Above ground woody community attributes, biomass and carbon stocks along a rainfall gradient in the savannas of the central lowveld, South Africa
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Scholes, Robert J
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6658 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007079
- Description: Enumeration of carbon stocks at benchmark sites is a necessary activity in assessing the potential carbon sequestration and possible generation of credits through restoration of intensively impacted sites. However, there is a lack of empirical studies throughout much of the savannas of sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa. We report an estimation of species specific and site biomass and carbon stocks, and general vegetation structural attributes from three protected areas along a rainfall gradient in the central lowveld, South Africa. Estimates of biomass and carbon stocks were effected through destructive sampling to establish locally derived allometric equations. There was a gradient of increasing woody density, height of the canopy, number of species, density of regenerative stems and a greater proportion of stems in small size classes from the arid locality to the mesic locality, with the semi-arid locality being intermediate. The proportion of spinescent species decreased with increasing rainfall. The mesic locality was significantly more woody than either the arid or semi-arid sites, having double the biomass, four times the density and 40% higher basal area. Above ground carbon pools were also higher; carbon stocks were approximately 9 t/ha for the arid and semi-arid sites and 18 t/ha for the mesic site.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Has deregulation of non-timber forest product controls and marketing in Orissa state (India) affected local patterns of use and marketing
- Authors: Mahapatra, A K , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6643 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006872
- Description: State control of marketing agricultural or forestry products may lead to a trade monopoly and restricted competition, resulting in inequitable returns to producers. Consequently, market deregulation for agriculture and other natural products has been advocated to improve market efficiencies, participation and returns for the producers and local traders. The study examines the impact of deregulation of state marketing controls on collection, sale and returns to extractors and traders from non-timber forest products. It assessed whether deregulation policy resulted in greater benefits to primary extractors and a win–win situation for both producers and traders? Mixed effects were found, with no significant changes in terms of trade, demand, or quantum of consumption; but there was an overall increase in the procurement price for several products following deregulation. The collection and farm gate price of tree based oilseeds and honey increased due to lower transaction costs, and ease of trading with a continued demand for these products. The impact on less valuable products was insignificant. Abolition of monopolistic trading increased competition and had a pull effect on the local market prices of several NTFPs. Although traders paid a higher price to procure products, overall they also benefited being able to sell the purchased products to merchants and manufacturers at a better margin than previously.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
The distribution, abundance and composition of street trees in selected towns of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Kuruneri-Chitepo, C , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6639 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006865
- Description: Street trees are an important component of the urban forest as they provide critical ecosystem services which contribute to human health and environmental quality. However, little is known about the distribution, diversity and density of street trees, particularly in the developing world where urbanisation is most rapid. Thus, the aim of this paper was to assess the distribution, composition and abundance of street trees across three towns along an environmental gradient in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, and identify the key challenges faced by local officials concerned with the provision of street trees. In each town, streets were randomly sampled in the commercial, affluent residential, township settlement and low cost housing areas under the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP). Attributes recorded per tree were species, circumference, height and health, while semi-structured interviews were conducted with the municipal officials involved in the establishment and maintenance of street trees. A total of 1,485 trees were encountered, comprising 61 species. The majority (56%) of trees were alien species. Noticeable differences in tree density and species richness were evident across suburbs, being highest in the more affluent suburbs and poorly represented in the low income township and RDP areas. There was a decreasing mean tree height and health score along the environmental gradient from the coastal town to the inland town. Although awareness of the benefits of street trees was high, as was the need to reduce the proportion of alien species, the primary constraint to establishment and maintenance of street trees in the three towns was limited budget and human resources.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
The potential for voluntary instruments to achieve conservation planning goals : the case of conservancies in South Africa
- Authors: Downsborough, Linda , Shackleton, Charlie M , Knight, Andrew T
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6629 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006821
- Description: Spatial prioritizations and gap analyses are increasingly undertaken to allocate conservation resources. Most spatial prioritizations are conducted without specifying the conservation instruments to be implemented and gap analyses typically assess formally protected areas but increasingly include private land conservation instruments. We examine conservancies to see if these voluntary instruments contribute towards achieving goals of South African conservation planning initiatives. We conducted a nationwide survey and interviews with conservancy members in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. Conservancies have potential for assisting South Africa to achieve conservation planning goals at national and local scales but their inclusion in spatial prioritizations and gap analyses predicates improved protection for nature, operational refinement and increased support. We sound a warning to conservation planning initiatives that incorporate voluntary instruments on private land, and present recommendations for strengthening such instruments to make them more effective. Our findings may assist conservation planners elsewhere to design more effective conservation planning initiatives focused on private land.
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- Date Issued: 2011
The role of non-timber forest products in household coping strategies in South Africa: the influence of household wealth and gender
- Authors: Paumgarten, Fiona , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6648 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006897
- Description: The prevalence and ranking of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) as safety-nets has been well discussed, but rarely quantified. We report on group discussions and household interviews in two South African villages to assess the frequency and nature of shocks and stresses over a 2-year period and the coping strategies employed, stratified by household wealth and gender of the de jure household head. Overall, kinship was the most widely adopted coping strategy, and NTFPs were the fifth most prevalent (employed by 70% of households). There were relatively few differences in the nature of shocks or responses between male- and female-headed households. Wealth influenced the experience of shocks or stresses as well as responses. Poorer households have fewer options with the increased use or sale of NTFPs being the second most commonly adopted strategy. Increased use and sale of NTFPs is a common manifestation of the safety-net function. To reconcile long-term economic development and biodiversity conservation, it is important to understand people’s use of natural resources and the factors that affect this use, including their responses to shocks and stresses.
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- Date Issued: 2011
Public green space inequality in small towns in South Africa
- Authors: McConnachie, Matthew M , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6644 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006874
- Description: The distribution of public green space within towns is frequently uneven, and influenced by attributes such as its location relative to the commercial core, as well as the ethnicity and relative wealth and education of the residents. Yet most studies are from large cities in developed countries. In contrast, this study reports on the distribution of public green space across 9 small towns in a developing country, namely South Africa, which offers a unique case study because of its former racially defined settlement patterns. We do so using GIS analysis of aerial photographs focusing on 3 types of suburbs in each town, defined on the basis of wealth as well as race-based history under the previous apartheid regime. The more affluent suburbs, inhabited mainly by whites, have the lowest density of housing and the highest area of green space per capita. Proportionally, they have a similar area under public green space as to the previously racially defined townships, but because of the lower housing density, they have a greater area per person. The newly built low-cost housing areas (termed RDP suburbs), occupied largely by poor black South Africans, are poorly endowed with public green space, and fare worse than the other 2 suburb types on all attributes measured. This needs to be addressed in further low-cost housing developments.
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- Date Issued: 2010
Reflecting on the next generation of models for community-based natural resources management
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Willis, T V , Brown, K , Polunin, N
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6659 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007083
- Description: Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has been a pervasive paradigm in conservation circles for three decades. Despite many potentially attractive attributes it has been extensively critiqued from both ecological and sociological perspectives with respect to theory and practice (for example Leach et al. 1999; Berkes 2004; Fabricius et al. 2004; Blaikie 2006). Nonetheless, many successful examples exist, although an equal number have seemingly not met expectations. Is this because of poor implementation or rather a generally flawed model? If the criteria and conditions for success are so onerous that relatively few projects or situations are likely to qualify, what then is the value of the model? The questions thus become: how and what can we learn from the past theory and practice to develop a new generation of flexible, locally responsive and implementable CBNRM models, and what are likely to be the attributes of such models?
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- Date Issued: 2010
The use and appreciation of urban green spaces: the case of selected botanical gardens in South Africa
- Authors: Ward, Catherine D , Parker, Caitlin M , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6662 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007086
- Description: There are few formal studies on the contribution of botanical gardens as urban green spaces, particularly within developing countries. Therefore, this paper reports on an assessment of the use and appreciation of botanical gardens as urban green spaces in South Africa. Users and staff were surveyed in six national botanical gardens. The gardens provided numerous benefits in terms of conservation, education and recreation. However, the people using the gardens were not demographically representative of the general population of the surrounding city or town. Generally, most of the visitors were middle- to old-aged, well-educated professionals with medium to high incomes. Most were white and English was their home language. There was an even gender representation. Most visited only a few times per year. The majority of users visited the gardens for recreation and psychological reasons rather than educational ones. However, the staff of each garden placed emphasis on education in the gardens and amongst surrounding schools. Most visitors appreciated the conservation dimensions of botanical gardens, and felt that there was insufficient public green space in their town or city. Understanding how people perceive and use the botanical gardens of South Africa is important to inform future research and strategies regarding the conservation of urban green space within a developing country.
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- Date Issued: 2010
Using local experts as benchmarks for household local ecological knowledge: scoring in South African savannas
- Authors: Steele, Melita Z , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6660 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007084
- Description: It is well recognised that local ecological knowledge is an important facet of natural resource management in rural regions of the developing world. However, techniques to assess levels and to integrate it into formal or informal management approaches require further development. In particular, quantitative tools are missing, which would allow more robust analysis of the factors that positively or negatively affect local ecological knowledge and vice versa. This paper reports on a quick assessment approach that provides a quantitative score of generalist local ecological knowledge at the household level. It does so by comparing responses to the knowledge of local people identified as experts within the community. In this way it is both locally constructed and contextualized, and thereby avoids pitfalls of trying to score local ecological knowledge relative to conventional scientific knowledge which frequently cannot account for local constructs. The approach is applied at eight villages throughout the savanna biome in South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Efficacy of solar power units for small-scale businesses in a remote rural area, South Africa
- Authors: Hajat, A , Banks, D , Aiken, R , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6636 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006860
- Description: Much work has considered the practicalities and affordability of solar systems for domestic energy supplies in remote rural areas. There is less understanding of its utility for small-scale business enterprises in such areas. We examined the patterns of use of two 12 V and one 24 V systems for small-scale enterprises housed in transportable containers. Monitoring of load shed and top of charge indicated that the 12 V systems were inadequate to meet the requirements of the enterprises. The 24 V operation performed a lot better. Despite some technical limitations the system offered a number of social, economic and environmental positives; primarily the offering of business products not otherwise available in the area, incomes to the entrepreneurs and greater connectivity with regional centres through office services such as cell-phone charging and faxing. Customers of the small-scale enterprises felt that their presence in the area saved them some money because they no longer had to travel as frequently to regional urban centres.
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- Date Issued: 2009
Is HIV/AIDS jeopardizing biodiversity?
- Authors: McGarry, Dylan K , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6642 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006871
- Description: The scourge of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is most prevalent in southern Africa. South Africa has the highest number of people in the world living with HIV/AIDS and a prevalence rate of over 30 % for females presenting at antenatal clinics. There are now almost five million orphans within southern Africa, as a result of AIDS deaths of one or more or their parents. AIDS-related mortality and morbidity of care-givers may lead to increased reliance on wild sources of animal protein by surviving children. This increase in hunting pressure has unknown, but potentially important impacts on local animal populations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Promoting indigenous vegetables in urban agriculture & livelihoods : policy lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Pasquini, Margaret W , Ambrose-Oji, Bianca , Drescher, Axel W
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6619 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016227
- Description: [From Introduction] Globally, the growth of urbanised areas continues at an exponential rate, and most spectacularly in the developing world. The global urban population will increase from 2.9 billion in 2000 to 5.0 billion by 2030. The mean rate of urban growth in non-OECD countries between 2000 and 2005 was just under 3% per annum, compared to 0.5 % for rural regions of the same countries (UN-Habitat 2006). Although the proportion of Africans currently living in urban areas is the lowest in the world (+ 40%), because of this low base it is not unsurprising that the rates of urbanisation are among the highest at approximately 4.3% per annum. Projections vary, but sometime in the mid- 2020s over 50% of Africa's population will be living in urban areas, as compared to just 15% in 1950 and 34% in 1994. As urbanisation takes place another important trend is revealed, namely the locus of poverty in Africa is slowly shifting from rural to urban areas. For example, it is estimated that more than 56% of the world's absolute or chronic poor will be concentrated in urban areas (WRI 1996). Since as much as 60-80% of the income of the urban poor is spent on the purchase of food (Maxwell et al. 2000), the issue of food supply, both its quantity and quality, is increasingly a central issue in poverty reduction debates and strategies. In rural areas, a common strategy to alleviate poverty is to call for measures to boost small-holder food production. Surprisingly, this is less common in urban poverty alleviation programmes, despite the widespread promise of urban and household agriculture in contributing to improved food security.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Quantity and significance of wild meat off-take by a rural community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Kaschula, Sarah A H , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6638 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006864
- Description: When compared to tropical forest zones in west and central Africa, off-take of wild meat from savannah and grassland biomes by local rural communities has not been well assessed. This case study of wild meat collection activities within a rural community in the Mount Frere region of the Eastern Cape (South Africa) uses last-catch records derived from 50 wild meat gatherers to calculate average off-take of taxa, species and fresh mass of wild meat per collection event. When per-event off take is overlaid onto household hunting frequency data, annual off-take would be 268.6 kg km−2 yr−1 or 3 kg person−1 yr−1 presuming constant off-take over an annual period. Monetary value of off-take would be South African R 307 (US$ 39) per household annually. For some species, off-take weight per km2 shows similar values to data from tropical forest zones, but high human population densities tend to dilute off-takes to less nutritionally significant amounts at the per person scale. However, unlike many tropical zones, none of the species harvested can be considered high-priority conservation species. Even densely populated and heavily harvested communal lands appear to offer high wild meat off-takes from low conservation priority species.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Wealth differentiation in household use and trade in non-timber forest products in South Africa
- Authors: Paumgarten, Fiona , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6646 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006892
- Description: Findings from southern Africa and internationally indicate the local use and trade of NTFPs to be significant however most present a composite picture, failing to account for intra-community socio-economic differences. These differences may have implications for policy and practice related to poverty alleviation and sustainable use. This paper reports on a study in South Africa which explored the relationship between household wealth and the use, procurement and sale of NTFPs in two villages. There was no influence of wealth on the proportion of households using or purchasing most of the NTFPs, or the number used. However, wealthier households bought significantly more resources per household, and poor households (at one village) sold significantly more. These results are discussed within the context of local conditions and poverty alleviation debates.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Will the real custodian of natural resource management please stand up
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6657 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007076
- Description: South Africa is the custodian of an immense wealth of biodiversity resources, and is estimated to be the third most biodiverse country in the world. At the ecosystem level this biodiversity supports the production of goods and services used by us all; water, air, soil fertility, wood, food, etc. At a more local level the harvesting of numerous natural resources provides consumptive products for millions of poor South Africans, as well as income for equally significant numbers.Consumption of and trade in these resources is the very mainstay of their well-being, and crucial in preventing deeper poverty levels. For example, despite massive improvements in the provision of electricity, most rural and a significant proportion of urban South Africans continue to use fuelwood as a key energy source for cooking (e.g. 65% of electrified households in the urban areas of Makana municipality, and 92% of households in the rural areas of Bushbuckridge); approximately 75% of the population use medicinal plants for medicinal or cultural reasons; and millions of urban and rural households make use of wild edible herbs. With such high demand for these resources, it is not unsurprising that there are large and established trade networks spanning local, regional, national and, for some resources (e.g. specific medicinal plants, mopane worms), international boundaries. The total value of this trade is unknown, and unrecorded in local or national economic or GDP statistics. It certainly equates to billions of rands per year. The direct-use and trade values are substantial and provide a cost saving to the State. Where biodiversity resources are overused or exhausted, people have to purchase alternatives, which reduces their scarce cash resources, thereby increasing their likely dependency on State welfare grants.
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- Date Issued: 2009
The extent of public green space and alien plant species in 10 small towns of the sub-tropical Thicket Biome, South Africa
- Authors: McConnachie, Matthew M , Shackleton, Charlie M , McGregor, Gillian K
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6713 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006755
- Description: Urban areas in developing countries will accommodate nearly 90% of the projected world population increase between 1995 and 2030. Despite this, few studies, especially in smaller towns, have been carried out on urban green space areas in the developing world. This paper makes a first step in this regard, reporting on the extent and state of urban green spaces within 10 small towns in the Eastern Cape (South Africa). After measuring the size and state (in terms of woody plant cover) of public green space, we then sought patterns across the 10 towns between green space attributes, such as area, density, mean size and proportion of alien or indigenous, with socio-economic attributes of the towns. The area and state of current public green space varied markedly between the towns, with the poorer towns faring the worst. Lower income levels were significantly negatively correlated with the area and quality of public green space. Despite this, human population density and per capita green space were the best predictors of the proportion and mean area of public green space present in the towns. The proportion of town green space and the per capita green space were the best predictors of changes in woody plant composition and density.
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- Date Issued: 2008
Changes in fuelwood use and selection following electrification in the Bushbuckridge lowveld, South Africa
- Authors: Madubansi, Mainza , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6641 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006867
- Description: Fuelwood is the primary energy source for domestic purposes throughout the developing world, in both urban and rural environments. Due to the detrimental impacts of biomass use on human and environmental health, many governments have sought to reduce its use through provision of potentially cleaner energies, of which electricity is the dominant form. Yet there are surprisingly few studies of changes in fuelwood use following the introduction of electricity, especially in rural areas of Africa. This paper reports on a longitudinal study of fuelwood use, using identical approaches, in five rural villages in the Bushbuckridge region of South Africa, spanning the period over which electricity became widely available. Almost a decade after the introduction of electricity, over 90% of households still used fuelwood for thermal purposes, especially cooking, and the mean household consumption rates over the 11-year period had not changed, even with a policy of 6 kWh per month of free electricity. The proportion of households purchasing fuelwood had increased, probably in response to a number of factors, including (i) increased fuelwood scarcity in the local environment as reflected by increased fuelwood collection times, changes in fuelwood species preferences, and ranking of scarcity by local collectors, and (ii) increases in the price of fuelwood well below that of other fuels and the prevailing inflation rate. Overall, there was an increase in the number of species harvested over the 11-year period. The implications of these findings for rural energy provision are discussed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Conceptualizing the human use of wild edible herbs for conservation in South African communal areas
- Authors: Dovie, Delali B K , Shackleton, Charlie M , Witkowski, Ed T F
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6626 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006818
- Description: The importance of wild edible herbaceous species to resource poor households in most rural economies within savannas has been little studied. This is because most of the herbs grow in impoverished species communities and lands, often referred to as ‘marginal lands’. The aim of this paper is to conceptualize how the economics of wild edible herbs to households can be used to add value to total livelihoods and conservation within traditional communal areas of South Africa. Analysis of the economics of the consumption of wild edible herbs in Thorndale (Bushbuckridge district) of the Limpopo province is presented. The majority of households consumed wild edible herbs, averaging 15.4 kg dried weight per household per year and valued at $167 per household. The herbs were mostly harvested from uncultivated areas of farms, and rangelands. There was little correlation between household characteristics and the dependence on wild herbs for food. The local people noted a decline in the availability of the species, although not much is known about attempts to cultivate them. The only reasons attributed to the decline were nutrient poor soils and insufficient rains. With this background, developing a local strategy to sustain the species through cultivation by households was found to be feasible. A multiple-use system for the herbs, their improvement and value addition towards commercialization and increased household usage may result in wider acceptance and subsequent cultivation. Species diversity will be enhanced whilst conserving the land on which they grow. This multiple use system may include species roles in soil and water conservation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Growth of Aloe ferox Mill. at selected sites in the Makana region of the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Gambiza, James
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6654 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007068
- Description: There is widespread harvesting of the leaves of Aloe ferox to supply bitters and gel for cosmetic and health products. Government and private agencies are interested in expanding the industry as a means of providing income for poor rural communities. With the growing interest in the commercial use of A. ferox it is important that harvesting programmes are based on an adequate understanding of the ecology and productivity of the species, which will underpin estimates of possible sustainable yields. In this paper we report mean annual growth rates of 283 A. ferox plants (at six sites) during the 2005/2006 season. Growth was variable across sites and plant height. In terms of sites, the mean height growth ranged between 1.7 cm per plant per year at site 4 and 4.6 cm at site 2. The mean height increment across all sites and plants was 2.8 ± 0.2 cm. Plant height had a strong effect on annual increment with small plants (< 6 cm) more than doubling their height in the 12 month period, whereas plants taller than 2 m grew by approximately 1% over the year. Across the five unburnt sites, the mean standing stock of leaves grew by two per plant. The proportion of plants flowering increased progressively with plant height. Most (90%) of the plants that flowered in 2005 did so again in 2006.
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- Date Issued: 2007
The importance of dry woodlands and forests in rural livelihoods and poverty alleviation in South Africa
- Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M , Shackleton, Sheona E , Buiten, Erik , Bird, Neil
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6653 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007066
- Description: Indigenous forests and savannas, along with plantation forests, offer numerous benefits to rural communities and society at large. Yet, the role of forests and forestry in contributing to sustainable livelihoods and poverty alleviation are widely debated. However, much of the debate pertains to lessons from the humid tropics, with little consideration of the widespread dry forests and savannas. This paper considers the role of dry forest types, including savannas, using South Africa as a case example. It concludes that a large proportion of the population makes use of forests and the resources from them. These are vital components of local livelihoods, which probably prevent people from slipping into deeper poverty. Moreover, for a measurable proportion, engagement in informal forest activities, as well as the formal forestry sector, has resulted in them being able to move out of poverty. Additionally, the generally dry nature of forests in South Africa, coupled with the high unemployment rate, limit the extent of alternative locally based livelihood options, thereby magnifying the contributions from forests and forest products. The depressing effects of widespread HIV/AIDS on labour availability, economic activities and livelihoods has exacerbated peoples' dependence on forest products.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007