A sustainable future for southern Africa's community rangelands?

Namaqualand in South Africa's Western Cape is the world's richest desert. The wealth to be found here is not like that of the gulf states; there are no oil wells, palaces or golf courses. But in terms of bio-diversity it's definitely a hot spot; over 3000 plant types, and 10% of the world's succulent varieties are found in a 50,000 square kilometre area. Namaqualand is also home to many pastoralist peoples, who for generations have kept sheep, goats and donkeys, and extracted a living from the dry desert land; people whose communal land use system is now widely perceived to be the greatest threat to the fragile wealth of plant diversity, and whose rangeland resources appear to be on a path of degradation.

credit: Centre for Arid Zone Studies, CAZS

Making assumptions about the impact of pastoral and agricultural activity on fragile ecosystems is easy, but policies which can offer real progress, both economic and environmental, need to be based on more than assumptions. Recent research work, co-ordinated by the Centre for Arid Zone Studies, has focused on building a detailed picture of resource use in three locations, one in Namaqualand and the other two in Botswana and Lesotho, in order to answer a vital question: do community rangelands in this region have a sustainable future? The research has included assessments of environmental degradation in order to establish the impact of natural resource use, but has also centred on social and economic considerations to determine whether resource use could be made more efficient, and whether there are alternative sources of livelihood that are being overlooked.

A delicate balance

Some of the results were surprising. Livestock production, for example, made a smaller contribution to household income than expected, as low as 5% in Paulshoek, the village studied in Namaqualand. Despite this small contribution, the impact of livestock on the communal grazing land around the village is considerable; records show that the people have kept animals at twice the stocking density recommended for adjacent "communal" Afrikaner farms for the last thirty years. As a result the lowlands have lost their diverse cover of leaf succulents, and parts have become dominated by a toxic shrub, Galenia africana, and by annual plants whose seeds attract large numbers of grain-eating insects. Sandy valleys, where sheep and goats are kept at stockposts, have been damaged by grazing and trampling. In terms of production there are also problems; in general the number of lambs born is low and livestock mortality high, but standards of husbandry were found to vary greatly, even within one community, leading to considerable variations in productivity. The researchers concluded that there was certainly the potential to make animal husbandry more environmentally benign as well as more profitable. Overall, closer monitoring of rangeland use by the communities was needed. For example, better rotation of stockposts would give grazed areas more recovery time. The variation in husbandry skills could be addressed by highlighting best practice through farmer-to-farmer training.

Crop production was also of less importance than was anticipated. For the 117 families of Paulshoek, there are only 27 allocated arable areas, of about 3 hectares each, and of these only one third are usually sown. The most common crop is oats, which is used as an extra source of livestock feed. However, the amount of crops grown has been declining since the 1950s and environmentally the main problem comes from the fields that have been abandoned which, like the overgrazed areas, have also been covered by Galenia africana, resulting in long term impacts on the productivity of the land, that are difficult to reverse. If crop production is to be improved, such abandoned fields would need to be rehabilitated and trials conducted on appropriate drought-resistant crop varieties.

The inter-relationships of resources and livelihoods have been summarised in a series of models. From these, several possible future scenarios have been put forward; if the status quo is maintained the picture is one of further rangeland degradation, and increasing dependence of the people on outside support. The most encouraging alternative scenario is one of greater economic diversification and economic independence, and an improving environmental and resource base. While some improvements in crop and animal production may be possible, the basic physical constraints of land and water mean that significant improvements in livelihood will not be built on agricultural production. If a downward spiral of environmental degradation and poverty is to be avoided, communities like those in Namaqualand will need to diversify their economic activities, and develop closer links with urban markets. Some positive examples are already evident. Communities may be able to exploit other 'veld products' such as medicinal plants, or game, as is already happening in south-western Botswana. Here the Matsheng villages have been given tradeable hunting rights, and are now earning a reliable income from the sale of game licences, a policy which has also given the villagers a vested interest in improving the management of their natural resources.

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