Abstract
South Africa’s history has left the country with a complex, racially skewed distribution of land resources. The aim of current government land policy is to bring about a more equitable distribution of land among the different population groups and to improve rural livelihoods through three initiatives; land restitution, land redistribution and land tenure reform. This paper explores the constraints on the Land Reform Programme in the Eastern Cape Province with reference to the current relationship between population density and potential biological productivity and considers the implications for land degradation. An examination of these issues at the provincial and district level, backed up by a local case study, points to important implications with regard to both historical patterns of land use and land degradation and the potential for land reform. It is concluded that the land reform program is constrained by the limited areas of low density, high potential land into which the population can move.
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Fox, R.C., Rowntree, K.M. (2001). Redistribution, Restitution and Reform: Prospects for the Land in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. In: Conacher, A.J. (eds) Land Degradation. The GeoJournal Library, vol 58. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2033-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2033-5_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5636-8
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