Evaluation of benefits of land restitution forest-based public-private partnership models in South Africa: A case study of Amabomvini and Cata communities

Abstract

The question of land ownership in South Africa, like in other developing countries, has received undisputable attention from political parties, government and disadvantaged local communities. In response to this most contentious issue of land, the first democratic government of South Africa introduced a more cautious land reform programme in line with the rural development plan. Specifically, the new regime’s land reform programme focused on redressing the injustices and imbalances of land ownership of the past, which had been perpetuated by the Native Land Act of 1913 through introduction of land reform legislations including Restitution, Redistribution and Tenure. However, the most prominent challenge faced with the land claimant communities has remained the lack of technical and financial skills required for management of agricultural and forestry production. This has led to forestry industry and government pursuing strategic partnership models to expedite the land claims settlement process and at the same time ensuring sustainability of existing forestland use. These models include joint venture (JV), out-grower schemes, sales and leaseback (SLB), cooperative and community managed enterprise (CME). In this study, the input-process-output framework was used to evaluate the benefits of land restitution forest-based land reform public-private partnership (PPP) models (SLB and CME) in the two selected communities. This study was conceptualized on the basis that benefit accrual by land claimant in an equitable manner from land reform projects has remained a serious knowledge gap, especially in forest-based land reform partnership project arrangement. Additionally, sustainability of the existing forestland use remained critical to the government and forestry sector, thus, this has in turn equally presented community beneficiaries with opportunities to change livelihood of their households. Thus, the study assessed the level of satisfaction of the people on benefit-sharing modalities of forest-based land reform initiatives in their locality and factors that facilitated or hindered the participation of the community beneficiaries. In addition, the study examined and compared benefits accrued by the two community beneficiaries from the two forest-based PPP land reform models The study was conducted in communities at Amabomvini in Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) and Cata in Eastern Cape (EC) provinces, respectively. These communities were purposefully selected as they both had claimed and benefited from land transferred under restitution programme. The Amabomvini Community received the land under the Eyethu Trust, through which they forged a Sales and leaseback partnership. On the other hand, Cata community was under a Trust that at a later stage changed into a Communal Property Association (CPA). Consequently, they decided to manage their land with the assistance from Border Rural Committee (BRC), which is a non-governmental organisation (NGO). The study used generic questionnaire to collect primary data from the respondents in both communities. Based on the household beneficiaries’ lists, 140 and 175 households were randomly selected for questionnaire administration in both Amabomvini and Cata communities, respectively. Moreover, focus group discussions were used to gather in-depth knowledge on benefits sharing mechanisms available for equitable benefit-sharing to all the beneficiaries from key informants purposively selected from the Community Trust (CT) and CPA. Data analysis involved descriptive statistical analysis wherein frequencies and chi-square test of independence were used to determine the relationship between responses of respondents in both communities. In addition, ordinal logistic regression analysis was used to predict which benefit accrued had a statistically significant effect on socioeconomic status of the household beneficiaries. In this model, the household accrued benefits from the forest-based land reform (FBLR) partnership in the two study communities were used as explanatory variable with socioeconomic status as dependent variable. Additionally, the multinomial regression analysis was used to predict the likelihood of partnership extension by household beneficiaries. In the multinomial logistic regression (MLR) model analysis, the number of rotations was used as dependent variable (0-10 years=0, 10-20 years=1, 21-30 years=2, 31-40 years=3) while gender (male=0 and female=1), community (Amabomvini=0 and Cata=1) and Beneficiaries’ Confidence (confident=0 and not confident) were used as explanatory variables in the analysis. The findings of the study revealed that beneficiaries from Cata community accrued more employment benefit opportunity from the partnership compared to those from Amabomvini. However, the respondents from both communities perceived the challenge of lack of transparency, greediness, conflict amongst the CPA/Trust as the factors that cause poor benefit sharing. Additionally, the findings revealed that respondents from Cata community when compared to those from Amabomvini, experienced improvement in their household socioeconomic status post implementation of the reform. Also, there was lack of postsettlement support from the government with regard to monitoring and evaluation and discretionary grants in line with the land claim settlement agreement in both communities. This in turn has substantially compromised the effective participation in the FBLR partnership arrangements of the community beneficiaries. Moreover, the non-existence of benefit sharing mechanisms was also identified as a shortcoming in the forest-based land reform PPP models. Generally, the SLB partnership arrangement at Amabomvini community had done little to empower the household beneficiaries compared to CME at Cata community. This contrast in the two partnership arrangements is directly linked to the phenomenon of elitism raised by the beneficiaries and the trustees. Thus, a long-term study on accrual of socioeconomic benefits is critical to understand the impact of SLB and CME forest-based land reform PPP models to land restitution claimant beneficiaries. It is therefore pertinent that the post-settlement support from government is advanced timely with relevant government departments mobilised to provide expertise within their mandate in order to achieve the intended objectives of the land reform policy. In addition, the involvement of the community beneficiaries in the development of the benefits-sharing mechanisms would also be critical in ensuring the success of the FBLR partnership arrangements. Finally, the development of forestry tailor-made technical and financial management training at the level of the land claimant beneficiaries should be prioritized. Noteworthy, a research study that should focus on understanding the desirable benefits-sharing mechanisms of the land claimant beneficiaries is highly recommended.