IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socres/v5y2000i2p80-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rethinking Land Reform in South Africa: An Alternative Approach to Environmental Justice

Author

Listed:
  • Charles Geisler
  • Essy Letsoalo

Abstract

Worldwide, millions of rural people inhabiting marginal lands have been evicted from their homes in the name of conservation. Africa is no exception, nor is South Africa, the focus of this paper. Our central concern is whether land reform in South Africa can accomplish both social and environmental justice in a context of widespread and longstanding human displacement and opportunity costs as the country's national parks and game refuges expand. The costs of ecological expropriation are illustrated, as are instances from other countries where land reform simultaneously serves social and environmental objectives. Recommendations are advanced for greening South Africa's land reform without sacrificing its social and economic missions.

Suggested Citation

  • Charles Geisler & Essy Letsoalo, 2000. "Rethinking Land Reform in South Africa: An Alternative Approach to Environmental Justice," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 5(2), pages 80-88, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:5:y:2000:i:2:p:80-88
    DOI: 10.5153/sro.496
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.496
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5153/sro.496?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wachter, Daniel, 1992. "Farmland Degradation In Developing Countries: The Role Of Property Rights And An Assessment Of Land Titling As A Policy Intervention," LTC Papers 292575, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Land Tenure Center.
    2. Forster, Nancy R., 1992. "Protecting fragile lands: New reasons to tackle old problems," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 571-585, April.
    3. Binswanger, Hans P. & Deininger, Klaus, 1993. "South African land policy: The legacy of history and current options," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 21(9), pages 1451-1475, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van Zyl, Johan, 1994. "Farm Size Efficiency, Food Security And Market Assisted Rural Land Reform In South Africa," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 33(4), December.
    2. Scott McDonald & Terrie Walmsley, 2008. "Bilateral Free Trade Agreements and Customs Unions: The Impact of the EU Republic of South Africa Free Trade Agreement on Botswana," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(8), pages 993-1029, August.
    3. Zimmerman, Frederick J., 2000. "Barriers to Participation of the Poor in South Africa's Land Redistribution," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1439-1460, August.
    4. Eicher, Carl K. & Rukuni, Mandivamba, 1996. "Reflections On Agrarian Reform And Capacity Building In South Africa," Staff Paper Series 11703, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    5. Jayne, T. S. & Takavarasha, T. & van Zyl, Johan, 1994. "Interactions Between Food Market Reform And Regional Trade In Zimbabwe And South Africa: Implications For Food Security," Agrekon, Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa (AEASA), vol. 33(4), December.
    6. Baker, Matthew J. & Conning, Jonathan, 2021. "The Transformations of Customary Property Regimes in Africa: An Analytical Framing," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315325, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Deininger, Klaus & Chamorro, Juan Sebastian, 2004. "Investment and equity effects of land regularisation: the case of Nicaragua," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 101-116, March.
    8. Fergusson, Leopoldo, 2013. "The political economy of rural property rights and the persistence of the dual economy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 167-181.
    9. Christine Valente, 2011. "Household Returns to Land Transfers in South Africa: A Q-squared Analysis," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 354-376.
    10. Ingrid Yngstrom, 2002. "Women, Wives and Land Rights in Africa: Situating Gender Beyond the Household in the Debate Over Land Policy and Changing Tenure Systems," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 21-40.
    11. Alexis Rampa & Yiorgos Gadanakis & Gillian Rose, 2020. "Land Reform in the Era of Global Warming—Can Land Reforms Help Agriculture Be Climate-Smart?," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-24, November.
    12. Valente, Christine, 2009. "The Food (In)Security Impact of Land Redistribution in South Africa: Microeconometric Evidence from National Data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1540-1553, September.
    13. Park, Albert Sanghoon, 2017. "Does the Development Discourse Learn from History?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 52-64.
    14. Eicher, Carl K., 1995. "Zimbabwe's maize-based Green Revolution: Preconditions for replication," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 805-818, May.
    15. Learmonth, D. & McGregor, P.G. & Swales, J.K. & Turner, K.R. & Yin, Y.P., 2002. "Modelling the Economic and Environmental Impacts of Population Policy in Jersey: a Multi-Period Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," Conference papers 330994, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    16. Christine Valente, 2006. "Early Land Redistribution and the Food Security of South African Households: Micro-econometric evidence from national data," Working Papers 2006009, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Jun 2006.
    17. George B. Frisvold & Peter Condon, 1994. "Biodiversity Conservation And Biotechnology Development Agreements," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 12(3), pages 1-9, July.
    18. Eicher, Carl K., 1994. "Zimbabwe's Green Revolution: Preconditions for Replication in Africa," Staff Paper Series 201176, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    19. Deininger, Klaus, 1999. "Making Negotiated Land Reform Work: Initial Experience from Colombia, Brazil and South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 651-672, April.
    20. Jayne, T.S. & Hajek, Milan & Zyl, Johan van, 1995. "An Analysis of Alternative Maize Marketing Policies in South Africa," Staff Paper Series 201199, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socres:v:5:y:2000:i:2:p:80-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.