The land question in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya: a geographical perspective on resource endowment

In sharp contrast to the debates concerning land policy, land tenure and sustainable resource management in South Africa is any input concerning the geographical distribution of land productivity. This paper attempts to redress this imbalance by providing an empirical investigation of land potential in South Africa. In this way we intend to provide the crucial context for policy and academic studies of the land issue in South Africa. Furthermore, we will undertake our study in such a way that comparison can be made to Zimbabwe and Kenya where the land issue has been such a critical component of the post-colonial development process. Theoretically our work is contextualised within the debates surrounding the importance of geographical endowments, institutions and policies in the development process

Active learning for understanding land degradation : African Catchment Game and Riskmap

Land degradation is the result of the intersection of a complex set of biophysical and socio-economic factors. The capacity of an individual or community to address land degradation is likewise constrained. While it is quite possible for professionals and learners to grasp the main issues around land degradation from a theoretical perspective, internalizing the reality of what it means to be the resource degrader is more difficult. We have developed two active learning methods that aim to address this problem. The first is the African Catchment Game, a role-playing game based on Graham Chapman’s Green Revolution Game, adapted for the southern Africa context and incorporating a land degradation component. In this game participants play out the complex dynamics of rural-urban-global linkages against a background of environmental hazards. The second is based on Save the Children Fund’s RiskMap computer simulation that models risk in terms of rural livelihoods for different income groups. Ethiopia is used as the example. This paper evaluates the two active learning techniques as tools for exploring the relationships between land degradation and poverty through an evaluation of participants’ experiences

Extreme weather events in the Sneeuberg, Karoo, South Africa: a case study of the floods of 9 and 12 February 2011

Two destructive flood events occurred in rapid succession in the semi-arid Sneeuberg Mountains of the Karoo, South Africa in February 2011. The temporal and spatial characteristics of these two extreme events are examined in this paper through analysis of data from an unusually dense, and reliable, network of farm rain gauges. These analyses add to our understanding derived from existing rain gauge information. Comparisons are then made with patterns from a range of modeled products derived from remote sensed information: the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS). We found that the first flood event was widespread and precipitation was related strongly to altitude. The second was highly localised, with no relationship to altitude. Both had very sharply peaked rainfall intensities. These findings are of significance to the studies of flooding and landscape change in the area as such events have become more pronounced over the past 50 yr and it is likely that this trend will accelerate. The modeled patterns are derived largely from remote sensing and we found that they are reliable for drawing out monthly and annual variations but they make noticeable underestimates. They are poor estimates, however, both for the spatial distribution of precipitation, and the short term trends as they struggle to estimate the impact of topography and other local forcing factors. This finding corroborates information derived from other analyses at broader spatial scales using more widely spread, established rain gauge stations. Ten percent of southern Africa has been classified as mountainous and these areas provide much of our water resources so our findings are significant to water managers throughout this and similar mountainous regions

On the fast track to land degradation? A case study of the impact of the Fast Track Land Reform Programme in Kadoma District, Zimbabwe

The Fast Track Land Reform Programme is the defining instrument for Zimbabwe’s future development prospects. In the three year period from 2000 to 2002 300,000 families were resettled on 11 million hectares thus witnessing the end of the colonial division of land which had seen 15.5 million hectares still in European hands in 1980, the start of the post-colonial period. The process which displaced the commercial farm workers and farm owners was chaotic, violent and disorderly and so has been called jambanja. Subsequent legislation and government agricultural initiatives have attempted to impose, retroactively, technocratic order to the sweeping changes that have taken place. Our study shows that the dire macro-economic situation coupled with trends of HIV/AIDS prevalence means that developing sustainable land use practices is going to be a very difficult proposition. At the local scale, our case studies show that there have been multiple outcomes with low investment, very limited government support and resource extraction leading to land degradation and unsustainable farming practices. In some instances, however, individual households have benefitted in the short term from the process but this has only occurred where climatic and soil conditions have been particularly favourable

Futures studies for the southern African region : ‘from Africa’ not ‘on Africa’

Futures studies is well established in the Nordic region and its history can be readily charted, but in Africa it barely exists in an institutional form and its evolution and impact is little known or understood. The first two sections of our paper briefly examine the history of futures studies, spending most attention on the African experience. We go on to show that the Higher Education landscape in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is very different to that in the Nordic region. Recent futures reports present forecasts and scenarios that show a differentiated Higher Education landscape in the SADC; there are few Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and even the most optimistic forecasts show that the region as a whole will not meet the international enrollment norm of 30% by 2050. The last part of the paper examines our experience of collaboration with Finland and its well developed linkages between state and Universities. One outcome of three years of collaboration from 2007 to 2009 between two SANORD members, the Finland Futures Research Centre (now a part of the University of Turku) and Rhodes University, was a proposal to develop a multi-disciplinary, inter-institutional futures studies program intended to help Africa find its own voice in futures studies. The final part of our presentation reflects on the unsuccessful experiences that we have had to date in finding funding. We conclude by asking whether our experience can be seen as highlighting some of the challenges SANORD may be positioned to overcome if the SADC region’s HEIs are to achieve the Knowledge Village scenario and begin to match their Nordic counterparts

Exploring risk related to future climates through role-playing games: the African catchment game

Risk is the result of two interacting components: hazard and vulnerability. Climatic hazards are related to extrinsic factors such as drought or severe storms. Vul- nerability is the result of intrinsic factors that often arise from the socio-political- economic context. The interplay of risk and vulnerability is difficult to predict. Although computer models have been widely used to forecast climate related risk, albeit with con- siderable uncertainty, they can never capture sufficiently the vulnerability of human sys- tems to these hazards. Role-playing games can be used more realistically to simulate pos- sible outcomes of different climate change scenarios, and allow players to reflect on their significance. The authors have developed the African Catchment Game to simulate a wa- ter scarce African country. Risk can be modelled mechanistically by changing the nature of the annual rainfall input. Vulnerability can in part be modelled by changing the start- ing parameters (such as access to land and resources) and, secondly, through the unpredictable response of players to game dynamics. Players’ reflections demonstrate that through the game they become more aware of the concept of risk and the complex response of individuals and societies that determine their vulnerability to climatic hazards. This paper reflects on the potential for developing the game further as a tool for participatory learning around climate change, based on the authors’ experience of playing the game with participants from South Africa

Studies in Carthusian history in later medieval England : with special reference to the Order's relations with secular society

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D37844/81 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

'White knuckle care work' : violence, gender and new public management in the voluntary sector

Drawing on comparative data from Canada and Scotland, this article explores reasons why violence is tolerated in non-profit care settings. This article will provide insights into how workers' orientations to work, the desire to care and the intrinsic rewards from working in a non-profit context interact with the organization of work and managerially constructed workplace norms and cultures (Burawoy, 1979) to offset the tensions in an environment characterized by scarce resources and poor working conditions. This article will also outline how the same environment of scarce resources causes strains in management's efforts to establish such cultures. Working with highly excluded service users with problems that do not respond to easy interventions, workers find themselves working at the edge of their endurance, hanging on by their fingernails, and beginning to participate in various forms of resistance; suggesting that even among the most highly committed, 'white knuckle care' may be unsustainable