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Rick has over 40 years experience working in the land sector in Southern Africa. He is part of the Land Portal knowledge engagement team working to research and develop knowledge resources including data stories, blogs and in-depth country profiles for Southern, Central and Eastern Africa.
Rick is also a Senior Research Associate with Phuhlisani NPC - a South African land sector NGO and the curator of specialist Southern African land news and analysis website https://knowledgebase.land
He tweets on land related issues Twitter account https://twitter.com/KnowledgebaseL
He has a PhD from the University of Cape Town. His research in Langa, Cape Town features as the central case study in a recent book Urban Planning in the Global South (2018), co-authored with the late Vanessa Watson, which examines the on-going contestations over land and housing in the rapidly growing cities of the global South.
Details
Location
Land News South Africa: Urban land 31 March - 26 April 2020
Urban land
Our urban land pages have been filled with the struggles of people living in townships and informal settlements during the pandemic. One of the controversial state responses to Covid 19 has been to propose the ‘thinning’ of densely settled areas in a bid to slow the speed of community viral transmission. These plans have been met with scepticism by residents of informal settlements who argued that such measures, taken without adequate consultation, would meet with resistance and be destined for failure.
Changing Livelihoods and Landscapes in the Rural Eastern Cape, South Africa: Past Influences and Future Trajectories
This paper seeks to understand the drivers and pathways of local livelihood change and the prospects for transformation towards a more sustainable future. Data are used from several studies, and a participatory social learning process, which formed part of a larger project in two sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Secondary information from a wealth of related work is used to place our results within the historic context and more general trends in the country. Findings indicate that livelihoods in the rural Eastern Cape are on new trajectories.
The Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University
We are a small department dedicated to advancing inter- and trans-disciplinary science and learning aimed at understanding and managing complex human-environmental/social-ecological systems, with a focus on Africa.
Why red lights are flashing over consultation on communal land bills
Parliament is processing, or is due to process, six bills that have particular significance for the rights of people living in SA’s former homelands. Three draft bills have also been published for comment. Among these are the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Amendment Bill and the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill, which together echo and seek to entrench important aspects of the Bantu Authorities Act that shaped apartheid.
Leadership bill dissolves rather than strengthens power of rural people
The pleas of thousands of rural people who made difficult journeys to attend public hearings across the country are largely ignored in the amended version of the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Bill set to be adopted by the National Assembly this week.
Who owns the land? Half an answer from AgrisSA land audit
Farmers’ interest group AgriSA last week released its own land audit. This filled in a major blank in the land reform and policy field: How many black emerging farmers have bought farms outside government’s land reform programme? We now have a part answer: they bought 4.3 million hectares. Other findings from this study are contested and methodological flaws are highlighted.
South Africans in rural areas are saying ‘no more’. Why it matters
The mainstream in South Africa is paying little attention to the world outside the cities. This is a mistake because the future of the country’s economy may depend on battles raging in its far-flung rural areas. The latest sign of this battle is an attempt by some in the governing African National Congress to pass the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Bill, which will allow traditional leaders to enrich themselves at the expense of rural people.