“Land reform is a key part of government policy, spurred politically by the claims of the landless, as well as the land reform pressures in countries like Zimbabwe. It is clear to national and provincial
governments that land reform should be speeded up. This paper makes the following argument: Municipalities need assistance with establishing viable commonage management systems; such systems need to be based on the voluntary and committed participation by the users (that is ‘people-centred’); and this, in turn, requires an understanding of
the emergent farmers’ knowledge base of the environment. This paper considers the prospects for commonage use in the arid areas of South Africa, notably the Nama-Karoo, or non-succulent Karoo, characterised by small shrubs and grass species. This geographic area should be differentiated from the Succulent Karoo of the Namaqualand and
southern Cape areas, which have different rainfall and vegetative patterns. The Nama Karoo is the northern part of the Karoo, and is the largest biome in South Africa. It is characterised by low and variable rainfall, mainly in the summer months. It stretches up to the southern Free State. This geographical demarcation is also significant because of its land tenure characteristics. The
phenomenon of ‘commonage’ in the Nama-Karoo area refers to municipally-owned land, whose
overriding purpose has been for the use of urban residents.”
