1,721,011 research outputs found
Access, use, and regulation practices in Lower Silvermine Wetland. Fish Hoek Cape Town
Get PDFA political ecology approach was taken in explaining the context of resource use. Political ecology seeks to understand politics about nature. Where access and regulation practices are political tenets within the commons issue understudy in Lower Silvermine Wetland. Hence they are resources held in commons within the Lower Silvermine Wetland. Where there are multiple users with different claims and interest. The ability to derive benefits from resources known as access is essential as it helps in understanding the perceptions and relation of users to the wetland. Within the two concepts of political ecology and access, it sought to locate and situate access into the Lower Silvermine Wetland by focusing on users use, regulation by authorities and nature. Nature users derive benefits from the Lower Silvermine Wetland. This is shown by the way they relate, use, and perceive the wetland. User access is pivotal to the study as it shows what the Lower Silvermine Wetland means to different users. Therefore nature means different things to different users, and this determines the way they use the wetland. The other part of the study becomes significant because as much there is access into the Lower Silvermine Wetland, regulatory measures are in place to prohibit users from doing other forms of activities into the Wetland Lower Silvermine Wetland. This is controlled through permissible and non-permissible operations that have been put in place by authorities that regulate and control the commons area understudy. It is of concern that some regulatory measures have caused deprivation of access, and some have been weak that an enhancement in regulation should be considered. Access into the Lower Silvermine Wetland has led to a lot of misunderstanding between users and authorities. These misunderstandings are a result of use, regulation, and maintenance. It is important to note that everyone has the right to access wetlands, according to the South African Constitution. This is important to the study as every user has the right to access nature without restriction as long they don’t break the control measures. This will lead to conserving plant and animal diversity also to ensure access is derived without any safety or security threat. At the same time if regulation and control is followed it will lead to a good user nature relationship. Hence ensuring that authorities understand each other and maintain the Lower Silvermine Wetland. Therefore the study becomes pertinent in establishing implications of regulatory practices in the Lower Silvermine Wetland
Local perceptions of the fast track land reform programme (FTLRP) in Umguza resettlement scheme in Zimbabwe
No full textMagister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS)Fast track land reform in Zimbabwe has caused a raging debate drawing a lot of attention to the re-distribution programme. The invasion of commercial farms had a bearing on agricultural production, food security, security of tenure, rule of law and respect for property rights. This thesis examines the implications of such a frayed land reform resulting in strained donor and government relations. The crux of the argument is that land reform is harmful and damaging when the rule of law is flouted, directly impacting on social and power relations at grassroots level. These strained relations result from a lack of commitment by government, external donors and white commercial farmers to correct land injustices from the colonial period and ineffective agencies of restraint. This thesis will test these perceptions and views basing on the experiences of the grassroots people. It will also attempt to test whether the land question in Zimbabwe has finally been resolved or there are still aspects to it that need attention, since land reform is often viewed in moral and political terms. Was poverty alleviation prioritized in fast track land reform by giving land to the landless poor; to help redress population imbalances or meant to reward those who struggled for liberation? The thesis attempts to answer the question of ‘equity’ or restructuring of access over production and ownership of land. It then questions the equity trump card as touted by the government. Did the government commit another injustice while trying to redress past injustices by overlooking the rightful claimants in favour of entrenching state power? This thesis contributes to the raging debate on fast track land reform in Zimbabwe, using the case study of UMguza resettlement scheme
Politics of belonging and alienation: underprivileged communities' experiences of the False Bay Nature Reserve
Get PDFThis thesis examines the experiences of underprivileged local communities surrounding the False Bay Nature Reserve in Cape Town, focusing on their sense of belonging or alienation. Conservation efforts often inhibit local communities' sense of belonging to nature, as they are seen as detrimental to conservation goals. This human alienation from nature conservation is prevalent across Africa due to a history of colonialism, racial discrimination and processes of exclusion. This further marginalises communities already facing spatial, social and economic exclusion in townships. Drawing on a diverse body of literature, this thesis examines concepts of alienation and belonging in human-nature interactions in the False Bay Nature Reserve. It employs qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and ethnographic methods such as participant observation, to capture local voices and perspectives. The findings indicate that the underprivileged township communities living around the False Bay Nature Reserve experience strong feelings of alienation and non-belonging. Several factors emerged through the study, including the structural and spatial organisation of the nature reserves in the context of the so-called coloured townships; communities' precarious economic circumstances; and deeply rooted identity crises alienating the coloured communities from their heritage and connections to nature. The study, however, also identifies various initiatives that aim to enhance belonging to nature, such as Environmental Education (EE), community organisations, and employment opportunities in the nature reserve. In addition, Rastafarians in the community serve as custodians of both nature and indigenous knowledge, helping to restore the community's relationship with nature and its indigenous identity. This thesis suggests that the lingering colonial legacy of urban nature conservation in Cape Town results in a violent and alienating relationship between nature and surrounding local communities. However, it also identifies community-focused initiatives and pathways for reconciliation. By capturing the experiences of a wide variety of community members, this thesis provides an analysis of deeply personal experiences and informal interpersonal interactions with nature that define belonging or alienation to the nature reserve
Militarisation of conservation, violence and local people: the case of Sikumi Forest Reserve in Zimbabwe
Get PDFViolence in protected areas has become more pronounced in the last decade due to the increasing use of military practices in conservation. This study examines the texture and nature of everyday militarisation and violence effected in protected areas different from national parks and wildlife conservation. It also examines the consequences of militarised conservation on people living in, or adjacent to, these protected areas. The analysis takes a case study and ethnographic approach. It is embedded in daily patrol activities of the state paramilitary unit responsible for conservation enforcement and in experiences, with the practice of militarisation, of people living around Sikumi Forest Reserve in Zimbabwe. The study demonstrates that the form and texture of militarisation in conservation are dependent on the type of protected area, and the nature of resources under protection. It is additionally dependent on the political-economic context, and the capacity, of the state authorities responsible for protected area management, to execute military practices. Thus, protected areas that are different from national parks and, or, managed by organisations without resources to implement militarised conservation policies, may paint a different picture of militarisation. They can enforce militarised policies and strategies but only in a symbolic manner towards halting armed poaching activities. These insights reflect an alternative pattern of militarisation, which this study frames as symbolic green militarisation. Symbolic green militarisation is developed to provide alternative thinking to the idea that use of paramilitary personnel, strategies and technologies transforms protected areas into war zones or deadly landscapes. The study presents evidence that while symbolic green militarisation may not result in high-level violence, it is sufficient to expose local people, who depend on protected areas for subsistence, to particular and diverse forms of direct and indirect violence. These forms of violence are often facilitated and perpetuated by factors beyond immediate conservation practice. The study broadly argues that, regardless of the texture and nature of militarisation, demonstration or use of any amount of force in protected areas has rather significant consequences for local people who need such spaces to support their development. Overall, the resurgence of fortress conservation coupled with the adoption of military practices represents hope deferred for local people
Tackling poverty at its roots: a case study of skills development in integrated conservation and development with the example of the Working For Water programme
No full textThe South African government has been challenged to combat persistently high rates of structural unemployment and poverty among parts of the previously disadvantaged population since the country's political transition in the 1990s. One policy response is the introduction of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), which seeks to alleviate poverty by providing labour-intensive work opportunities for the unemployed in the sectors of infrastructure, environment and culture, economics and in the social sector. In 2014 the second phase of the EPWP will come to a close. The environmental sector of the EPWP addresses issues of biodiversity conservation and natural resource management, and offers work opportunities in programmes such as the Working for Water (WfW) programme. South Africa is one of the most bio-diverse countries in the world and a pioneer in the control of invasive alien plants (IAPs). The WfW programme provides work opportunities and training for beneficiaries and contractors to control IAPs, using biological, mechanical and chemical methods. Skills development in the EPWP is regarded as a key factor to overcome unemployment and poverty on a long-term basis. Using the case study of the Citrusdal Water Users Association (CWUA), a project of the WfW programme, this thesis analyses to what extent and of what developmental value the environmental EPWP fulfills its objective of skills development. The training model of the WfW programme in the Western Cape, with special focus on the project CWUA, serves as analytical tool. Data was collected through qualitative interviews among WfW officials of the Western Cape Regional and the National Office, and supported by a questionnaire among 79 beneficiaries of the CWUA project using closed dichotomous questions. Furthermore, the research was informed through the review of internal WfW documents such as training matrix, training strategy and literacy assessment results of beneficiaries, as well as a questionnaire conducted by WfW officials and analysed by the researcher. The thesis has found that the training model currently in place deals only with the symptoms of poverty and that the relief is of temporary nature. Skills development ends at the programme boundaries and has little impact on the beneficiaries' enhancement of future employability. The model does not make full use of its potential to contribute to longterm reduction of unemployment. Reasons are found in the multi-objective context of nature conservation, job creation and skills development, which leads to the neglect of the latter. This research adds to the literature of Integrated Conservation and Development (ICD) on a governmental level and questions whether interventions such as the EPWP contribute to the socio-economic development of the South African population from a long-term perspective
Planting trees, planting hope: an analysis of the role of urban forestry in addressing environmental inequality in Cape Town
No full textThe presence of trees in urban spaces has been identified as providing numerous environmental, psychosocial, and economic benefits. However, rather than being an equally distributed resource which all city residents share, tree cover in Cape Town, South Africa tends to be a marker of environmental inequality and racism, with trees being significantly more prevalent in wealthy, predominantly white, areas as opposed to poor, predominantly black, ones. The present study aims to analyse the potential for urban forestry to address this inequality. In order to gain in-depth understanding, a case study of an urban forestry project at the Lathi-Tha School of Skills in Khayelitsha is conducted. Within this framework, semi-structured and photoelicitation interviews are undertaken with 5 learners and 4 staff members in order to determine participants’ experiences and perceptions of their urban forestry project. The findings suggest that urban forestry does have the ability to redistribute the environmental, economic, and psychosocial benefits of tree cover to poor communities. Additionally, participation in urban forestry in South Africa is shown to have the capacity to tackle social inequalities that continue to recreate green-space inequality
Local perceptions of the fast track land reform programme (FTLRP) in Umguza resettlement scheme in Zimbabwe
Get PDFMagister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS)Fast track land reform in Zimbabwe has caused a raging debate drawing a lot of attention to the re-distribution programme. The invasion of commercial farms had a bearing on agricultural production, food security, security of tenure, rule of law and respect for property rights. This thesis examines the implications of such a frayed land reform resulting in strained donor and government relations. The crux of the argument is that land reform is harmful and damaging when the rule of law is flouted, directly impacting on social and power relations at grassroots level. These strained relations result from a lack of commitment by government, external donors and white commercial farmers to correct land injustices from the colonial period and ineffective agencies of restraint. This thesis will test these perceptions and views basing on the experiences of the grassroots people. It will also attempt to test whether the land question in Zimbabwe has finally been resolved or there are still aspects to it that need attention, since land reform is often viewed in moral and political terms. Was poverty alleviation prioritized in fast track land reform by giving land to the landless poor; to help redress population imbalances or meant to reward those who struggled for liberation? The thesis attempts to answer the question of ‘equity’ or restructuring of access over production and ownership of land. It then questions the equity trump card as touted by the government. Did the government commit another injustice while trying to redress past injustices by overlooking the rightful claimants in favour of entrenching state power? This thesis contributes to the raging debate on fast track land reform in Zimbabwe, using the case study of UMguza resettlement scheme
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Community-based natural resource management: The case of Community Forest Management Areas in Pete, Zanzibar
Get PDFThe shift from centralised conservation to Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) was the highlight of the conservation discourse across the world during the late 1980s and early 1990s. CBNRM efforts were believed to have the potential of successfully merging biodiversity conservation simultaneously with local development efforts. However, the increasing critiques against the applicability of CBNRM interventions in different contexts is threatening the viability of the approach. Extant literature on CBNRM interventions focuses on the theoretical aspects of such efforts at the expense of the practical and context specific elements. This thesis intends to fill such a gap in literature by focusing on the practical and contextual elements of an example of this approach in Zanzibar. In an attempt to conserve the isles' natural forests, Zanzibar has adopted Community-Forest Management Areas (CoFMAs) bordering its natural forests. In this study, focus is placed on Pete's CoFMA, a village bordering the isles' last remaining natural forests- Jozani-Chwaka Bay National Park (JCBNP). Pete provides an ideal site due to the conflict that exists between residents and the CoFMA intervention. By using the political ecological framework, this study is able to examine the political, social, historical and economic elements that play a significant role in the practice of CBNRM efforts. Narratives from residents are relied on to elucidate on such elements in relation to the existence of the CoFMA in Pete Village. Narratives gathered through interviews and participant observation concluded that while CoFMAs have been set up with the optimistic goal of conserving the forest and providing development to community members; in practice, the conservation intervention has proved otherwise. In spite of the achievement of some developmental goals, the overall findings indicate that the CoFMA has failed to protect the forests and its natural resources from degradation. At the same time, community members are facing difficulties to live a sustainable life
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