 Livestock farming 84 6.5 Profile of a large cattle farmer 88 6.6 Irrigated agriculture 91 6.7 Private irrigators 92 6.8 Profile of an irrigation farmer 93 6.9 Dryland agriculture 6.10 Non-farming resource users Chapter Seven Local Management of Natural Resources in the Mutale River Valley 98 100 7.1 Changing resource use in the Mutale valley. 102 7.2 The social impact of changing resource use 104 7.3 Role of the chiefs and Tribal Authorities 106 7.4 Role of the elected local councils 107 7.5 Civics 7.6 Resource user organizations 109 Chapter Eight Conclusion Bibliography Appendix Map 1 Venda in Southern Africa Map 2 Venda, Physical Features and Tribal Districts Map 3 Tshiombo Map 4 Lower Mutale LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACB - Agricultural Credit Board ANC - African National Congress CONTRALESA - Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa DB - Division Box DBSA - Development Bank of Southern Africa DWAF - Department of Water Affairs and Forestry GDP - Gross Domestic Product GGP - Gross Geographic Product GNI - Gross National Income IDT - Independent Development Trust ISCW - Institute of Soil, Climate and Water LAPC - Land and Agricultural Policy Centre MBB - Murray Biesenbach & Badenhorst Inc. MEC - Member of the Executive Committee NTK - Northern Transvaal Co-operative PTO - Permission To Occupy RAU - Rand Afrikaans University RDP - Reconstruction and Development Programme RSA - Republic of South Africa SANCO - South African National Civics Organization SALDRU - South African Labour and Development Research Unit TURP - Trade Union Research Project UDF - United Democratic Front ZAR - South African Republic (Transvaal) i List of Figures and Tables Figure 1. North -Eastern Transvaal rainfall, 1975/76 to 1994/95 32 Figure 2. Average monthly rainfall, Thohoyandou 32 Figure 3. Mutale River flow, 1932/33 to 1991/92 36 Figure 4. Livestock numbers in Venda, 1982 to 1989 77 Table 1. Population of Venda, by Magisterial District 27 Table 2. Average daily temperatures, Mutale Valley 33 Table 3. Population of Tshiombo 47 Table 4. Number of persons per household, Tshiombo 47 Table 5. Number of irrigated plots per household at Tshiombo 51 Table 6. Combined land holding per household at Tshiombo 53 Table 7. Estimated crop values per household, Tshiombo 60 Table 8. Principal method of ploughing at Tshiombo 64 Table 9. Distribution of cattle amongst households at Tshiombo 67 Table 10. Population of the Lower Mutale area. 73 ii 1. INTRODUCTION This study examines the use and management of natural resources in an area of South Africa at a time of profound political and social change. It takes as its focus the Mutale River valley, which lies almost entirely within Venda, a former black 'homeland' under the South African system of apartheid, and now part of the Northern Province. Venda is situated in the north- eastern corner of the country, adjacent to the Kruger National Park and the border with Zimbabwe. Despite the formal ending of apartheid, and the election of the country's first democratic government, South Africa remains a deeply divided society. Extreme inequalities exist in virtually every area, from incomes and education to housing and life expectancy, particularly between the 'white' (European) and 'black' (African) sections of the population (TURP 1994: 52). Much of the worst poverty is concentrated in the former 'homelands', or bantustans, the thirteen per cent of the country reserved for occupation by black people , and an enduring legacy of apartheid's policy of 'divide and rule'. The homelands have their origins in the small areas of land left in the hands of African peoples following the colonial and settler conquests of the nineteenth century, but took on greater significance during the period of industrialization following the discovery of diamonds and gold. In the early decades of the twentieth century, these 'native reserves' were preserved and even expanded by the state, as reservoirs of cheap labour for the mines, factories and farms of 'white' South Africa. Denied political and other rights in the white areas, black workers and their families were left to supplement their meagre wage earnings with whatever they could produce for themselves in the poorly-developed and over-crowded rural reserves. Under the apartheid regime, from 1948 to 1994, millions of black people were forcibly removed from cities and farms and dumped in the ten 'homelands' designated for the country's various linguistic groups. These territories all acquired the trappings of self -rule and their own authoritarian regimes, and four - Transkei, Ciskei , Bophuthatswana and Venda - were granted the unlikely status of 'independent' republics. Social and economic conditions within the black homelands were (and continue to be) extremely harsh, by any standards. Demographic structures were heavily biased towards women, children, and pensioners, due to the prevalence of male migrant labour. Welfare services and infrastructure were poorly developed, and general standards of living were far below those in the rest of South Africa. Industrial development, other than mining, was virtually non-existent, and there were few formal employment opportunities outside the government service. Agriculture, too, with the exception of a number of large government projects and a small elite of private farmers, was poorly developed compared to the rest of the country, and was oriented mainly towards household consumption. Land in the homelands was almost entirely held under the system of so-called communal tenure, controlled by the tribal chiefs and village headmen. These 'traditional' leaders were promoted by the apartheid regime as the principal form of local government in the reserves, and played an important part in the operation of the homeland system. In April 1994, all ten homeland areas were reincorporated into South Africa, and their administrations were absorbed into the new provincial structures. In the Northern Province, which is composed of three former homelands, and one former 'white' area, the task of integrating the multiplicity of institutions, and tackling the enormous social and economic problems inherited from the apartheid era, is proving particularly difficult. A system of vii democratic local government has been created within the former homelands only since November 1995, but, at least in Venda, this was not yet operational by mid-1996. This has left the 'traditional' leaders, who have survived the transition to democracy with their powers virtually intact, as the most important institution of local governance within the black rural areas. The political isolation of the homelands under apartheid meant that many institutions, including those associated with environmental management, were very different to those found in the rest of South Africa, or simply did not exist at all. Very little is known about environmental issues within the former homelands, especially those of the northern Transvaal, and although problems associated with over-crowding and over-grazing are widely referred to, little empirical information is available on such questions. The general lack of information on environmental matters obviously poses considerable problems for the new government's wide-ranging programme of reforms, which has included land redistribution and environmental protection amongst its pr iorities for the development of the rural areas.