Institutions and governance of communal rangelands in South Africa

The creation of local institutions with a mandate over land access and control is seen as a prerequisite for successful decentralisation of land tenure and effective local resource management in sub-Saharan Africa. However, with land tenure reform in South Africa currently at a state of legislative impasse, real uncertainty now exists over land rights and governance of rangeland in many communal areas. This paper draws on case study material from Eastern Cape province to illustrate how this ongoing uncertainty has resulted in the operation of a range of traditional authority and civil society institutions in different communal areas with varying degrees of legitimate authority over land administration and highly variable performance in managing rangeland resources. Collective management of rangeland resources seems most difficult in environments where land rights are contested because of the coexistence of traditional leaders and civil society institutions. On this basis an approach to tenure reform is advocated, which vests all powers over local land administration in democratically elected and accountable civil society institutions. Some successful examples of this already exist and might serve to guide policy formation, which must be flexible enough to accommodate collective management approaches that emphasise cooperation both within and between communities.Keywords: common property, land tenure, natural resource management, traditional leadersAfrican Journal of Range & Forage Science 2013, 30(1&2): 77–8

Leucaena leucocephala as a quality supplement to Pennisetum clandestinum foggage: A preliminary study.

The performance of growing beef steers grazing foggaged dryland Pennisetum clandestinum (kikuyu) pastures and given limited access (3 h d exp -1) to Leucaena leucocephala cv. Cunningham(leucaena) was compared to that of steers grazing only kikuyu foggage during autumn and early winter. Illustrates with graphs and tablesLanguage: EnglishKeywords: Forage legumes; Invasive aliens; Kikuyu; Leucaena; Leucaena leucocephala cv. Cunningham; Pennisetum clandestinum; Steer production; Winter supplement; animal performance; beef steers; dryland; foggage; grazing; leaves; performance; quality; leucaena leucocephala; pastures; winter; southern afric

A comparison of five methods for assessing veld condition in the Natal Midlands.

Reports the results of a study conducted to assess the precision with which five selected veld condition assessment methods are able to estimate the degree ofchange of a range site in relation to some agreed standard of excellence; Site rankings obtained from five methods of scoring veld condition in the Highland Sourveld and the moist tall grassveld of the Natal Midlands were correlated with rankings from methods of multivariate analysis. With few exceptions, all methods gave rankings which were strongly correlated with ranking from detrended correspondence analysis, thus indicating that they all provide a practical means of indexing the relative veld condition of sites with reasonable precision. The weighted quantitative climax and key species methods were superior to the other three methods in this respect. They key species method has the advantage of simplicity and speed, and should stimulate farmers to undertake routine monitoring of their veld in these two regions.Keywords: Benchmark method; botany; detrended correspondence analysis; grassveld; Grazing capacity; highland sourveld; key species; Key species method; KwaZulu/Natal Midlands; monitoring; multivariate analysis; Multivariate ordination; natal; natal midlands; Palatability method; precision; Productivity method; Site rankings; south africa; Veld condition assessments; Veld Condition Index; Veld conditions; Weighted qualitative climax methodJournal of the Grassland Society of Southern Africa

The influence of different land-use practices on soil erosion, herbage production and on grass species richness and diversity.

A fence-line contrast study compared erosion levels, herbage production and grass species diversity in Umfolozi Game Reserve (UGR) and adjacent Kwazulu (KWZ). There was no significant difference in soil loss or A-horizon depths measured in KWZ and UGR, but there were significant differences in both parameters when measurements from upper, mid and lower slope sites were compared. Similarly, there was no significant difference between herbage accumulated in KWZ and UGR in the absence of grazing, but there was a significant difference between the upper, mid and lower slope plots. There was also no significant difference between grass species richness was compared between upper, mid and lower slopes. The major conclusion drawn from these results was that differences in the topographical position of the plots, rather than differences in land-use practices, explained the greater amount of variability in the data.Language: EnglishKeywords: catena; erosion; fence-line contrast; Grass species; grasses; grazing; herbaceous biomass; herbage production; kwazulu; land-use practices; soil erosion; soil loss; south africa; species diversity; species richness; umfolozi game reserv