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Community Organizations South African Land Observatory
South African Land Observatory
South African Land Observatory
Acronym
SALO
Data aggregator
Phone number
012 420 5019

Location

Lynwood Road & Roper Street
Pretoria
Gauteng
South Africa
Working languages
English

The South African Land Observatory is an initiative whose overall objective is to promote evidence-based and inclusive decision-making over land resources in South Africa. As its name ‘Observatory’ suggests, it collects data and information on land. The initiative is a repository of what is published on land in South Africa and on the events that take place around land in South Africa. In addition, it makes user-friendly land-based information available to all stakeholders with the aim of creating an informed land community in South Africa, through facilitating  access to data, information and networking. It is, most importantly, a one-stop help desk for the land community to debate the pressing questions of land ownership and land use in South Africa.

Members:

Resources

Displaying 16 - 20 of 110

An assessment of the role of social capital in collaborative environmental governance in tribal communities: the study of Gumbi and Zondi communities in KwaZulu Natal province, South Africa

Reports & Research
May, 2017
South Africa

Political transformations in most developing nations have been accompanied by vast land claims by indigenous communities who were forcibly detached from their traditional land during colonisation and apartheid-like dispensations. In the context of sub-Saharan African countries (including South Africa), the need for land reform has been aggravated by the great scarcity of farmland. However, most of the reclaimed land is in areas pursuing conservation activities.

Farmland transfers in KwaZulu-Natal, 1997-2003: A focus on land redistribution including restitution

Reports & Research
May, 2017
South Africa

Census surveys of land transactions show that 203,300 hectares of KwaZulu-Natal’s commercial farmland transferred to previously disadvantaged South Africans over the period 1997-2003. This represents 3.8 per cent of the farmland originally available for redistribution in 1994. The annual rate of land redistribution in the province fell from a peak of 1.06 per cent in 2002 to 0.41 per cent

Understanding changing land issues for the rural poor in Mozambique

Reports & Research
May, 2017
South Africa

In Mozambique, changes in land access and use are shaping new landscapes, often at the expense of the poor. Despite progressive land legislation, elite groups and vested interests are consolidating land holdings while peasant producers are being dispossessed of their land and access to fertile plots is becoming increasingly difficult.

Zambia’s peasants at risk of becoming squatters on their own land – UN expert warns

Reports & Research
May, 2017
Africa

The push to turn commercial large-scale agricultural into a driving engine of the Zambian economy, in a situation where the protection of access to land is weak, can risk pushing small-holder farmers and peasants off their land and out of production with severe impacts on the people’s right to food,” Ms. Elver said at the end of her first official visit to the country

Reclaiming collective rights Land and forest tenure reforms in Peru (1960–2016)

Policy Papers & Briefs
May, 2017
Africa

Peru has formalized property rights for 1,200 indigenous communities in the Amazon. These titled indigenous lands cover over 11 million hectares and represent approximately 17% of the national forest area. Progress has been possible due to multiple reforms that recognized indigenous rights to collective lands, a process characterized by complex and protracted conflicts among competing interests, shifting government priorities and continued resistance by indigenous people to contest efforts that undercut their interests.