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INCO-DC Project No. ERBIC18CT970162
Global Change and Subsistence Rangelands in Southern Africa: Resource Variability, Access and Use in Relation to Rural Livelihoods and WelfareTASK 0 PROJECT DOCUMENT
PAULSHOEK, NAMAQUALAND, SOUTH AFRICA
A COUNTRY STUDYA Preliminary Report and Literature Review
National Botanic Institute Claremont, South Africa 199
CONTENTS2.1 The State of the Rangeland
2.7 Policies influencing Resource Access and Livelihoods
2.10 Influence of Resource Access/Use on State of Rangelands
1. IntroductionThe arid northwestern region of South Africa contains many commercial, privately-owned farms interspersed with a patchwork of communal reserves. The study site, centred around Paulshoek, is one of nine villages in the Leliefontein communal reserve in the Northern Cape Province. Paulshoek is approximately 80 km south of Springbok, the nearest large centre, and about 50 km east of the small market town of Garies. There are 139 households and 800 people in the village comprised largely of old and very young inhabitants. The economically-active citizens send money home to relatives in the village. State-funded child remittance and old-age pensions also contribute significantly to the economy of the village.
Paulshoek falls in the winter rainfall region of South Africa and has a mean annual rainfall of 200 mm and mean annual temperature of 15.9°C with a large seasonal and daily amplitude in temperature. The vegetation is made up of evergreen shrubs on the uplands, and dwarf succulent shrubs on the lowlands. The major forms of land use in Namaqualand and Leliefontein are small stock farming and a limited amount of cropping. Livestock are herded from about 30 stock posts dispersed throughout the communal area. Overgrazing, losses of plant cover and livestock mortality are common problems, especially adjacent to the village itself.
Some of the major issues impacting on the socio-economic development and ecological integrity of the Leliefontein communal area are:
- Closure of the diamond mines in the region with devastating consequences for the regional economy and with the potential for creating increasing demands on the rangelands
- Drastic decreases in state-funded child remittance/welfare programmes
- Mechanisation of subsistence cropping enterprises
- Continued overgrazing within communal areas where stocking rates are twice as high as the recommended values.
- Redistribution of land as part of South Africa’s post-apartheid era land reform programme will mean that a greater area of Namaqualand will fall under communal land tenure. Appropriate natural resource management practices will need to be implemented as part of an equitable, socio-economic development strategy.
Project activities in the area are:
- Inventory and baseline data collection of natural science and socio-economic conditions in the village
- Assessment of the ecological impacts of the cropping and livestock industries on the diversity and production potential of the rangelands
- Investigation of the impact of rangeland degradation on rural livelihoods
- Identification of the rural development opportunities for improved rural livelihoods
- Recommendations for appropriate and equitable land tenure and land reform programmes
- Identification of local institutional development programmes.
This document aims to synthesise available knowledge of the region and to provide a backdrop to the work of the Community Rangelands project in Paulshoek, South Africa.
2.1 The State of the Rangeland
Paulshoek is dominated by two major vegetation types, which are closely associated with the geomorphological features of the area. In the northwest, the rugged terrain supports a mixture of evergreen and deciduous shrubs described collectively as Renosterveld due to the dominance of Renosterbos, (Elytropappus rhinocerotis). Other co-dominants include Pteronia incana, Eriocephalus ericoides and the important firewood species, Rhus burchellii. The second major vegetation type forms part of the Acocks (1975) Succulent Karoo vegetation. It occupies the low-lying areas; mostly in the south-eastern part of Paulshoek around the settlement itself. Low growing leaf succulent shrubs, such as Ruschia robusta and dwarf evergreen shrubs such as Pentzia incana and the poisonous kraalbos, Galenia africana dominate the lowlands.
The two different vegetation types exhibit different forage qualities. Renosterveld vegetation is generally considered by local herders to be ‘sour’ and of lower dietary quality than the Succulent Karoo vegetation of the lowlands. Because of this, as well as the enhanced moisture availability and the relative inaccessibility of the mountain regions, Renosterveld retains a good cover and diverse mixture of perennial species. In some remote mountainous regions of Paulshoek, where water points are absent, the vegetation appears to have been only lightly disturbed by grazing animals.
The lowlands, however, present a very different picture. It is the low-lying areas which have been most affected by the heavy grazing pressure of the last sixty years. Several recent studies, which have compared different biological and physical components in communal (Paulshoek) and adjacent commercially managed rangelands, have highlighted what these changes have been. While overall plant diversity appears not to be significantly different in the rangelands managed under the two land tenure systems, plant composition is significantly affected (Todd, 1997; Todd & Hoffman, 1998). In the communal rangelands, the perennial plants have been replaced largely by a diverse annual component and also by the poisonous disturbance indicator species, Galenia africana. Plant cover, volume, flower production and seedling recruitment of palatable forage species are all significantly reduced in communal rangelands (Todd 1997).
This reduction in plant cover also has important implications for soil nutrient processes, as perennial shrubs form ‘fertile islands’ beneath their canopies as a result of organic matter accumulation from leaf litter and animal activity (Allsopp 1997). With the reduction in plant cover and shrub number, communal rangelands exhibit fewer fertile islands and thus potentially fewer available nutrients in the system. How this translates and perhaps limits primary production and dietary quality is uncertain. The switch to an annual dominated vegetation is likely to have important implications for the seasonal availability of forage. Primary production and hence forage availability is likely to become far more variable due to the sensitivity of annuals to rainfall amount and seasonality. The amount of forage available in the dry season is also likely to be very low due to the lack of palatable perennial shrubs.
Other biological components, which are affected by heavy grazing in the communal rangelands, are small mammals and insects. Because many small mammals in the Karoo are directly dependent on shrub cover to escape from predators, the reduction in cover in the communal areas has also brought about a reduction in small mammal diversity (Joubert 1998). Widespread, generalist species dominate the communal rangelands. Similarly, it is the widespread, generalist insect species, which increase in communal rangelands (Seymour 1998).
Finally, the impact of feral donkeys on the vegetation of Paulshoek, and especially on the lowlands, is widely acknowledged amongst local herders. Paulshoek farmers suggest that a donkey consumes as much forage as seven goats and thus competes with small stock for food. Vetter (1996) has confirmed the foraging ratio of 7:1 between donkeys and goats and has shown that it is on the lowlands that the impact of the donkeys is greatest. Despite this knowledge, and for a variety of reasons, solutions to the ‘donkey problem’ are difficult to achieve. There are however currently movements in the community to limit the number of donkeys any one person may own and local laws in this regard may come into force in the fairly near future.
Livestock farming
Livestock are the most important rangeland products in terms of cash income, subsistence production and employment. Fifty percent of households in Paulshoek own livestock. Estimates of total livestock holdings vary between 114 LSUs1 (Marinus, 1998) and 381 LSUs (SPP 1995), of which 56% are goats, 36% sheep, 9% donkeys and 1% cattle. Annual income from sales of goats and sheep totalled R11,320 in 1995; with a sales off-take of approximately 10% and consumption of livestock within the village of approximately 11%. These survey statistics are unreliable due to several unexplained survey anomalies and it is likely that both off-take and consumption are higher. Prices averaged R110 per head of small stock in 1995 (Marinus, 1998).
In the context of Leliefontein, Paulshoek is one of the least productive livestock farming areas, both in terms of output per hectare and price per head of animal sold (May & Marinus, 1995). This is reflected in Paulshoek's herd, which is composed almost entirely of small stock. High mortality rates of young stock in particular are reported by farmers and while a number of causes are likely, some of which might be alleviated by improved veterinary assistance, the highly marginal environment coupled with periods of climate induced stress are probably the root cause of high stock mortality. This relatively low production potential might be seen as a characteristic of subsistence farming in this marginal communal area.
Apart from sales of live animals and local consumption of meat, goats are also used for milk, which is not marketed commercially, but may be important in local bartering activities. The hides of sheep and goats are used locally or sold to traders. Wool is also sold to traders but has a very low market value.
Cattle in Namaqualand communal areas are of less importance than they were in the past (Kröhne and Steyn 1991). In Paulshoek this is probably a reflection of several factors including the vulnerability of cattle to climatic extremes, the difficulties of re-building herds of cattle after prolonged drought and veld degradation caused by over-stocking leading to lower production potentials.
Donkeys are mainly kept as trek animals and for ploughing of cropping areas. Ploughing with donkeys is a labour intensive, time-consuming practice and is becoming less common as mechanisation increases. Recently a tractor has been acquired by the village and is available for hire to plough cropping lands.
Small-scale, household related poultry production is common in Paulshoek, mainly for meat. Research into the rearing and feeding methods of village poultry farmers has yet to be carried out.
Grain crop production
Although grain farming has become less important in recent years, it remains an important livestock related subsistence activity. This is reflected in the survey findings of (Marinus, 1998) wherein 41% of households had access to crop lands (indicating that they have grown crops in the recent past) but only 17% were actively engaged in cultivation at that time. This might have been because of the poor prospects of rainfall during that year or the sign of a decline in active crop farming more generally.
In the past, cereal crops were sown both for human and animal consumption but today crops are grown mainly as a livestock fodder supplement for the dry summer months. Due to the low and unpredictable rainfall of the area, cropping is risky and yields low. The risk of complete crop failure is high although in some years the production of bumper crops follows from a season of exceptionally high rainfall: in 1983 one farmer reportedly sowed only two bags of seed and harvested 57 bags of grain. Oats (13.9 bags) wheat (3.5 bags) and rye (0.55 bags) were planted in Paulshoek during 1996. On average the crop yields are between 10 and 20 bags of grain for every 1 bag sown. Yields vary between 0.7 and 2.5 tons per hectare, with a likely average of less than one ton (May et al. 1997). How this compares to commercial farmers who fertilise their croplands is unknown.
Apart from economic considerations, farming has important social connotations, lending status and the respect associated with tradition to its practitioners.
Vegetable production
Vegetable production in Paulshoek is not well developed. A survey carried out in 1996 (May et al. 1997) showed that only 10% of the 139 households in Paulshoek were growing vegetables. Water scarcity for garden irrigation is a major limiting factor. Vegetable gardens occur mainly around stockposts where water is readily available. This is confirmed by the survey, which showed that households which had a vegetable garden also owned stock. The vegetables grown in 1995/6 were potatoes, cabbage, carrots, beetroot, tomatoes, onions and pumpkins.
Fuelwood
Wood is a very important source of energy in rural areas. Wood is used intensively because other sources of energy, viz, electricity, gas, paraffin and candles, are scarce, expensive to use and, in the case of electricity, unavailable. Even if electricity were available not everybody would be able to afford it. Where people are using gas and paraffin it is mainly for cooking and light, whereas wood is used for the heating of rooms, baking bread and boiling water. The most popular firewood species used is Rhus undulata; other species used include Lebeckia serica and Lycium cinereum. Fires provide an important context for socialising in the communal areas.
Wood for building
Most people in Paulshoek are of Nama descent (Robins 1997) and, hence, plants play an important role in the erection of shelters (Archer 1994). Traditionally, Namaqualanders lived in matjieshuis (mat huts). A matjieshuis consists of two components - a frame which would be made of long light, supple and durable poles (commonly used species include Ziziphus macronata and Rhus undulata) and the reed mats which cover the frame (Archer 1994). In Paulshoek brick houses are preferred by the more successful and prosperous villagers. Even though people have brick houses, they usually attach a cooking shelter ‘kookskerm’ to the house (a semi-circular, low-walled structure made of packed plant carcasses, e.g., Euphorbia mauritanica). The cooking shelters are now used more for socialising rather than for cooking as was traditionally done.
Medicinal plants
A survey done by May et al. (1997) shows that it is mostly the older people in the community who use indigenous plants for medicinal purposes. The survey also shows that all households used plants for ailments in one way or another and that the extent of plant use depends on the knowledge of the individual or their relationship with one of several local herbalists.
Veld foods
Numerous plants are considered a delicacy to many people in the village. These edible plants are not available throughout the year and there is a period of scarcity during the dry summer months. The older people in the community have a great wealth of knowledge about edible plants but today veld plants are only eaten to a limited degree due to a decline in knowledge and a decrease in availability. Plants that are widely eaten are Rhus viminalis, Cyphia ssp. and Fockea ssp.
Previous surveys, raw data and anecdotal evidence suggests that Paulshoek's cash economy is largely dependent on government welfare support in the form of pensions, disability grants and child maintenance grants (45% of total cash income). Income from agriculture, predominantly livestock, is a close second (35%) and income from wages and wage remittances comes last (20%) as a proportion of total cash income (Marinus 1998; May et al. 1997). The economy of Paulshoek forms a sharp contrast to the macro-economic environment of the district of Namaqualand where the economy is dominated by the mining industry (62%), followed by "Community services" (12.5%), trade and catering (11%), transport, manufacturing, construction etc. (9.5%) with agriculture a mere (4%) of total geographic product (van Ryneveld 1996). Marginalised communal settlements such as Paulshoek typify the highly skewed district economy which exists as a consequence of apartheid policies which forced the region's ‘coloured’ inhabitants into overcrowded labour reserves for the benefit of commercial farmers and the mining industry (SPP 1995).
While Paulshoek's economy is highly dependent on government support and wage remittances, the non-cash, informal economy is a more important element in the livelihoods of villagers than the raw data suggests (Kröhne & Steyn, 1991). Agricultural produce (milk, meat, skins, wheat, garden vegetables and fruit) and natural resources (firewood, wildlife, veldfoods, medicinal plants) are the currency of village trade. Preliminary research suggests that a more accurate estimate of the village economy based on the cash-equivalent use value of rangeland products would place natural resources and agriculture products as the most important source of income at 45% of total income value, with government assistance at 40% and wages at 15% (Solomon, 1998). Furthermore, central government is currently reviewing its system of social security payments, many of which will be reduced or re-structured; maintenance grants for poorer families and single parents are due to be cut in April 1998, and pension payments are also likely to be reduced. This will have immediate and important consequences for many families in Paulshoek.
In common with other marginalised communal areas in Namaqualand, the demography of Paulshoek is skewed between pensioners and young people, with a high proportion of de facto female-headed households and high rates of unemployment. While many able-bodied men seek work in surrounding mining towns or further afield in cities such as Cape Town, their contribution to the economy of the village remains relatively low. Farmers on the other hand constitute the main drivers in the internal village economy, often acting as extended household heads and incorporating the livestock of several extended family members in one herd. Over half of the village inhabitants own livestock, although in practice less than 25% are stock farmers (Marinus, 1998). These reciprocal stock farming practices also exist cross families, in networks of co-operation, which involve exchange of commodities and labour (Marinus, 1998).
Apart from the constraints inherent in the shortage of communal land, poor quality land and forced over-utilisation, water is probably the most limiting factor to the development of rural livelihoods in Paulshoek. In the first place, access to water is confined to the extraction of finite groundwater sources, either from bore-holes or wells and secondly water quality is affected by high ion content, which can be detrimental to human health (Pietersen et al. 1997). Contaminated water and/or water with an unacceptably high mineral content for human consumption is used for livestock and vegetable production.
Ground water is the major source of water for human consumption. This type of water is collected from bore-holes fitted with diesel or solar pumps (May et al. 1997). Another major source of water in Paulshoek is derived from run-off from a large granite dome in the village. The community has built a low wall around this dome to catch rain and during the rainy season large amounts of water are collected and stored and mixed with poor quality bore-hole water to improve its palatability (King, 1996). In 1996 tap water was supplied to individual plots in the village. This water is nominally paid for by the annual rental of house plots.
There are many problems with the water supply in Paulshoek: the water source itself is unpredictable as pumps regularly break and repairs can take several days due to a lack of funds or manpower. Although the responsibility for maintaining the water supply system lies in the hands of the village council, there appears to be a lack of accountability in this regard.
Livestock farmers move their stockposts seasonally from one point to another due largely to a scarcity of water. Annual, non-permanent waterpoints in the lowlands become exhausted in the summer and farmers are forced to move to more permanent waterpoints in the uplands: access to these water points and grazing areas is determined by negotiation between farmers and the official permission of the Leliefontein local council to whom an annual fee is paid for the use of a stockpost (R120 per year).
Although vegetable production is practised on a limited scale, fresh vegetables are scarce in Paulshoek. Gardening plots have been made available by the Transitional Council at R40 per plot. Soil analyses indicate that while most minerals are abundant, the application of nitrogen fertiliser would be required to grow vegetables effectively (Allsopp 1997). These plots are 5 kilometres away from the village. This means that owners/gardeners, mostly the older people, would have to walk at least 10 kilometres to water the garden, every second day. This could be one of the main reasons why none of the villagers made use of these plots in 1996. The plots are also not fenced and the risk of feral donkeys and unattended small stock destroying the vegetables may be too great. A lack of horticultural knowledge may also be a contributing factor.
There are 26 separate cropping areas available for rainfed grain production. Each plot is approximately 13.7 hectares. These areas are leased for a fee of R120 per annum per plot. Renting a plot allows the lessee to plant this area, but does not confer sole grazing rights (May et al, 1997). The lessee is not compelled to crop the area every year and in some cases plots have not been cropped for the last 50 years.
Seventy-seven percent of cropping plots are owned by livestock farmers (May et al, 1997). Access to these cropping plots is transferred from one generation to another and in some cases they have been in the same family for decades. Crop land can be claimed back by the Community Board, if the lessees are unable to pay the rent. Any member in the community can then apply to lease the plot. The lessees are allowed to sub-rent the plot in years that they do not intend to use the plot.
In Paulshoek there are 31 people who are either full-time or part-time farmers although probably as many as half of the village adult population own some livestock which are looked after by one of these registered farmers. Thus, different individuals own the animals that make up a single herd.
Anybody born in the village, ‘inboorling’, is allowed to graze stock in the surrounding 20,000 hectares of veld loosely defined as the Paulshoek farming area. These grazing areas are not owned by any organisation or institution, but are managed by the Paulshoek Development Forum. Everybody in Paulshoek who owns animals has the right to graze their animals in the area; this is an extension of the principle that birth rights, or "inboorling", convey automatic grazing rights on individuals. Conversely, livestock farmers from the surrounding villages are not allowed to graze their animals in Paulshoek, and disputes over boundaries and stock incursions from other villages are common.
Stockposts are normally situated close to water points. This does not imply that the stockfarmer is in control or owns the water point. In line with traditional Nama practices (Hoernle, 1987), everyone is entitled to access to water, although it is good policy to ask permission of the occupier at the time. Over-lapping rights to water, grazing and crop land mean that in practice it is sometimes necessary to restrict livestock access to water because of proximity to crop land. Farmers have a good understanding of the complex and informal rules of access to water but, in cases where rules are broken, the Paulshoek Development Forum will either penalise the farmer or the police might be called in to enforce regulations (May et al, 1997).
Wood collection is an inherent subsistence practice. The scarcity of good cooking wood is reflected in the fact that journeys to collect wood of between 5 - 15 km away from the village are necessary and could take up to 8 hours to complete. Closer to the village poorer quality firewood, for example Galenia africana, is gathered within 1 - 5 km of the village and could take between 1-4 hours to collect (Archer, 1994; Solomon, 1998). Everyone is entitled to collect wood from the veld although a prohibition on cutting live trees is by and large respected.
Namaqualanders have traditionally made their dwellings, "matjieshuts", of wood framing and reed mats (see Section 2.2). However, there are very few habitats in the Paulshoek area where reeds can now be collected. Villagers obtain permission from neighbouring commercial farmers to cut reeds on their farms.
The Paulshoek landscape is used primarily for cropping, grazing and fuelwood collection.
Cropping is most common in the northwest part of Paulshoek where extensive areas have been ploughed during the past 60 years. At any one time, however, probably less than 50 ha are under cultivation of winter growing cereals such as wheat, barley, oats and rye.
Livestock grazing has the most important impact on the rangeland resources of Paulshoek. About 30 herds, located on stockposts (veeposte) are scattered throughout the locality with a concentration around the settlement itself. Herd size ranges from less than 20 animals to more than 300 with a mean of about 100 animals. There is enormous variation in the time that herds stay in a particular location; some stockposts have been in the same place for over 50 years while others move every few months depending on water and forage availability.
In cases of operational or maintenance problems of the pumps, people revert to collecting water from wells in the centre of the village. These wells are not well maintained and are covered with a galvanised iron sheet. Water is normally collected with buckets that are contaminated in one way or the other, which in turn contaminates the water source. Children also contribute to the contamination of water whilst collecting water by playing in these wells. There is however a fence around the wells to keep livestock out. In dry periods water is carried from as far as 15 km away from the village. People pay between R18-R20 for 210 litres of water - amounting to 9 cents per litre (Pietersen et al, 1997).
Almost all households in Paulshoek make use of firewood. The evergreen shrub Rhus burchellii is a particularly favoured species and initial indications are that harvesting rates and methods are sustainable. The removal of shrub skeletons from the rangeland, however, poses severe threats to the healthy functioning of the ecosystem. These skeletons appear to act as refugia for the recruitment of important palatable forage species.
There is also a variety of plant species that is used medicinally, for food or as building materials. The impact of these collecting activities is however minor compared to that of grazing.
Paulshoek is situated in the communal area of Leliefontein in the magisterial district of Namaqualand, which is approximately 48,000 square kilometres in extent. Namaqualand's communal areas, formerly known as ‘Coloured Reserves’, of which Leliefontein is one, make up about 25% of this area and yet they contain more than 70% of Namaqualand's rural population. The communal areas are characterised by high unemployment, relatively high settlement density, overgrazing and a skewed demographic structure common to many of southern Africa's rural communal areas. They embody a legacy of racist policies in the service of capitalist development; the reserves have successfully served their purpose in supplying flexible cheap labour to the region's mines and commercial farmers since the late 19th century (SPP 1995).
According to recent estimates 73% of Namaqualand's gross geographic product (GGP) is generated by the mining industry, commerce is the next largest sector at 9%; transport is 6%, government is 5%, the financial sector at 4.6%, manufacturing at 1% and agriculture is in effect a net drain on the economy (-1.7%) to the extent that it is being subsidised (Solomon, 1998). The mining industry is also the region's major employer, accounting for 72% of formal sector jobs and 66% of all wages paid in Namaqualand as opposed to commerce at 12%, government 8%, transport 4% and finance 2%. Agriculture, at 2.3% rates very poorly in terms of the wage-earning potential.
Estimates of down-scaling in the diamond industry over the next decade project a 45% loss to the Namaqualand economy. Just one mine, (De Beers Namaqualand Mines), is due to close in 2004 and accounts for 58.8% of the Namaqualand diamonds. This one mine therefore accounts for 40% of the mining turnover and about 23% of the regional turnover. The "multiplier effect" of retrenchment in the mining sector means that commerce, transport and the financial sector will all be adversely affected. Even agricultural production is dependent on the mining sector - at least half of Leliefontein's marketed livestock are consumed by the region's mining companies (Solomon, 1998).
Income from wage labour makes a significant contribution to Paulshoek's economy, although at present it is impossible to analyse the sources of cash income from wage employment outside the village. However, it is known that wages are less important than other sources of cash income such as state pensions and welfare payments, to the maintenance of Paulshoek's poorer households.
The local economy benefits from wage remittances as capital investment in the form of livestock or improved housing. This reflects a pattern where young men are recruited to wage employment but return to the village and take up stock farming in middle age or near retirement. Stock farming is generally conducted at a subsistence level, with cash sales contributing only a fraction of the use value of livestock to the local economy. Surrounding commercial farms tend to carry much larger herds at up to half the stocking density but, even under these more favourable conditions, livestock farming in the area remains a precarious enterprise.
Namaqualand's economy seems poised on the cusp of an uncertain transformation: the mining industry is running down and the state support which propped up the reserve economies in villages like Paulshoek looks set to diminish in the near future. These factors alone could bring severe hardship into the lives of a rural population which is already marginalised and impoverished. One of the few macro-economic conditions that has some potential to offset the decline in the local economy is tourism. The unique flora of the region is a major tourist attraction and the development and diversification of tourist infrastructure will undoubtedly help to expand this sector. Another potential for development lies in livestock farming: the implementation of land reform will provide new opportunities for communal farmers in terms of an expanded land-base and improved management and marketing systems.
During the 1980s, Namaqualand's communal inhabitants waged a decisive campaign against the creation of 'economic units' on the communal land of the ‘Coloured Reserves’. Today, the National Land Reform Programme provides an opportunity to expand communal tenure, on the principles of equitable access and community control, targeted at the community's poorer members. Negotiations by the Department of Land Affairs for the purchase of commercial farmland adjacent to Paulshoek are at an advanced stage. This land will become commonage of the Leliefontein Transitional Local Authority, who in consultation with farmers’ organisations and the Department of Agriculture will develop and implement a land management plan in order to regulate access and sustainable use. Many dilemmas surrounding issues of management will have to be resolved during the coming year; in this respect, the timing of the Community Rangelands Project in Paulshoek could not have been more opportune. The potential for the Community Rangelands research team to make an immediate and positive contribution to the land reform process in Paulshoek, Leliefontein and Namaqualand generally, through its involvement with the Paulshoek community, is considerable.
2.7 Policies influencing Resource Access and Livelihoods
The overriding factors influencing the ability of Paulshoek residents to access local natural resources are based in the political history of the region. Pre-colonial and early colonial land-use practices involving seasonal transhumance gave way to sedentary settlements with semi-permanent stock-posts during the last one hundred years or so. Migration of discreet herds continues to take place, but only within the confines of Paulshoek's geographic borders encompassing approximately 20,000 hectares.
Paulshoek is one of nine farm villages in the communal area formerly known as the ‘Leliefontein Reserve’. Like the other ‘coloured’ reserves of the northern Cape, Leliefontein has a much higher population density than the commercial farms which surround it and consequently a higher stocking density and greater utilisation of natural resources such as fire-wood and building material. Internally, Leliefontein Reserve was governed by formal institutions which were also an instrument of the apartheid system, namely the ‘reserve management board’, which collected grazing fees, house and cropland rentals of each of the nine village and farm areas including Paulshoek. The management board was also instrumental in allocating resources and settling disputes over property and access to resources. However, the board could only operate effectively in conjunction with village-level informal institutions such as those established by 'traditional' and de facto rights of usufruct and kinship networks.
Presently, much of the previous apartheid legislation has been or is in the process of being repealed and new policies implemented. It is a period of transition in which many of the previous institutional structures governing resource access, although weakened, remain in place. Meanwhile, the national land reform programme is gaining pace in the Namaqualand communal areas. Part of the land reform process itself requires a restructuring of common property institutions involving farmers’ associations, village development committees and the transitional local authority (TLA) all of whom are engaged to some extent in this transformation process (see Archer, 1995; van Ryneveld, 1996; RSA, 1997; DLA 1997).
The acquisition of privately-owned farms on the reserve bordering Paulshoek by the Department of Land Affairs for use as commonage by Leliefontein farmers will require the formulation of sustainable management plans. The procedure for allocation of grazing on these new farms has also to be worked out through the active participation of the area's farmers’ associations and the TLC.
The control over access to grazing, water and crop land around Paulshoek remains by and large in the hands of local farmers. However, in response to the opportunity to form communal property associations under Land Reform legislation, residents in Paulshoek could opt to take powers previously reserved for the management board or the TLC into their own hands. In any case, it is likely that resource access in Paulshoek will continue to be based on traditional rights, kinship networks, usufruct and informal, and flexible common property institutions, although these might become more regulated by improved rangeland management schemes. What is not clear at this point, however, is how the control of access to newly-acquired local authority commonage will be integrated into the system extant within the old reserve areas such as Paulshoek. And finally, the whole issue of the restructuring of local government is potentially highly significant in relation to local resource access and use.
In December 1996 there were roughly 139 households in Paulshoek totalling approximately 800 people. The average household in Paulshoek had 5.1 members. Fifty two percent of those members were adults - people aged 18 or older. Households averaged 2.3 individuals in the economically-active group. Forty two percent of the resident heads were male and 33.3% were female. Absent male household heads constituted 17.3% and females 1.3%. The average age of resident household heads is 56.4 years and 40.5 years for absent household heads (May et al, 1997).
Although there is no weather station in Paulshoek itself, there is a comprehensive grid of weather stations present throughout Namaqualand in general. Rainfall data spanning more than 100 years shows that the region is subject to periodic episodes of high rainfall which can be more than 100% above the mean and episodic droughts. The rainfall records suggest however that these droughts do not last more than a few years. The majority of rain falls during the winter months and occurs as a result of circumpolar frontal westerlies. The coefficient of variation in annual rainfall is 33%. Because Paulshoek lies on the ecotone between the summer and winter rainfall regions, it occasionally enjoys summer rainfall from thundershowers from the east. Climatic models produced by the CCWR (Computing Center for Climate and Water Research) suggest that regions in the northwest of Paulshoek have significantly higher rainfall (250 mm) and lower mean annual temperatures (16oC) compared to areas in the southeast where it is hotter (17oC) as well as drier (180 mm). The mean monthly maximum temperature reaches 30oC in the summer while the mean minimum temperature falls to 3oC in the winter months. The last five years have all returned above-average annual rainfall totals.
2.10 Influence of Resource Access/Use on State of Rangelands
Water
Livestock farmers are over-exploiting the waterpoints closest to the village. The areas around the waterpoints are overgrazed and trampled, leading to erosion in their vicinity. The walls of waterholes also cave in and fill the hole with soil. In Paulshoek human consumption of water does not have a negative effect on the state of the rangeland.
Grain crop production
In Paulshoek crop production has been an important part of rural livelihoods. With cultivation of these areas the plant cover is removed. This changes not only the soil structures, but also the nutrient levels. Depleted nutrient levels are not quickly restored; even though some areas have not been cultivated for many years they have failed to return to their original state (in some cases more than 50 years). When these areas are abandoned, Galenia africana (highly unpalatable plant species) colonises and dominates, preventing other shrub species from colonising. According to May et al. (1997) this is a result of nutrient removal with crops, exposure of bare soil to wind and water erosion, and the removal of shrubs which enrich the surface soil.
Livestock farming
Livestock farming is the most important rural livelihood strategy in Paulshoek. This strategy has had a major impact on the condition of the rangeland. A large proportion of the rangeland in Paulshoek has become overgrazed and invaded by the shrub Galenia africana. The overriding cause of overgrazing appears to be overstocking and the lack of a coordinated grazing strategy that allows parts of the rangeland to remain ungrazed over any one season. The mean stocking rate over the last 30 years has been maintained at twice that recommended by the Department of Agriculture. The sustainability of these high stocking rates is unknown and poses an important research question.
Overgrazing changes the distribution of plants. In a study done by Todd (1997) looking at a fence-line contrast between communal and commercial areas, it was found that in overgrazed communal areas, annuals and geophytes become dominant. Although annuals are used intensively during the wet season, problems arise in the drier months when only unpalatable perennial plants are abundant.
2.11 Influence of Rangeland Products on Rural Livelihoods
Environmental conditions in Paulshoek make livestock farming a relatively marginal economic strategy and it remains, for the most part, a subsistence activity. A minority of people are dependent on the sale of livestock as their sole source of income, although other products such as milk, meat, wool and skins are also marketed. Livestock farming is also a form of social security: the uncertainty associated with employment in the mining sector is partly offset by capital investment in livestock, and animal products help sustain migrant workers' families in their absence as well as providing a source of income to fall back on in case of job loss (Kröhne & Steyn, 1991). Many of Paulshoek's farmers are middle-aged to elderly men, most of whom have been migrant labourers in the past. Migrant labourers also employ stock herders, thus injecting a small but important source of cash into Paulshoek's local economy.
The cultural values associated with livestock production play an important role in defining social relations and many other aspects of the common property resource base. Traditions of livestock farming provide a deep sense of identity and attachment to place without which the character and social dynamics of Paulshoek would be completely transformed or lost.
Other rangeland products which influence livelihoods are described in Section 2.2; however, further research is needed in order to understand the full extent to which rural livelihoods are dependent on these rangeland products.
Tourism is a nascent economic activity which might be thought of as a rangeland product since there is considerable potential for developing a village enterprise associated with the region's burgeoning tourist trade during the spring annual flower season. At other times of the year, campers and mountain-bike tours might also make use of Paulshoek's small community camp site, not to mention the influx of researchers who visit Paulshoek and whose numbers look set to grow over the coming years.
Paulshoek differs from many other marginalised rural African villages in the sense that it is presently in the midst of several radical economic, social and political transformations. Paulshoek is like a marginalised island of remnant subsistence practices and relative poverty surrounded by a sea of commercial farmers who prosper in Africa's most highly-developed industrial economy. By and large, the people of Paulshoek have been assimilated into the region's commodity-based cash economy through state welfare support and migrant wage labour. However, underlying these economic supports, strong links to the natural environment persist, through farming and limited subsistence activities. With the onset of democratic reform, land reform and integrated rural development, the importance of the environment, and the sustainable exploitation of its productive capacity will play an increasingly important role in focusing planners' and policy makers' attention on socio-economic problems. Furthermore, with the imminent reduction in the state's welfare allowances, the decline in the region's mining industry and the region's limited opportunities for economic expansion, the natural environment and its resources will probably play an increasingly important role as the region's most valuable asset in the future development of rural livelihoods.
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