Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 15.1.
Limpopo Province of South Africa.
tional Park (fig. 15.1), and one in the greater Port St. Johns area in the Eastern Cape
region, about 1,553 miles (2,500 km) to the south of the former site. The two pilot
sites were selected on the basis of their accessibility and a unilateral decision by the
national government that the pilot phase should be done in those two areas from a so-
ciopolitical perspective. This chapter discusses the results of the ARISE program at
the Giyani site.
The Socioeconomic Context at Giyani, South Africa
In 2001, about 239,000 people lived in the 1,153-square-mile (2,985-km
2
)area
known as the Greater Giyani municipality (Demarcation Board 2003), resulting in a
population density of 207 people per square mile (80 people/km
2
). This is relatively
high as compared to mean figures for South Africa and Limpopo Province, which are,
respectively, 96 and 111 people per square mile (37 and 43 people/km
2
) (SSA 2006).
Such a high population density means there is a high demand for natural resources.
The municipality is also largely rural, with 89 percent of the population residing in
the rural areas and only 11 percent in the town of Giyani (SSA 2006).
In the Giyani area, 93 percent of the rural households use wood as their primary
source of fuel for cooking, at a rate of approximately 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg) of wood per
person per day (Yunga 2007). This translates to an annual harvest of about 121,500
tons of wood. The impact of harvesting is aggravated by the demand for construction
timber. This demand, along with intensive grazing, have contributed to environmen-
tal and ecological degradation, including the loss of basal cover, the formation of ero-
sion gullies, and the impoverishment of biota.
The rural population is also very young, with half of the people less than fifteen
years old (SSA 2006). It is also a female-dominated society, with women representing
55 percent of the population between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four and 65 per-
cent of the population between the ages of thirty-five and sixty-four. One reason for
