By Derek Carstens
Intro by Steuart Pennington: The land “expropriation without compensation” call by the ANC and the EFF has caused what can only be described as an hysterical debate. It seems that everybody, particularly every political party, is shooting from the hip before trying to understand the incredibly complex nature of the Land Issue.
In this article Derek Carstens puts forward an argument regarding how the land issue should be rationally dealt with.
But just to give some context I did some research on both ownership and usage. There are two land audits published by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, the 2013 audit considers user categories and use extent, the 2017 audit only considers ownership by race and gender.
It is a fact that 79% of land in South Africa is privately owned, but a large portion of this ownership is in the form of trusts, companies and traditional authorities, only 39% can be traced to private individuals. 14% is directly owned by the state, 12.5% is managed by the State, and some 7% is unknown – 8 360 000 hectares.
It is therefore very problematic to establish the racial breakdown of both ownership and usage. Usage too is difficult to track, mostly because municipal records differ significantly from what is happening on the ground.
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Thuma Mina 1
This monthly feature is our response to the President’s invitation: “Thuma Mina – Send Me”. It is a toolkit of ideas to help our readers respond to that call.
Connecting NGO’s
We have a dear friend and colleague by the name of Cindy McNally. Cindy lives in Durban. She is a wife, a busy mom to two little girls and a Chartered Accountant. She loves South Africa, social media and wine – not necessarily in that order.
Two years ago, Cindy decided to marry her passion for these three things with her desire to make a difference. One night whilst drinking a glass of wine and playing around on social media, she began to do some research. Were there groups on social media that connected the tens-of-thousands of NGO’s in our country, enabling them to collaborate? She discovered to her amazement that there wasn’t; that NGO’s in our country are largely very lonely, lone rangers.
SA NPO Network
So, without further ado, she started a Facebook group called SA NPO Network and quickly NGO’s all over the country began to connect.
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Cape Epic beneficiaries partner on conservation project
Cape Town, 13 March 2018: Human-wildlife conflict is the main challenge facing Cape leopard survival. Farmers fear leopards because of the risk to their livestock and personal safety. To raise awareness of leopard conservation, two charity beneficiaries of the ABSA Cape Epic will partner over the next few weeks to help dispel this myth. Children from the Anna Foundation will be hosted by the Cape Leopard Trust to explore wild areas on foot and on bikes to seek spoor, tracks or signs of other wildlife.
According to CEO of the Cape Leopard Trust, Helen Turnbull: “These leopards are extremely elusive and live in rugged, inaccessible terrain, so it’s difficult to be absolutely accurate about the number of wild leopards that still roam free across Absa Cape Epic territory. The organisation uses field cameras to investigate leopard presence, and a camera survey currently underway in the Cederberg indicates in preliminary findings that 47 individuals have been identified in that particular area,” she said.
Turnbull expanded how the organization is committed to using environmental education to inform communities about the role the leopard plays in maintaining eco-system health as apex predator. “Our educators use the natural environment to share knowledge around issues that affect leopard survival.” she added.
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