Social Aspects of Natural Resource Management in Rural Kwazulu

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN RURAL KWAZULU Gregory Bryan Huggins Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Science · Department of Social Anthropology University of Cape Town 1993 The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. ABSTRACT Environmental degradation is widely regarded as an integral part of South Africa's homeland areas. Conventional thinking often blames so-called traditional farming practices, attitudes and values for this situation. In other words, the blame is placed with the residents of the areas and environmental degradation is explained away as the result of a particular cultural make-up. Following this line of thought, educ.ation via agricultural extension is mooted as the primary solution to what is regarded as an inherent problem. The central concern of this dissertation is to examine the dynamics of natural resource management by residents of a rural area in KwaZulu known as oBivane. The thesis shows that the conditions leading to environmental degradation are best seen as the result of particular historical and political processes and not simply as the results of particular patterns of behaviour that are culturally driven. These processes, given primary impetus by massive population influx onto a restricted land base and combined with the peculiarities of differential access to resources and the need to preserve the interests of elite groups, have forced sectors of the South African population into situations where physical survival has necessarily had grave environmental cost. One of the consequences of apartheid policies has been to institutionalise environmental degradation in particular areas of the country. The effects of the environmental degradation created through the "homeland" system will be with us for many years and, as the case study presented here demonstrates, the process of increasing degradation has probably not yet run its course. While certain local level remedies may be prescribed these remedies will address symptoms of the problem rather than the cause itself. In essence the problem is a political one and solutions (if at all possible at this stage) will have to be found at a national political and economic level. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My greatest debt of gratitude is to the people of oBivane around whom this study is written. Without their co-operation, patience, and friendship this study would not have been possible. I am particularly grateful to Aaron Xaba and Timothy Mthethwa both of whom gave me invaluable assistance during the course of the study. Professor John Sharp has supervised this thesis for the past three years. I am grateful to him for his guidance and for the extremely constructive role that he has played in the difficult task of "supervising by remote control". I am also grateful to Professor Harriet Ngubane who initially supervised the work and was helpful in the early stages of my work. I am particularly grateful to my colleagues at the Human Sciences Research Council. Eddie Barendse and Nkrumah Mazibuko were extremely helpful during the early stages of the fieldwork. The oBivane initiative, and hence this study, would not have been possible without the efforts of Nie Boersema. I am also grateful to Nie for reading the draft of the thesis and for keeping me "honest". I also owe Dr. Moira Maconachie a debt of gratitude for her very thoughtful comments on the draft. I am grateful to the Human Sciences Research Council for their financial assistance during the course of the study. The opinions expressed in the thesis remain my own. Last, but not least, I am grateful to Colleen Gehren for her encouragement, support, and for putting up with the fieldwork absences. ii 0 NOTES ON NAMES USED In this study all names are fictitious, except where I acknowledge assistance. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION . 1 Background to the thesis . 1 Outline of the thesis . 4 Research area . 5 Physical features of the sub(region) . 12 Geography ................................._ . 12 Climate........................................ 13 Veld Types . 14 Soil types . 15 Implications . 16 The regional and (sub )regional economy . 17 Notes on methodology . 23 CHAPTER 'IWO: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND . 32 Introduction . 32 The traditional norms and values argument ........................ 32 The poor farming methods argument . 34 The large families argument . 35 The cattle complex argument . 37 The common property debate . 38 Theoretical alternatives . 44 Swvival and the utilisation of resources . 46 Market linkages and wealth distribution . 48 Resettlement and the homeland resource base . 49 Is the resource base degrading? . 51 Conclusion . 52 CHAPTER THREE: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND . 56 Introduction . 56 Regional historical background . 57 Historical background to land rights and tenure in the research area. 60 IV The rise, fall, and tenacity of labour tenancy . 66 Tenancy and resettlement in the case of oBivane .................... 74 CHAPTER FOUR: HOUSEHOLDS AND SOCIO -ECONOMIC DIFFERENTIATION IN oBWANE ................................................... 81 Introduction . 81 The notion of household . 82 Aerial photographs and a diachronic study of oBivane households and population . 85 Introduction . 85 The origi,nal households . 85 Households established during 1943-1976 . 92 Households established between 1976 and 1989 ................. 95 Household composition, residential patterns, and demographic structure in oBivane . 102 Household fonns . 102 Household size and residential density ....................... 104 Population profile . 105 Migrancy and cash income . 108 CHAPTER FIVE: AGRICULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN oBWANE ................................................ 115 Introduction . 115 Introduction to agricultural resource management in oBivane . 115 Agriculture and local knowledge . 126 Ignorance of soil types . 128 Agricultural inputs . 138 CHAPTER SIX: RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, DEGRADATION AND THE IMPACT OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIFFERENTIATION ......................... 142 Introduction . 142 To cultivate or not to cultivate, that is the question. 144 v To rent or not to rent, that is the question . 146 To maximise profits or not to maximise profits, that is the question. ... 148 Implications . 154 CHAPTER SEVEN: MORE CONSUMERS ON A RESTRICTED LAND BASE .. 157 Introduction . 157 Livestock management . 157 Fuel wood and energy management . 167 CHAPTER EIGHT: TERRITORIALISM AND SPECIALIST RESOURCE MANAGEMENT - A CASE STUDY OF THE "iziNYANGA" IN oBWANE . 175 CHAPTER NINE: CONCLUSION . 197 LIST OF SOURCES . 201 Vl LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Employment figures for "black"s . 18 Table 2. Employment figures for "blacks" in coal mines . 19 Table 3. No. of agricultural fields per household ...................... 89 Table 4. Amount of crops sold by households in 1989 /90 ................ 91 Table 5. Land holding and crop sale by households established in 1943-1976 . 94 Table 6. Tabulated summary of demographic data obtained from aerial photographs . 97 Table 7. Land holding and crop sale by households established in 1943-1976 . 99 Table 8. De jure population (age groups by sex) ...................... 106 Table 9. Number of migrant wage earners per household ............... 110 Table 10. Access to fields by the three largest fieldowners . 153 Table 11. Number of cattle per household ........................... 159 Table 12. Inventory of items kept by an inyanga . 177 Table 13. Floral species with medicinal properties in oBivane 180 Vll "Apartheid is a killer and by far the most dangerous on the South African veld. It kills not only people but their land and environment as well" (UNEP report on apartheid and the environment, 1982 as quoted in Timberlake 1985). , CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Background to the thesis Images of South Africa's "rural black homelandsln are often those of bleak and eroded landscapes, over-grazed and over-populated. Alan Paton (1948:5) highlights some of these elements in his evocative prose. The great red hills stand desolate and the earth has torn away like flesh . ... Down in the valleys women scratch the soil that is left, and the maize hardly reaches the height of a man. They are valleys of old men and old women, of mothers and children. The men are away, the young men and girls are away. The soil cannot keep them anymore. While this image probably reflects the situation more accurately than the tourist image of a rural population "living a tribal existence based on age old traditions" (KwaZulu Bureau of Natural Resources 1989) the underlying message for planners and developers (Spies 1986:60) is often that since .. .infrastructural, social, economic and other factors that may inhibit traditional agriculture from developing will continue, we should expect a systematic destruction of the agricultural potential of the soils in KwaZulu over the long term unless innovative and urgent steps are taken to avert this threat. Following this line of thought, arguments detailing a series of inherent weaknesses in what are generally labelled "traditional" agricultural and land management systems are spelled out. These weaknesses are then linked to increasing population pressures on the land and, in these

Load more