Institutional factors in natural resource management in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa - Institutional Constraints to Small Farmer Development in Southern Africa - page 230

between farmlands and grazing lands. Other conflicts between individuals, according to
Engel and Korf (2005), occur when they fight over boundaries that were once allocated by
customary institutions because in this type of institution, the rules and regulations are not
written and there are no records kept. These can lead to heavy conflicts because everybody
can claim that the land, both grazing and cultivated fields belong to him/her.
Conflicts also arise between the local population and new settlers. The government
allocates new settlers the land that has been used in the past for grazing while, on the other
hand, those people who are now staying in the urban areas employ paid herdsmen to look
after their animals (Tonah, 2002). This conflict results in a situation where the community
no longer follows any rules regarding the use of land, thereby, leading to an open access
situation. Conflicts also emerge within local communities, if parts of the group want to
make use of new statutory laws to gain individual rights to pieces of communal grazing
land, whereas the majority still regards the total land as common property (Warner, 2000).
10.5.2 Confusions on the management of natural resources
Besides conflicts, unclear boundaries between indigenous and statutory laws also add
to confusion in consideration to natural resource management (Ramirez, 2002). Many
traditional rules governing rangeland use are no longer effective as a result this creates
confusion because community members do not know exactly which law should they follow
when utilizing rangelands. In some instances, people lay claim to land falling under two
nearby villages while maintaining commitment to only one headman or chief with regard
to resource management. This is a difficult situation and community members have been
known to take advantage of this situation by extending their rights of access to natural
resources thereby confusing other members (Kirkland et al. , 2005).
Cocks et al. (2006) indicated that in the Eastern Cape Province, lack of governmental
support from the local government for natural resource management creates confusion
especially after the former homeland administration was changed into the new Eastern
Cape Province. This shows that in this process of changing to the new Eastern Cape, the
administration has been taking its time in attending to matters associated with natural
resource management.
10.6 The geographical context, experiment and findings
The next several sections present the geographical context of this study and provide a
description of the experimental study sites in which the study was conducted. Along with
these are detailed descriptions of the experiments carried out to assess the status of natural
resource management in the province and the role of institutions.