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Land‐cover change and human–environment interactions in a rural

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Article  in  Geographical Journal · March 2007

DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2007.00227.x

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The Geographical Journal, Vol. 173, No. 1, March 2007, pp. 26–42

Land-cover change and human–environment

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

interactions in a rural cultural landscape in

South Africa
MONICA GIANNECCHINI*, WAYNE TWINE*† AND COLEEN VOGEL‡
*School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, PO WITS, 2050,
Johannesburg, South Africa
†E-mail: twine@gecko.biol.wits.ac.za
‡School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand,
PO WITS, 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa
This paper was accepted for publication in November 2006

This paper presents an historical analysis (1974–97) of associations between land-cover

change and socio-economic factors for three villages in a former bantustan region of
South Africa. The notion of social–ecological systems is used as the conceptual framework
for this analysis, in which the former bantustan region of Bushbuckridge is posited as a
cultural landscape. The local landscape showed distinctive modifications over the study
period, broad trends including the growth of human settlements and the decrease in
woodland cover. However, changes were not uniform across sites, and the direction and
magnitude of changes in land cover were often nonlinear and site-specific. Analysis of
associations between biophysical and socio-economic changes at different scales revealed
a range of important interacting forces such as population growth, drought, shortages of
land, grazing and wood resources, weakening institutional governance of natural resources,
and the diversification of livelihood strategies, including the sale of fuelwood, concurrent
with declining employment security and cattle ownership. Evidence suggests a possible
erosion of resilience in these social–ecological systems at various scales, with important
implications for socio-economic development and sustainable resource management.

KEY WORDS: South Africa, environmental change, cultural landscapes, social–ecological

systems, livelihoods, resilience

land-cover change is closely linked to the sustaina-

Introduction
bility of socio-economic development (Fox et al.

A
nalyses of the drivers of environmental
change have been increasingly criticized for
being too simplistic (e.g. Leach and Mearns
1996; Lambin et al. 2001; Geist and Lambin 2002).
These authors assert that a deeper understanding of
the causal mechanisms of these changes is needed
in order to refine simplifications and debunk
certain myths that persist in much of the current
understanding of causes of land-cover change in
the developing world. Importantly, generalizations
have often resulted in a glossing over of regional
and local drivers and indicators of land-cover
change (Geist and Lambin 2002). Understanding
local patterns and processes is important since
1995; Lambin et al. 1999). It is thus significant that
the call has been made for research on sustainable
development to take place at finer scales (Kates
et al. 2001; Turner et al. 2003; Eriksen et al. 2005).
In Africa, place-based studies have yielded useful
insights into linkages between rural livelihoods, socio-
economic change and environmental change, with
important implications for development policy (Vogel
1995; Campbell 1999; Reid et al. 2000; Orr and
Mwale 2001; Bryceson 2002; Eriksen et al. 2005).
Few studies have assessed the relationships between
land-cover change and socio-economic factors at a
local level in the former bantustans of South Africa
(also referred to as ‘homelands’). These areas are

0016-7398/07/0002-0001/$00.20/0 © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
home to approximately 2.4 million rural households
(Statistics South Africa 1999), who still depend
heavily on the land and its natural resources for their
livelihoods (Statistics South Africa 1999; Shackleton
and Shackleton 2004). The economic and social
values of land-based strategies to rural livelihoods in
South Africa, including natural resource harvesting,
have not been fully appreciated by policymakers,
especially with regard to direct provisioning and as
part of the ‘rural safety net’ (Cousins 1999; Shackleton
et al. 2001; Shackleton and Shackleton 2004).
The former bantustans have typically been
characterized as severely degraded due to overgraz-
ing and overharvesting of resources, often using
commercial cattle ranches as benchmarks for
comparison (De Wet 1987; Boonzaier et al. 1990).
However, the notion of communal rangelands being
irreparably damaged has been challenged by some
authors (Shackleton 1993; Harrison and Shackleton
1999; Critchley and Netshikovhela 1998). Where
high levels of environmental degradation have been
demonstrated, these have been associated with a
combination of particular biophysical factors (e.g.
steep slopes and high mean annual temperatures)
and socio-economic characteristics (e.g. high human
densities and high reliance of the population on a
few wage-earners) (Hoffman and Todd 2000). More-
over, the use of commercial farms as the reference
point in assessing communal lands is contestable,
as communal areas are multiple-use landscapes,
shaped and transformed by a range of interacting
environmental and human factors (Batterbury 2001;
Twine 2005), where economic goals may be
secondary in influencing resource management
strategies such as animal husbandry (Everson and
Hatch 1999; Dovie et al. 2006). They are, therefore,
intrinsically different systems to single-use economic
landscapes such as commercial farms.
As such, the bantustan landscapes exhibit features
common to cultural landscapes. Farina (2000)
defines cultural landscapes as ‘geographic areas in
which the relationships between human activities
and the environment have created ecological,
socio-economic and cultural patterns and feedback
mechanisms’. Human disturbances are varied and
occur simultaneously at different intensities and
spatial and temporal scales, giving rise to a ‘network
of interactions between resources and users, shaping
a diversified natural, cultural and economic mosaic’
in a heterogeneous landscape (Farina 2000). In this
context, we suggest that the former bantustans can
be regarded as modern cultural landscapes.
Cultural landscapes are clearly an example of
social–ecological systems, which are ‘ecological
system[s] intricately linked with and affected by one
or more social systems’ (Anderies et al. 2004). Social–
ecological systems are complex adaptive systems
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
27
characterized by cross-scale interactions and feedback
loops between ecological and socio-economic
components, often resulting in re-organization of
these components and nonlinear trajectories of
change (Berkes and Folke 1998; Folke 2006; Walker
et al. 2006). Resilience is a key property of cultural
landscapes and other social–ecological systems,
and can be defined as the capacity of the system to
withstand or recover from shocks through self-
organization and adaptation (Berkes and Folke 1998;
Farina 2000; Carpenter et al. 2001; Folke 2006;
Smit and Wandel 2006; Walker et al. 2006).
If we assume that the former bantustans are
cultural landscapes, we expect to find complex cross
scale interactions and feedback loops between the
rural communities and the surrounding communal
lands, giving rise to heterogeneous landscape
mosaics. We also expect to find examples of resili-
ence and adaptation in the system. Importantly,
these rural communities are undergoing rapid social,
political, economic and cultural transitions, which
directly and indirectly influence the way society
interacts with the environment, which in turn can
cause rapid environmental change (Twine 2005).
This has potentially important implications for resili-
ence and sustainability of the former bantustans as
social–ecological systems.
This paper focuses on some of the links between
environmental change and socio-economic factors
in a former bantustan region of South Africa, using
cultural landscapes and social–ecological systems
as the theoretical framework. We undertook an
historical analysis of associations between village-
level socio-economic factors, household livelihood
strategies, and land-cover change in a former
bantustan region over a period of 23 years, from
1974 to 1997. The study addressed three research
questions: What are the patterns of land-cover
change in a former bantustan region of South Africa?
What are the associations between land-cover change
and local socio-economic factors at different scales
in a former bantustan cultural landscape? Do trends
in land-cover change and socio-economic factors
promote resilience in these social–ecological systems?
Methods
Study area
This study was conducted in 2000 in three villages
in Bushbuckridge, a rural region in Limpopo
Province, South Africa (Figure 1). Bushbuckridge
was part of the former bantustan districts of Mhala
in Gazankulu and Mapulaneng in Lebowa, under
the apartheid system. Bushbuckridge became a
single rural municipality after democratic change
in 1994. Human population densities are high, as a
28 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa

Figure 1 Location of the three study sites in Bushbuckridge, South Africa

Source: Adapted from Shackleton (2000)

result of apartheid land allocation policies and the
large influx of refugees from Mozambique in the
1980s (Shackleton 2000). The former Mozambican
refugees are from the same ethnic group (Shangaan)
as most residents of the study site and have become
naturalized residents. Local household livelihoods
are diverse, relying on a wide range of formal and
informal cash sources, supplemented by land-based
activities such as cultivating home gardens, rearing
livestock, and gathering natural resources (Cousins
1999; Shackleton et al. 2000; Dovie et al. 2002).
Local employment opportunities are scarce and
people are forced to seek work outside the area,
with many becoming migrant workers (Shackleton
2000). Social security grants are an important
source of income for many households.
The region is characterized by generally sandy
and infertile granitic soils, although fertile vertic
clay soils are associated with a narrow gabbro
intrusion in the east. Rainfall varies from 800 mm/
year in the west to 500 mm/year in the east, most
falling in summer between October and April. The
increasing aridity moving eastwards is also accom-
panied by increasing variability around the mean
annual rainfall, with drought being a common
feature in the district (Shackleton 2000). The two
dominant savanna vegetation types are Lowveld
Sour Bushveld in the west, grading into the Lowveld
Bushveld in the east (Acocks 1988).
Land-cover changes
A temporal analysis of land-cover change was
undertaken for three villages in the eastern part of
Bushbuckridge, namely Athol, Clare and Thorndale.
All three villages were established by the apartheid
government during its program of relocating black
South Africans to bantustans. Athol and Clare were
established in the early 1960s, while Thorndale
was established in 1979. The three study sites each
consisted of a village and its associated arable land
and communal rangelands. Land-cover change in the
three sites was analyzed using sequential black and
white aerial photographs of each site, at three points
in time over the period 1974–97, roughly ten years
apart (Table 1). Aerial photographs were obtained
for the middle of each of the three decades to enable
comparisons with socio-economic data collected for

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
Table 1 Details of the three study villages and associated commons
Village Location
Athol 24°42’ S, 31°24’ E
Clare 24°37’ S, 31°19’ E
Thorndale 24°40’ S, 31°28’ E
1
Calculated by dividing the 1998 population estimates based on 2.4% growth rate in Pollard et al. (1998) by area.
2
Calculated by dividing Dovie et al.’s (2002) estimate in 2000 by area.
these periods. The exact dates were determined by
the availability of aerial photographs for the sites.
Topographic distortion was small on these aerial
photographs as topography is flat to gently undulat-
ing. Photographs with the villages roughly in the
centre of the images were chosen to reduce errors
due to tilt distortion. For each village, the area
examined was on a single photograph. This elimi-
nated possible errors due to small differences in the
scale of two photographs of the same year.
A land-cover classification system was developed
following Thompson (1996), modified according to
previous studies on vegetation ecology (White 1999)
and land-use planning in the study area (Pollard et
al. 1998). The land-cover was classified into land-
cover types on the basis of vegetation appearance
(texture and shading) and percentage of crown
cover, estimated using visual guides (Paine 1981).
Land-cover types derived from the aerial photo-
graphs were ground-truthed by means of field visits
in which different locations in the study sites were
described qualitatively in terms of land use, vegeta-
tion structure, and evidence of disturbance. Care was
taken to select ground-truthing points in locations
which had not changed substantially in the aerial
photographs over the 23-year period of coverage.
Mixed woodland was relatively lightly disturbed
woodland with mixed tree height classes, similar to
that occurring in nearby nature reserves. Parkland
was woodland which was partially deforested but
with scattered large trees remaining. It was charac-
teristic of old abandoned fields in which large
indigenous fruiting trees had been left uncut.
Shrubland was characteristic of disturbed woodland
with most large trees harvested and a high incidence
of coppice growth. It also occurred in sites which
had been cleared at some time in the past, and
were in a stage of mid-succession. The plot of the
village of Athol was characterized by the presence
of a geological intrusion of gabbro covering about
26% of the total area. Consequently, two vegetation
classes specific to this formation were recognized,
namely open shrubland and closed shrubland.
Closed shrubland was typical of lightly disturbed
gabbro vegetation, dominated by low multi-stemmed
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
29
Approx. size (km2) People/ km2 Dates of photographs
20 118.61 1974, 1985, 1997
12 476.71 1974, 1986, 1997
15 30.02 1974, 1984, 1997
trees and bushes, while open shrubland was a
more disturbed version of the former. Cropland
comprised cultivated or fallow fields, while settle-
ment consisted of homestead yards with associated
buildings, animal pens and small garden plots.
Once the land-cover types had been described,
land cover was determined for each photograph by
manually deriving a raster image of cover. A trans-
parent grid of cells was laid on each photograph, each
grid cell equating to 150 × 150 m2 on the ground.
The grid was positioned in relation to a landmark
present in all three photographs per village, to
ensure that features had the same position in the grid
each year. Each cell in the grid was then coded
according to its dominant land-cover type. When
two land-cover types were present simultaneously
in a grid cell, the one occupying the greatest area
of the cell was recorded. Coverage for each land-
cover type was calculated as the percentage
frequency of grid cells in each land-cover category.
Landscape patterns were also analyzed in terms
of number of patches per land-cover type and in
total per image. A patch was a cell or group of
cells with the same code, connected horizontally
or vertically. If two cells touched diagonally, they
were considered distinct patches. A patch was
characterized by the dominant land-cover type.
Land-cover change between decades was analyzed
by comparing the relative frequencies of land-cover
types and numbers of patches between successive
images. The annual rate of change in relative cover
of each land-cover type was calculated for the two
periods between the three successive decadal aerial
photographs, using the following equation:
Xab,i,j = (((Ya,i,j /Yb,i,j) − 1) × 100)/Zab,j
where Xab,i,j is the annual rate of change in relative
cover (expressed as percentage change in relative
cover) of land-cover type i in village j between
year a and year b, Ya,i,j is the relative cover (%) of
land-cover type i in village j in year a, Yb,i,j is the
relative cover (%) of land-cover type i in village j
in year b in the subsequent decade, and Zab,j is the
number of years between year a and b for village j.
30 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
Analysis of changes in socio-economic factors at the
village level: village participatory rural appraisals
The human dimensions of environmental changes
in the study areas were investigated at the commu-
nity level in the three villages by means of partici-
patory rural appraisal (PRA). Data were collected in
focus groups, one per village, comprising men and
women across age groups. Group sizes varied
between 14 and 36. Various participatory methods,
such as time lines, ranking and participatory
mapping, were used to collect qualitative data on
the following over the last four decades, from the
1960s to the 1990s: village history (including
droughts and floods), resource control and land
allocation, harvesting of local resources by outsid-
ers, and spatial aspects of resource use and access.
Analysis of changes in socio-economic factors at the
household level: Athol livelihoods survey
Socio-economic changes at the household level were
examined by focusing on livelihood strategies using
a household survey. Available resources restricted
the survey to a case study in one of the three study
villages, Athol. This village was chosen as it was
intermediate between Clare and Thorndale in
population density (Table 1). In 1998, Athol had an
estimated population of 2372 (Pollard et al. 1998).
Results from the PRA analysis were used as a basis for
the preparation of a semi-structured questionnaire
which was used in the survey. Questions were
retrospective and focused on household livelihood
strategies in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Questions
were designed to investigate temporal changes in
important aspects of primary household cash sources
(permanent labour such as remittances from migrant
workers, government social grants, and informal
activities), and land-based strategies (crop cultivation,
livestock husbandry, and use of natural resources).
These are key components of rural livelihoods in
the former bantustans (Cousins 1999). Fuelwood
was chosen as the focal natural resource because it
is the dominant source of energy in the area (Griffin
et al. 1993) and wood harvesting has potential
impacts on the vegetation discernable at a landscape
level. Eighty-two households were interviewed: 40
South African and 42 former Mozambican refugees.
The average household size, in both South African
and Mozambican households, was nine.
Where possible, official data and records were
also used to triangulate data. Records of cattle and
goat numbers, number of cattle owners, and mean
herd size in Athol were obtained from the Depart-
ment of Agriculture in Thulamashe. Rainfall data
were obtained for a weather station in the region
from the South African Weather Bureau in Pretoria.
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
Results
Land-cover changes
The landscape in all three sites was characterized by
a heterogeneous mosaic of land-cover types (Figure 2).
Mixed woodland and cropland were the dominant
land-cover types, although the relative coverage of
these varied between sites and years. Shrubland and
parkland patches occurred in close proximity to
patches of cropland and human settlement, indicat-
ing that these were patches of high disturbance.
Some commonalities existed between villages in
patterns of land-cover change (Figure 3). A consist-
ent trend was an exponential increase in human
settlement. Also common to the three villages was
the decline of vegetation covers characterized by
dense, taller vegetation, such as mixed woodland
and, in the case of Athol, closed shrubland. However,
there were also some marked differences in magni-
tudes and direction of change between villages and
between decades within villages, such as changes
in parkland and shrubland cover.
Trends in cultivation varied greatly between the
villages. In Athol, cropland increased exponentially
over the study period, in keeping with the increase
in settlement size. However, the number of cropland
patches did not. In Clare, crop land cover was
almost identical in the 1970s and 1990s, but
declined slightly in the intervening decade despite
consistent growth in village size. The number of
cropland patches increased around this village, most
notably between 1974 and 1986, when cropland
cover actually decreased. There was also a consistent
spatial re-arrangement of the position of cultivated
land between decades in Clare. In Thorndale,
croplands increased noticeably after the establish-
ment of the village, but the increase in coverage
during the subsequent decade was negligible.
The two sites with a longer history of disturbance
(Athol and Clare) had higher levels of heterogeneity
than Thorndale. However, both sites showed a
decline in number of patches over the study period,
especially of mixed woodland, indicating a process
of homogenization of certain land-cover types.
Changes in village-level socio-economic factors
The arrival of Mozambican refugees in the mid-
1980s was a notable event in all three villages.
During this period, the refugees were allocated
land for settlement by the village headmen. The
refugees generally built traditional huts which required
poles and thatch for construction, harvested from
the surrounding village commons.
All three communities experienced changes in
the institutional control of natural resources, and a
 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa 31

Figure 2 Example of land-cover change in a rural cultural landscape: Athol village and commons over 23 years

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
32 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa

Figure 3 Annual rate of change (%) in cover of land-cover types between decades for the three study villages (Athol, Clare
and Thorndale)

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
resultant increase in harvesting by both locals and
outsiders. Residents of Athol indicated that land
and resource management were the responsibility
of the local chief (hosi) and village headman (induna),
as they were prior to democratic change in 1994.
However, during the 1990s, there was a substantial
increase in the number of non-locals who came to
harvest natural resources from the Athol commons
without getting permission from the traditional
authorities. In Clare, people differentiated between
the period before 1960, when the village was
formed, and the period after this. Prior to being
relocated to the village, there was no control over
access to resources such as fuelwood, and people
could cultivate where they wished. However, there
were few people in the area during this period.
After the formation of the village, regulations were
introduced and enforced by the traditional authority.
The cutting of live trees was forbidden and enforced
by the chief. The village headman allocated land
for cultivation. Since democratic change in 1994,
people assumed that regulation of resource use ended
with the dismantling of apartheid, and hence,
many people started harvesting resources and culti-
vating land without asking permission from the
traditional authorities. The increase of non-locals
harvesting natural resources from around Clare also
increased during this period. In Thorndale, the
headman was still responsible for regulation of
resources and land, but few people got permission
from the headman in more recent times.
The participatory mapping exercise showed a
consistent change in the location of where residents
grew crops, grazed their cattle, and harvested
fuelwood in relation to the settlements. In the
1960s−1980s, these activities occurred close to the
village. The pattern was quite different in the 1990s.
Residents grazed their cattle and collected wood
further away from the villages, due to poor availability
of grazing and fuelwood close to the settlements.
In the cases of Athol and Clare, cropland had
expanded into land previously used for cattle grazing
and harvesting fuelwood. Since 1992, households
in Athol with cattle were permitted to take their
animals to the grazing scheme in the neighboring
village of Utah, where grazing was better.
Results from the village timelines indicated that
the region was characterized by alternating periods
of drought and above-average rainfall. Residents in
all three villages reported severe droughts in the
early 1980s and early 1990s and major floods in
the mid-1990s and in 2000.
Changes in household livelihood strategies
Formal employment, government grants and informal
activities Livelihoods of households in Athol were
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
33
diverse and derived from a variety of sources. Cash-
based strategies were central. Land-based activities
were still fundamental to household livelihoods,
but they were largely a means of supplementing
cash-based strategies, such as involvement in formal
and informal economic sectors (Table 2). Govern-
ment social welfare grants became increasingly
important for South African households. Few former
Mozambican households were able to access social
grants because they did not have South African
identity documents. The number of households
with at least one member with formal employment
increased over the last three decades, particularly
between the 1980s and 1990s. However, the
proportion of these households which had perma-
nent employment declined sharply for South
African households over the same period.
A notable observation was the more than
doubling of involvement of South African house-
holds in the informal sector (e.g. selling clothes,
garden produce or natural products) in the 1990s.
Most relevant to this study was the dramatic
emergence of South African households selling
fuelwood in recent times. The fuelwood sold by
households was typically harvested from the village
commons.
Crop cultivation Most households in Athol cultivated
fields outside the village in addition to their home-
stead gardens (Table 2). Prevalence of crop cultiva-
tion increased in the 1990s, particularly among
Mozambican households. Although there was a
decline in households with large fields and an
increase in those with medium and small fields,
12% (N = 82) of the households started to cultivate
one or two more additional fields in the 1990s in
order to increase their harvest due to declining
yields. Small fields were most common among
Mozambican households.
In the past, almost all South African households
ploughed using their own cattle. However, this
practice declined in the 1980s and 1990s, and
households increasingly rented cattle for ploughing
or did it by hand, using a hoe. Only two house-
holds started using manure as fertilizer in the
1990s, and none used commercial fertilizers.
Livestock ownership and husbandry Although the
absolute number of cattle owners increased over
time (Figure 4a), the proportion of South African
households owning cattle decreased over the study
period (Table 2). There was also a general trend
towards smaller cattle herd size over the three
decades. This was supported by the official livestock
records (Figure 4a). Understandably, no Mozam-
bican households had cattle when they arrived in
South Africa in the 1980s, but 9% (N = 42) managed
34 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa

Table 2 Proportion of households in Athol village engaged in livelihood strategies, across three decades

South African HHs Mozambican HHs

Variable Details 1970s 1980s 1990s 1980s 1990s

Cash
Formal employment HHs with at least one 0.59 0.63 0.74 0.41 0.62
Type of employment Permanent 0.85 0.88 0.66 0.47 0.67
Temporary 0.15 0.13 0.33 0.53 0.33
Government grants HHs with at least one 0.28 0.38 0.55 0.00 0.05
Informal activities HHs with at least one 0.21 0.20 0.45 0.00 0.02
Land based Selling crops 0.12 0.09 0.14 0.00 0.00
Selling mats 0.17 0.13 0.05 0.00 0.00
Selling firewood 0.00 0.00 0.20 0.00 0.00
Cultivation
Field cultivation HHs with fields outside the village 0.86 0.83 0.90 0.41 0.88
Size of the fields Large 0.65 0.53 0.54 0.68 0.43
Medium 0.33 0.34 0.36 0.16 0.30
Small 0.03 0.13 0.10 0.16 0.27
Ploughing methods Use their own cattle 0.92 0.73 0.64 0.00 0.00
Use rented cattle 0.00 0.15 0.22 0.00 0.00
Hoe 0.00 0.06 0.08 1.00 1.00
Livestock
Livestock ownership Total HHs with cattle 0.86 0.73 0.65 0.00 0.09
Total HHs with goats 0.07 0.08 0.35 0.07 0.26
Herd size (cattle) Large (>20) 0.42 0.50 0.16 − −
Medium (6–20) 0.50 0.43 0.57 − −
Small (1–5) 0.08 0.07 0.27
Cattle losses HHs with animals lost to lions 0.32 0.13 0.03 − −
HHs with animals lost to drought 0.16 0.53 0.97 − −
Fuelwood
Fuelwood usage HHs using firewood 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
Collection zone Far from village 0.04 0.08 0.95 0.00 0.93
Acquisition Buying firewood 0.00 0.08 0.18 0.00 0.02

HHs = households.

to acquire cattle over the next decade, although all
of these had very small herds (one to five). Owner-
ship of goats increased dramatically between the
1980s and 1990s in both South African and former
Mozambican households. The livestock records for
Athol indicated a negative relationship between
cattle and goat numbers (Figure 4b).
Cattle owners were hard hit by the 1982 and
1992 droughts, as reported by villagers and confirmed
by the cattle and rainfall records (Figures 4b and
c). During the most recent drought, 40% (N = 40)
of the families lost between 6 and 10 cattle, and
13% lost more than 20 cattle. For most house-
holds, this constituted most or all of their herd.
Predation by lions from nearby game reserves was
the major cause of loss of cattle in the 1970s, but
was greatly reduced by improved fencing of the
reserves by the 1990s.
Fuelwood use Fuelwood was the dominant energy
source in all households. Athol had not been
electrified at the time of the study (2000). The
fuelwood supply around the village was depleted
by the end of the 1980s, resulting in an increase in
the distance travelled to obtain wood in the 1990s
(Table 2). This resulted in an increase in the
amount of time allocated to collecting wood, and
increasing use of wheelbarrows and vehicles to
transport it. The decline in fuelwood availability
forced increasing numbers of households to purchase
wood, although this was less common among
former Mozambicans.

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa 35

Figure 4 Official records of (a) livestock ownership in Athol, (b) livestock numbers in Athol and (c) annual rainfall and
rainfall trend (stippled line) for a weather station in the region (Kingfisherspruit)
Source: Department of Agriculture and South African Weather Bureau

© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
36 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
Discussion
Land-cover change
The land-cover structure of the three study sites
showed distinct transformations during the period
1974 –97. There were commonalities in some trends
in land-cover change, the most notable being
exponentially increasing settlement size and declin-
ing woodland cover. However, other trends were
unique to each village, despite their close proximity
and similar biophysical settings. The mix of locally
interacting environmental and socio-economic
factors, referred to as ‘locality’ by Massey (1999),
thus shaped land-cover at a very local level. The
resultant variability between sites in some of the
trends meant that patterns of land cover change
were not highly generalizable at a fine scale. This
was particularly so at shorter time scales, such as a
decade. This highlights the value of local, place-
based studies, which capture local variations in
patterns of land-cover change which are often
overlooked in larger but coarser scale studies.
A characteristic common to each village was the
dynamism of the land covers, as the spatial arrange-
ments of landscape patches changed over time. This
has been documented in other studies in Africa and
elsewhere (e.g. Forman 1995; White 1999; Reid et al.
2000). Importantly, land-cover changes were often
nonlinear and rapidly reversed in some cases. In
particular, cropland and shrubland patches often
became indistinguishable from mixed woodland
patches within a period of 10 years. This demonstrates
the high regenerative capacity of savannas (White
1999; Harrison and Shackleton 1999), which confers
resilience on the social–ecological system. However,
the observed trend towards homogenization of the
landscape through the coalescence of patches in
some land-cover types has potentially negative
impacts on the resilience of these systems, through
the loss of functional and response diversity in the
landscape (Forman 1995; Walker et al. 2006).
Changes in socio-economic factors
Village-level socio-economic factors All three com-
munities experienced similar socio-economic changes
over the 23-year period. The arrival of Mozambican
refugees in the 1980s was an important process
with far-reaching implications, particularly in increas-
ing the village human population. So too was the
general trend in weakening institutional control of
local natural resources by the village-level tradi-
tional authorities, and the concomitant increase in
harvesting of resources by outsiders, particularly
after democratic change in 1994. However, these
changes were nuanced at a village level.
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
Household livelihoods The Athol case study shed
light on the local dynamism of household liveli-
hoods within the broader context of socio-economic
change. Noticeable differences in livelihood trends
between South Africans and former Mozambicans
in the same village highlight the value of disaggre-
gating village-level livelihood data.
Over the last three decades, household livelihoods
had become more dependent on cash income, from
formal and informal economic activities and social
grants. This is a common trend in rural southern
Africa (May et al. 2000; Moyo 2001). Some nature-
based enterprises, such as sale of reed mats, declined
in prominence, most likely due to difficulty in
procuring the raw materials. However, the sale of
fuelwood by South African households increased
dramatically in recent years in response to both
declining permanent jobs among South Africans
and increasing shortage of proximate wood resources.
Weakening institutional control of local common
property resources made it easier for locals and
outsiders to harvest live wood for commercial
purposes with impunity. This has been documented
in other rural communities in South Africa (Twine
et al. 2003a 2003b). Since institutions and govern-
ance are important in determining the adaptability
of social–ecological systems (Anderies et al. 2004;
Walker et al. 2006), the weakening of traditional
authorities without a concomitant strengthening of
other local institutions potentially compromises the
resilience of these systems.
The increasing dependence on cash was not
associated with a declining participation in
agriculture, as indexed by the proportion of house-
holds cultivating fields. Another study conducted in
Thorndale village in Bushbuckridge showed that
households with greater cash incomes indeed
tended to invest more in crop production (Dovie et
al. 2005). This challenges the notion of ‘deagrar-
ianization’ in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere in
the developing world (Bryceson 1999; Rigg 2006).
Cropland cover increased slightly in Athol between
the 1970s and 1980s, despite the small decrease in
percentage of South African households with fields
over this period. Some households thus ceased
cultivating, while others increased the size or
number of fields. This, and the reduction in
average field size in Athol, may indicate reduced
reliance on fields as an important source of food
among a proportion of households. However, a
shortage of suitable arable land may have been
another factor driving down cultivation and field
size, as has been found in other rural areas of
South Africa (Baber 1996). This may have been
exacerbated by decreased availability of cattle for
ploughing. Notably, the rising incidence of smaller
fields in our study coincided with the rising use of
 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
rented cattle for ploughing and of hoeing fields by
hand. All Mozambican households tilled the land
by hand, indicative of smaller fields but also of lower
income and lack of capital in the form of cattle.
At first glance, the data seem to suggest that the
centrality of livestock husbandry in rural liveli-
hoods, indexed by incidence of cattle ownership
and herd size, declined over time. This is supported
by the observed decline in households keeping
oxen for traction for ploughing fields. However,
rising numbers of households rented oxen during
the ploughing season. This had financial implica-
tions for households and may have been a factor in
the observed reduction in field sizes. These appar-
ently contradictory trends suggest that the reason
for declining cattle ownership may be more
complex than a simple abandonment of land-based
livelihood strategies. The decline in cattle owner-
ship was accompanied by a notable increase in
goat ownership. This occurred during a period of
increasing impact of droughts on households due
to cattle losses. The phenomenon of switching from
cattle to goats as an adaptation to drought has
been documented elsewhere in Africa (Blench and
Marriage 1999). Goats can withstand lack of food
and are more efficient foragers than cattle since
they are mixed feeders, making them more resilient
to drought and declining range condition (Gillet
1975; Sandford 1983). With a higher birth rate
than cattle, goats also lend themselves to more
opportunistic livestock farming (Sandford 1983).
Furthermore, purchasing goats is cheaper than
purchasing cattle as a ‘recapitalization’ strategy
following livestock losses due to drought.
The rainfall data for the region do not suggest a
progressive worsening in severity or frequency of
cyclical droughts, although there was a weak
negative trend in overall rainfall figures over the
time period (Figure 4c). The intensifying impacts of
drought on cattle are thus likely to reflect declining
availability or condition of grazing land, resulting
in poorer forage generally and greater vulnerability
of herds to starvation during droughts. The switch-
ing from cattle to goats in Athol may thus represent
an adaptive livelihood strategy to minimize vulner-
ability in a context of changing land-cover and
rangeland condition interacting with rainfall. The
official livestock data show that in the late 1990s,
cattle numbers picked up again while goat numbers
dropped substantially, suggesting that livestock
switching is flexible, and not a unidirectional process.
It is interesting to note that this was a period of
good rainfall. Once again, these results do not
point to a substantial attrition of livestock husbandry
as a component of local rural livelihoods.
Although rising cattle losses due to drought did
not trigger a general abandonment of livestock
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
37
farming, the trend was associated with diversifica-
tion of livelihoods. The loss of cattle can be a very
dramatic event for rural households because cattle
represent a key input for livelihood strategies for
those who own them, since they provide draught
power, milk, manure, meat, dung for fuel, and cash
when necessary (Cousins 1996; Shackleton et al.
2000; Dovie et al. 2006). Several studies in Africa
have shown that the negative impact of drought on
cattle ownership might be such that it forces
families to turn to new alternative livelihood activities
not pursued before, such as the sale of fuelwood,
grasses, and indigenous fruit (Toulmin et al. 2000;
Carswell 2000; Eriksen et al. 2005).
The increased loss of cattle experienced by Athol
households, together with the decline in permanent
employment, decreasing crop yields and declining
woodland resources, were all driving forces pushing
households to seek alternative means of generating
income. South African households, in particular,
adapted to changes in local socio-economic and
environmental conditions by diversifying their liveli-
hoods through, for example, trading in fuelwood.
This pattern of livelihood diversification and
productive bricolage – the ‘juggling of livelihood
activities’ – as a response to local constraints and
economic shocks has been reported elsewhere in
Africa (e.g. Batterbury 2001; Ersado 2005).
The adaptation literature highlights the import-
ance of the capacity of individuals, households
and communities to adapt to change in order to
reduce their vulnerability to risks and hazards and
enhance their resilience (Kelly and Adger 2000;
Adger 2006; Smit and Wandel 2006). This would
suggest that the diversification of livelihoods as an
adaptation to adversity potentially conferred resili-
ence on the social–ecological system in Athol.
However, Eriksen et al. (2005) distinguish between
principal coping strategies, such as regular income
from a wage earner, and complementary coping
strategies, which are often opportunistic and are
inadequate to provide for household needs on their
own. They argue that principal coping strategies,
which provide higher and more reliable livelihood
sources, render households more resilient to shocks
than complementary coping strategies. Thus, while
households in Athol exhibited resilience to socio-
economic and environmental change in the short
term, through livelihood diversification and adapta-
tion, their livelihoods may have in fact become
progressively more vulnerable to shocks in the longer
term as a result of declining permanent employ-
ment and a proliferation of complementary coping
strategies. Evidence also suggests that short-term
complementary coping strategies in response to crisis
may erode capital assets and may thus be unsus-
tainable and at the expense of longer-term adaptive
38 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
strategies (Adams et al. 1998; Loevinsohn and
Gillespie 2000). This is exemplified in our study by
the reinforcing feedback loop between local availa-
bility and selling of fuelwood, which potentially
erodes resilience and increases vulnerability of house-
holds selling wood as a complementary coping
strategy.
The increase in the number of households turning
to the informal sector was very small among former
Mozambican families, who also had less access to
formal employment and social grants. They were
thus more vulnerable to shocks and change than
their South African counterparts. The comparatively
lower physical capital (e.g. cattle), financial capital
(e.g. income and savings) and human capital (e.g.
education) possessed by these households appear
to have been barriers to entry into the informal
sector and to establishing small business, as shown
by other studies (Shackleton et al. 1995; Ellis 1999).
This supports the assertion by Walker et al. (2006)
that adaptability of social–ecological systems is
determined by absolute and relative amounts of all
five forms of livelihood capital (human, social,
physical, financial, and natural).
The analysis of fuelwood usage highlights the
important role that woodland resources continue to
play in livelihoods in former bantustan areas. Despite
the high reliance of households on cash, fuelwood
was still the dominant source of energy for cooking.
Although Athol was not electrified at the time of
the study, other surveys in the region have shown
that fuelwood remains a primary energy source
following electrification, primarily for economic
reasons (Griffin et al. 1993; Twine et al. 2003a).
The rising incidence of purchasing fuelwood, due
to growing resource scarcity, was an interesting
example of the interplay between changes in
various livelihood capital assets. The reduced
availability of wood (natural capital), the resultant
longer travel distances and opportunity costs in
order to get wood (human capital), poorer control
of access to the resource (social capital), and the
overall local economic setting (financial capital)
prompted the trade in wood. For those households
unable to afford buying fuelwood, such as former
Mozambican refugees, longer collection trips
necessitated by diminishing local stocks of fuelwood
had associated opportunity for women (Mabugu
et al. 1998), compromising adaptive capacity and
increasing vulnerability of such households.
Associations between land-cover change and socio-
economic change across scales
Although causal relationships between the socio-
economic and ecological components of these
cultural landscapes are difficult to demonstrate in
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
this study, they can be inferred through associations.
The results suggest that a range of socio-economic
factors at both community and household levels
interact in complex ways to influence changes in
the landscape. This supports the findings of
Moreira et al. (2001) who showed that temporal
landscape composition changes in a Mediterranean
cultural landscape could be largely explained by
socio-economic factors.
The increase in local populations has undoubtedly
been a fundamental force shaping village landscapes
over the study period. The establishment and initial
growth of all three villages was primarily as a result
of forced removals and resettlement as part of the
consolidation of the bantustans. The impact of this
on the landscape is well illustrated by the case of
Thorndale, the most recently established village.
However, growth in population continued to
influence transformations in the landscape over
subsequent decades. For example, the area covered
by mixed woodland declined markedly, especially
in recent times, and this could be attributed to the
clearing of new areas for cropping and the harvest-
ing of woodland resources due to rising population
density. The growth in village size was due in part
to the natural growth of the resident population,
but was substantially influenced by the large influx
of refugees from Mozambique in the mid-1980s. A
similar trend was found in other villages in the
Bushbuckridge district (Tollman et al. 1995; White
1999).
However, population growth occurred in tandem
with other socio-economic factors at community
and household scales. As already mentioned, the
weakening institutional control of natural resources,
resulting in increased illegal cutting of live trees by
both locals and outsiders, occurred over the period
of decline in cover by dense woody vegetation.
The sharp decline in the mixed woodland around
Athol between 1985 and 1997 also coincided with
a period of rapid increase in commercial harvesting
of fuelwood by locals, possibly influenced by
declining permanent employment and made easier
by the weakening of local institutions. Additionally,
the 1990s were also characterized by a substantial
increase in goat ownership in Athol, which may
have had an impact on the woody vegetation,
especially coppice shoots close to settlements, due
to browsing pressure by goats. Thus, it would be
simplistic to attribute the decline in woody vegeta-
tion cover to population growth alone.
Multiple socio-economic factors also influenced
the change (or non-change) of cropland around the
study villages. In Athol, Mozambican households
were not allowed by local institutions to clear new
areas for cultivation other than their garden plots
until 1992–3. This situation, together with the overall
 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
increase in the number of farmers, coincided with
the substantial increase in cropland in Athol in the
1997 aerial photograph. Thus, a combination of
institutional governance of land and a growing
population may be invoked as two of a number of
interacting drivers of the cropland cover around
this village.
Conversely, in Clare, cropland did not increase
to the extent one would expect with the population
growth. The smaller land area and higher human
density in Clare constrained clearing for new fields,
which would have been at the expense of grazing
areas already reduced due to overgrazing and
cropland. Thus, land shortage constrained agricul-
tural expansion in this village despite a growing
population.
The different relationships between the increase
in human population size and the extension of
cultivated land in the three villages support studies
that have challenged the notion of a straightforward
population–agriculture relationship (Bilsborrow and
Ogendo 1992; Skole et al. 1994; Tiffen et al. 1994;
Conwey et al. 2000). The findings are in agreement
with those of Geist and Lambin (2002) who showed
that the proximate causes of land-cover change in
tropical forests, such as agricultural expansion and
wood extraction, were in turn driven by a suite of
interacting underlying causes such as demographic,
economic, technical, institutional and cultural factors.
Aspects of poverty, such as unemployment,
could explain some of the general observed trends
in land-cover change, through the way they influ-
enced livelihood strategies and resource use
behaviour. However, poverty alone also insuffi-
ciently accounts for trends observed. As in the case
of population, poverty interacted with factors, such
as institutional governance of common property
resources and availability of land and woodland
resources, to shape resource use patterns and influ-
ence land-cover change. Furthermore, although
natural resources are central to livelihoods in poor
rural African households, wealthier households
often consume greater total amounts of natural
resources, thus challenging the simplistic poverty–
environment hypothesis (Cavendish 2000; Twine
et al. 2003a).
Finally, the cultural landscape model and the
associated social–ecological system paradigm proved
useful as a framework within which to investigate
associations between land-cover change and socio-
economic change in a former bantustan region.
Rather than simplistically viewing the region as
merely a degraded landscape transformed by human
exploitation, we approached the study area as a
unique and complex landscape in its own right,
shaped by interactions between the natural environ-
ment and society. Viewed as such, we anticipated
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Royal Geographical Society
39
and explored bi-direction interactions between
biophysical and socio-economic components of the
system at different scales. The approach also drew
our attention to the issue of resilience of the
system. We therefore believe that this approach has
value as a framework for integrating future research
on livelihoods and land-cover change in regions
such as the former bantustans.
Conclusion
This study found landscapes in a former bantustan
area to be heterogeneous and dynamic. Many of
the observed changes were site-specific at a local
scale, and were often nonlinear. Local socio-
economic and biophysical factors were found to
interact in complex ways and at different scales to
shape these landscapes. Furthermore, both the
natural and human components of the system
exhibited resilience and the capacity for adaptation.
All of these observations are in accordance with the
notion of these areas as cultural landscapes which
display the traits of social–ecological systems.
However, evidence points to a possible erosion of
resilience of these systems due to homogenization
of land-cover patches at a landscape level, the
weakening of institutions at a community level,
and the pursuit of less robust livelihood strategies
at a household level. These insights have important
implications for socio-economic development and
sustainable resource management in rural South
Africa. We argue that such initiatives should focus
on enhancing resilience and reducing vulnerability
in these cultural landscapes. Finally, although we
found the cultural landscape and social–ecological
system framework useful for analyzing land-cover
change and human–environment interactions, it
should be noted that this is only one approach to
a very complex, contextual analysis of human–
environment relationships.
Acknowledgements
We thank Brian King and Brent McCusker for
inviting us to submit this paper for this special
edition, and for useful comments on earlier versions.
We acknowledge Mark Thompson for assistance
with the analysis of aerial photographs, Charlie
Shackleton for useful comments, and Jacopo
Moggi-Cecchi for assistance. We thank the Amax-
angana and Mnisi traditional authorities and village
headmen of the three study villages for permission
to carry out our study and for logistical assistance,
and the local people of the study villages for their
participation, patience, and support. This study was
funded by a grant from the National Research
Foundation.
40 Land-cover change and human–environment interactions in South Africa
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