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Daily Maverick
14-05-2025
- General
- Daily Maverick
Golden Threads — clinging to traditional herding culture on Lesotho's scarred and shrinking land
When a culture, whose economy has long been built on each family having a small herd or flock, is crowded into shrinking areas of land, what is left of the commonage? Are the notoriously overgrazed Lesotho mountains a case of the tragedy of the commons, where too many people selfishly plunder the commonage, taking more than their fair share? Or is the tragedy in the capturing of the commons, where the powerful elite in a society are able to claim large parts of the commonage for themselves, pressing more and more commoners onto smaller parcels of land? The method of capture could be the notion of a title deed, defended with fences and brute force, or the construction of a nation state that throws a hard political border across grasslands where herders had long moved their animals between summer and winter pastures. When a culture, whose economy has long been built on each family having a small herd or flock, is crowded into shrinking areas of land, what is left of the commonage? How much can that shared grazing be expected to support all those families? What does this mean for a single community – like South Africa's apartheid-era tribal lands or Bantustans – or a nation state such as Lesotho which is now ring-fenced by a hard border and whose land practices are shaped by how the landlocked country has integrated into South Africa's stronger economy? It's hard to imagine that the villagers whose homes dot the Lesotho landscape amid neat rows of summer maize and sorghum can feed themselves from such excoriated land. An erosion gully near Quthing in Lesotho's southwestern lowlands is as deep as the mature trees growing inside it are old. Boom-and-bust cycles of droughts followed by ample rain spells leave the ground open to this kind of scarring. A farmer near Malealea village has words with a 'herd boy', local parlance for men of any age who mind small cattle herds or flocks of sheep and goats. It looks as though the cows have wandered into his maize fields and helped themselves to some corn on the cob. Lesotho's population is 2.3 million, and many in rural areas rely on some form of agriculture to feed themselves or earn a bit of an income. Cattle, sheep and goats are more than just a form of currency and savings. They have deep roots in marriage dowries and other customary practices. Wool was one of Lesotho's most bankable exports a century ago, when the looms of the European war machine couldn't weave fast enough to keep pace with the slaughter in the trenches. Once this traditional herding culture saw the benefit of running flocks of sheep for meat and wool, stock numbers shot up. This simple economics has driven extensive overgrazing that is decades-old and hard to repair. Another major export: muscle. Lesotho's men have long fed new blood into the conveyor belt of migrant miners in South Africa. Basotho men began investing their earnings in sheep, whose flocks they added to the longer tradition of cattle herding. Then came the mohair boom, which saw the country's stockmen add goat herds to the mix. With 60% of the country covered in rangelands, today more than half of rural families in the higher mountainous parts depend on wool and mohair for their income, writes soil and conservation specialist Mashekoe Likoti in a 2019 report for the Lesotho Ministry of Forestry, Range and Soil Conservation. Rangelands experts were concerned about the state of the country's grazing as far back as the 1980s. Things continue to deteriorate because of 'weak institutional arrangements, poor grazing management practices, climatic conditions, overstocking, fire and brush invasion,' according to Lesotho's Department of Range Resources Management. Soil must be the country's biggest export today, though, but not in a way that tops up the national coffers. Every hour, Lesotho's rivers ship an estimated 4,500 tonnes of fertile topsoil – 'up to 300 lorry loads' – down to South Africa, according to 2016 figures from the European Union. This hefty delivery of an ancient growing medium doesn't benefit the croplands of farmers downstream. Rather, it fills up reservoirs like South Africa's hydroelectric mega-dam, the Gariep, a few hours' drive downriver. Cattle herding is one of the oldest forms of animal husbandry for indigenous communities in this part of the subcontinent. But the practice of leboella in Lesotho – the widely used system of rotating herds between summer and winter pastures so that the veld can rest and recover – is hard to do when the commonage has shrunk over generations and household numbers have grown. Moving herds in keeping with the needs of the veld is also difficult with the modern-day arrival of fences, notions of private land ownership, or, in this case, the nation state that puts a hard border across traditional herding routes. Many of the old customs that govern how people share grazing spaces have been lost. The Dutch named it the Orange River, as a tip of the hat to their monarchy, the House of Orange. The Basotho call it the Senqu. Today, 'white gold' is the new money spinner. Lesotho earns about 10% of its gross domestic product from water it ships off to its South African Development Community (SADC) neighbours: South Africa, Namibia and Botswana have thirsty economies and the cash to pay for Lesotho's water. From the headwaters the Orange-Senqu flows or floods along every twist and turn of an artery that runs just more than 2,4000km from Khubelu, and sponges in northeastern Lesotho, to Alexander Bay, where it spills into the Atlantic Ocean on the South African-Namibian border. Damaged wetlands and grasslands up here spell disaster locally and downriver: erosion, lost soil, silting of dams, higher risk of boom-bust water flows that cause flooding and damage infrastructure. Restoring the scar tissue of these heavily damaged grasslands is central to regional climate resilience. It will boost crop production and herd capacity in Lesotho. It'll mop carbon pollution from the atmosphere and contribute to longer-term climate stability. It'll better regulate the water cycle in the Orange-Senqu catchment. It'll also provide natural shock absorbers against extreme events such as droughts and flooding following severe storms. In his 2012 book, Orange-Senqu Artery of Life, journalist Thomas Kruchem captures the sentiment of an agricultural student who reflects on the lost bond between his people and nature. 'The times when our grandmothers taught the little ones how to live in harmony with nature have gone,' he told Kruchem. 'There is no longer a way to pass on traditional wisdom. People are chiefly interested in how they and their families are to survive.' An academic confirms this, saying that the customs that once 'safeguarded water, fields and pastures have been thrown out of the window, because they are no longer relevant in the economic situation that people find themselves in'. A farmer near Malealea village in the lowlands points to the Makhaleng River gorge, which may soon disappear under a rising waterline. Locals have long known that a dam was planned for this side, but now it looks as though construction may be imminent. Many families will be relocated, should this happen. The dam is part of a long-standing agreement between Lesotho and Botswana, which will move water through nearly 700km of pipes between the start and end of the scheme. Sterkspruit on the South African side of the Tele Bridge border crossing looks as heavily napalmed as the Lesotho lowland just uphill from here. The British set in motion a land grab with the 1913 Land Act which after 1948 the National Party stratified further, leaving most of the country's population crammed onto 13% of the land. DM
IOL News
14-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
ATM's Vuyo Zungula calls out black parties in GNU for neglecting community needs
ATM leader Zungula criticises black-led GNU parties for failing to negotiate meaningful outcomes, pointing to the Freedom Front Plus as an example of successful negotiations for their community's interests. Image: Oupa Mokoena/Independent Newspapers ATM leader Vuyo Zungula has criticised black political parties within the Government of National Unity (GNU), accusing them of prioritising ministerial positions over tangible benefits for their communities. In a video on X (formerly Twitter), Zungula referenced the Freedom Front Plus, a predominantly Afrikaner party, as an example of a political group that negotiated effectively for its constituency during coalition talks. "Last year, as you know, we had elections in our country, followed by a period of negotiations. During that time, something that's not often talked about, there was a party called the Freedom Front Plus, which is predominantly an Afrikaner party. When they were negotiating, they pushed for the recognition and protection of Orania, an Afrikaner-only town,' said Zungula. He accused black-led parties in the GNU of failing to secure meaningful outcomes for their supporters. 'But you find that the other black parties that are now in the Government of National Unity did not negotiate things for the betterment of our people. As long as they got ministerial positions, they were fine. So I think that is the root cause of our problem,' he said. Zungula's comments come amid an intensifying national debate over the continued existence of racially exclusive towns like Orania and Kleinfontein. As previously reported by IOL, ActionSA condemned both settlements, labeling them 'dangerous symbols of racial isolation masquerading as cultural preservation.' Parliamentary Chief Whip Lerato Ngobeni criticised the use of Section 31 of the Constitution,which protects cultural rights, as a justification for racial separation. 'That section protects cultural expression, not the establishment of modern-day Bantustans for those unwilling to let go of apartheid's legacy,' she said. Ngobeni went further, calling Orania and Kleinfontein 'sanctuaries of apartheid nostalgia' and 'breeding grounds for division and symbolic violence against the dream of inclusion.' The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have also taken a firm stance, staging protests at both Kleinfontein and the Northern Cape Premier's Office. EFF leaders argue that such towns promote segregation and violate the Constitution. The Pretoria High Court has previously ruled that Kleinfontein is unlawful due to zoning infractions. EFF Gauteng chairperson Nkululeko Dunga urged the Tshwane Municipality to act swiftly to shut down illegal developments at Kleinfontein. In the Northern Cape, the EFF has pledged to take further action against Orania. 'We can never be party to a government that is allowing segregation within our province,' said EFF representative Prince Mashele. The uMkhonto weSizwe Party (MK Party) also joined the debate, announcing plans to introduce a private member's bill to clarify Section 235 of the Constitution, which relates to the right of cultural communities to self-determination. Following a fact-finding visit to Kleinfontein, MK Parliamentary Chief Whip Mzwanele Manyi argued that Section 235 is being exploited to justify racial exclusion. 'We hold the view, as the MK Party in Parliament, that Section 235 is vague and leads to all kinds of interpretations, some of which resemble apartheid-era policies,' said Manyi. 'As much as we must respect all cultures, that respect must not in any shape or form remind us of apartheid.' MK Party leaders maintain that communities like Orania and Kleinfontein distort the Constitution's intention by using cultural rights as a shield for racial separation. Meanwhile, the Freedom Front Plus has defended Orania as a legitimate cultural project aligned with the constitutional principle of self-determination. Freedom Front Plus Member of Parliament Dr Wynand Boshoff dismissed the criticism as politically motivated and an attack on minority rights. 'Since its founding, the VF Plus has been advocating self-determination, as embodied by Orania, among others,' said Boshoff. 'In a multi-ethnic country like South Africa, there is often a majority that pays lip service to recognising diversity but, in reality, denies it.' Boshoff further claimed that the ANC government has marginalised Afrikaners through its transformation policies and insisted that Orania operates within the law and does not engage in racial discrimination. [email protected] Get your news on the go, click here to join the IOL News WhatsApp channel.
IOL News
12-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
ActionSA condemns Orania and Kleinfontein as symbols of apartheid nostalgia
ActionSA condemns Orania and Kleinfontein, calling them modern symbols of racial division, not cultural pride. Image: File ActionSA condemned the existence of Orania and Kleinfontein, describing them as dangerous symbols of racial isolation masquerading as cultural preservation. ActionSA Parliamentary Chief Whip Lerato Ngobeni said she rejected the notion that these towns were legitimate expressions of cultural heritage. She called them 'sanctuaries of apartheid nostalgia, dressed up in the language of self-determination, but founded on the very bones of a brutal, exclusionary past'. Ngobeni criticises the use of Section 31 of the Constitution, which protects cultural rights, saying it has been 'dishonestly misused' to justify racial separation. 'That section protects cultural expression, not the establishment of modern-day Bantustans for those unwilling to let go of apartheid's legacy,' she said. The party, in a statement, said it rejected the idea that these towns are protected cultural enclaves, instead calling them 'ideological fault lines' rooted in apartheid-era thinking. The party draws a clear line between cultural preservation and what it sees as deliberate racial isolation, warning that Orania and Kleinfontein are not harmless communities but 'breeding grounds for division and symbolic violence against the dream of inclusion.' ActionSA contends that children raised in these towns are not being taught culture, but 'to fear difference, to internalise racial superiority, and to live apart rather than together.' Ngobeni does not confine her criticism to the towns themselves. She pointed to a wider political culture that tolerates and, in some cases, enables such divisions, accusing other parties in Parliament of hiding behind liberal or revolutionary façades while 'stoking hate, promoting division, and dodging responsibility for the flames they fan in society.' ActionSA places the ultimate blame on the African National Congress government for failing to dismantle apartheid's spatial and economic architecture. Ngobeni argues that decades of unfulfilled promises and rampant corruption have allowed racial exceptionalism to thrive. 'Instead of transformation, it delivered corruption, patronage, and dysfunction,' she said. 'It is precisely this failure that has given rise to racial exceptionalism disguised as cultural preservation.' While millions of Black and Coloured South Africans continue to struggle without access to basic services, jobs, or safety, ActionSA says Orania and Kleinfontein remain symbols of inequality. 'The worshippers of Verwoerd flourish, untouched and unbothered. It is an insult to every South African who dared to believe in the promise of a non-racial democracy,' Ngobeni said. She calls on South Africans to confront this reality directly, declaring, 'It is time to bury Verwoerd, not just in memory but also in law, policy, and everyday practice.' 'You cannot claim to love South Africa while dividing its people. You cannot provoke chaos and still call yourself a leader.' The condemnation of Kleinfontein has gained broader political traction beyond ActionSA. A week ago, thousands of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters marched to the 900-hectare settlement outside Pretoria, demanding its abolition. The Pretoria High Court recently declared Kleinfontein unlawful, ruling that the land was designated for agricultural use and not approved for residential development. EFF Gauteng chairperson Nkululeko Dunga, who led the march, called on Tshwane Municipality to immediately enforce the court's decision, halt illegal development, and investigate the legality of Kleinfontein's existence. 'Inspectors, law enforcement, and the city must investigate and regulate Kleinfontein,' Dunga said. In response, acting head of Tshwane's Human Settlements Department, Sello Chipu, assured marchers that the City would respond to the EFF's memorandum within 14 days. Dunga also addressed perceptions of racial animosity, stating: 'The EFF is a non-racist organisation. We have no business in hating white people. What we want is for Black people to understand that we are equal to them, and they are equal to us.' He added that white supremacy,not whiteness,was the target of their action. Get your news on the go, click here to join the IOL News WhatsApp channel. IOL Politics
Daily Maverick
11-05-2025
- General
- Daily Maverick
Agent Orange — cross-boundary cooperation is key to reversing the ‘tragedy of the commons' in grasslands
Lives depend on keeping SA's old-growth grasslands healthy. They feed our herds, they're water factories and they mop up carbon pollution, which stabilises the climate. Protecting them from overuse, invasive trees and increasingly volatile weather extremes calls for collaborations that straddle national borders, private fence lines and the boundaries of overburdened commonages. The foothills of southwestern Lesotho are like a burn victim who has barely survived their injuries. As if they've been doused with napalm, the once-plump, glowing skin of soil and grass is reduced to scar tissue, drum-tight over the jutting sandstone bones beneath. The wound is trying to heal, but the erosion gullies are keloid scars that can't mend. This is a full-body wound, stretching as far as the eye can see, and the South African side of the Tele Bridge border crossing near Sterkspruit in the Eastern Cape isn't in better shape. The Agent Orange that has stripped both sides of the border to the bone is a toxic mix of over a century of exclusionary land ownership laws — think: 1913 Land Act and apartheid-era Bantustans — followed by decades of changing economic forces that have reshaped how farmers manage their wealth, livelihoods and livestock. The Lesotho lowlands and the Eastern Cape highlands might fall on two sides of a border created by the recent notion of the nation-state, but grasslands don't care for administrative divides between neighbouring states or neighbourly farmers. Efforts to repair damaged grasslands need to straddle fences and think big, ecologists and conservationists agree. The custodians of these grasslands in Lesotho and South Africa — indigenous communal stockmen and commercial farmers alike — can't return to a time when the national border didn't exist, or when there were fewer mouths to feed off of a seemingly boundless prairie. Their herds can't roam as they once did, with relative freedom across unfenced and un-owned grazing. A new model of shared custodianship is emerging here, though, which draws working farmlands into the conservation fold, and may swing the compass towards a better way to protect and even restore these life-giving prairies. Lives will depend on it working, as pressure continues on this overstretched ecosystem in an increasingly volatile climate. Straddling fences, crossing divides 'Farmers are farming grass and water, not sheep,' says Thembanani Nsibande, grasslands programme manager with the conservation non-profit WWF. He's speaking of the landowners in the Eastern Cape highlands who have agreed to be part of an embryonic grasslands national park that's aimed at getting agriculturally productive farmlands into a semiformal protected area agreement that should boost farming outputs, preserve biodiversity, repair these mountainous 'water factories' and mop carbon pollution from the atmosphere. It's been a decade-long journey, but the declaration of the park — roughly 30,000 hectares in size and likely to be called the North Eastern Cape Grasslands National Park — is imminent, according to conservation management authority SANParks, which is working with the WWF to pull the initiative together. Sheep and cattle depend on the grasslands for food, says Nsibande. The quality and quantity of grazing depends on the particular alchemy of healthy grasses, living soils and ample water. First and foremost, farmers are custodians of that natural magic — what happens beneath the hoof is as important as what happens above it. Only 2.2% of the country's grasslands are protected, most of the rest is in the hands of private landowners or in a communal arrangement and 60% is irreversibly changed, according to the Endangered Wildlife Trust. Rescuing this embattled ecosystem needs an approach that moves beyond the old 'fortress' style of conservation. 'We can't continue with the old way of establishing protected areas and implementing conservation, where we put fences up and chase people out,' he says, explaining the structure of the park, which is a voluntary land stewardship arrangement. ' [Farmers] continue to own the land and manage their properties, but do it with the different stakeholders to ensure it's done in a sustainable manner,' Nsibande explains. SANParks has identified an area of grasslands across the region that needs collaborative conservation across extensive landscapes, not small or fragmented patchwork interventions. Almost half of this area falls under communal landownership; most of the rest is privately owned. Both forms of ownership have unique challenges in terms of farming sustainably and being part of a conservation initiative — issues which facilitators at SANParks and WWF are negotiating slowly. The quid pro quo is that farmers get the kind of support once offered by state extension officers, such as advice on veld-friendly agro-ecology methods: going chemical-free and returning to age-old rotational grazing that allows veld recovery. They'll also get funding to clear invasive plants, and help with wetland restoration and erosion control. Communal farming families with limited water access will benefit from help with natural spring protection. 'These [grasslands] are a water factory, but our people who live in those mountains don't have access to water, so we do natural spring protection to allow them access to clean water,' Nsibande concludes. DM This is part of the Golden Threads series for the Story Ark – tales from southern Africa's climate tipping points project, which investigates the state of the country's old-growth grasslands, the free natural services they offer, and what South Africa needs to do to conserve and repair them. The series is a collaboration with the Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies and the Henry Nxumalo Foundation, which supports investigative journalism.
