Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / A total of 25 million South Africans are living in poverty, the majority of them in rural areas (SPII, 2007) added to this, the percentage of people living in poverty in rural areas more than doubles those living in the same conditions in an urban context (Armstrong, Lekezwa & Siebrits, 2008). Alleviating poverty and promoting development in rural areas is Strategic Priority no.3 in the National Government’s medium term strategic framework, through the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (DRDLR, 2010). It has also been shown that poverty alleviation through small-scale agricultural projects can be successful in both creating income and improving household nutrition (Lahiff, 2003). The South African Government has attempted multiple varied approaches towards poverty alleviation in rural South Africa with mixed success. One of these approaches is that of a formalised strategy for Local Economic Development (LED) at the municipal government level. LED has been placed firmly in the remit of local government and in some areas has been undertaken by LED agencies (LEDAs) which are autonomous entities but are operating within municipal legal structures. The Blue Crane Development Agency (BCDA) is one such LEDA based in the Blue Crane Route Municipality of the Cacadu District of the Eastern Cape. The main aim of this study is to explore how the BCDA’s agricultural projects affected the livelihoods of their participant communities. The study utilises the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) in order to measure primarily qualitative differences the LED program has made to local livelihood strategies and outcomes. The research takes the form of a case-study, utilising in depth interviews and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools. It was found that the agricultural LED projects did increase livelihoods and capital during the time they were ongoing. However, as the projects had ended there was no long term increase to livelihood strategies and security. Multiple factors were responsible for the project failures. These include the lack of clear delineation in roles between the BCDA and their employees, lack of re-investment once projects were inherited by the beneficiaries and insufficient post hand-over mentoring.

The purpose of this research has been to understand the grocery retail sector‟s response towards achieving environmental sustainability. This response entailed whether or not an environmental strategy has been implemented, the rationale for this strategy, the associated practices undertaken and the accompanying benefits and/or costs that have been realised. To this end qualitative research with an exploratory design was conducted on 66% of South Africa‟s large grocery retailers and a number of findings have been made. Firstly, a formal response has been made to achieve environmental sustainability but this response is still in its early stages and tends to focus on externally orientated activities such as stakeholder relationship management or sustainability reporting. Furthermore despite global trends, green consumerism, legislation and non-governmental pressure are not drivers for pursuing environmental sustainability by large grocery retailers. Voluntary choice and an acknowledgement of responsibility for influencing consumer behaviour were identified as the key drivers. Organisation‟s also do not yet fully understand the impact of their activities on the environment as well as the impact of the environment on them. As a result their journey towards becoming environmentally sustainable remains a contradiction. Based on the findings made, some of the recommendations made towards achieving environmental sustainability include the adoption of a business case approach, implementation of an appropriate maturity model and entering into partnerships with non-governmental organisations. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

<p> Man-made pollution is hazardous to both the environment and human health. This study attempts to develop a low-cost, biobased adsorbent for CO₂ capture and heavy metal removal. The adsorption behavior of CO₂ from air and Pb (II) from aqueous systems onto polyethylenimine (PEI) modified biochar was studied. Chemical and physical pretreatments were performed in an attempt to enhance the adsorption kinetics of biochar. FT-IR and Elemental Analysis were performed to confirm the loading of PEI onto the surface of biochar was achieved. The efficiency of the PEI modified biochar on the removal of Pb (II) from aqueous solutions was determined by Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS). Alkali pretreatment of PEI modified biochar increased CO₂ capture and removal of Pb(II). This experiment introduces a new approach to air and water purification by using the combination of an amine with biochar.</p><p>

Sustainable development has attracted attention from both English and Korean planning systems. Whilst embracing this concept within planning, both countries have attempted to reform their local plan-making systems to flexibly respond to changing circumstances. This similarity of direction towards reformation of the planning sector raises questions for this research. Given that England embarked on promoting sustainability within its plan-making system ahead of Korea and reforming its planning system in the same direction as Korea, there may be a possibility that the current English planning system shows how far Korea can progress in the pursuit of a more environmentally sustainable planning system in the future.With this in mind, the research deals with two domains: understanding the environmental sustainability of the local plan-making systems in the two countries and discussion of the transferability of the lessons extracted from the comparative analysis. The findings reveal that many of the lessons learnt from the English experience could be adaptable in a Korean context under the existing legislation and that an amendment of national directives, in particular, Directive on Urban Planning could expand transferability. For instance, by designing the process of community participation and integration in greater detail in the Directive and suggesting detailed process of strategic environmental assessment as in the English system, there is a greater possibility for the local plan-making system in Korea to support environmental sustainability within planning more substantially. Together with this, findings on transferability anticipate that a potential conflict could exist due to the financial and administrative burden which may be imposed on local planning. Furthermore, the consensual knowledge held by actors involved in the plan-making process could facilitate the transferability of the suggested lessons. However, the current Korean politics which is focused on economic concerns surrounding the reformation of the plan-making process could create potential obstacles in accomplishing the suggested lessons.

The University of Manchester,Mohamad Farizal RAJEMI,Doctor of Philosophy,Energy analysis in turning and milling,2010.Energy generation as driven by consumption demand is a key contributor to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. Hence reducing energy usage is an essential consideration in sustainable manufacturing. In addition, the world is experiencing a higher demand and cost of energy, hence reducing energy usage is an important factor for cost control and economic sustainability. Energy availability and security is now recognised as a key aspect to the socio-political sustainability of nations. Thus, reducing energy demand can be associated with the three; economic, environmental and social sustainability pillars. The manufacturing sector is a key industry that relies on the use of energy in driving value adding manufacturing processes. A widely used process is mechanical machining. This PhD was focussed on an investigation of energy consumption in machining processes and the energy footprints of machined products. A literature review had indicated that despite decades of optimising of machining operations based on cost and productivity, optimising energy use had not received significant attention. In the study a current monitoring device was used to evaluate current requirements and hence power and energy needs for machining processes. The study was done for (i) a range of workpiece materials and (ii) the turning and milling process. This enabled the definition of energy distribution for a machining process and identification of key areas of focus in order to reduce the energy used by a machine tool. The study was then focused on an energy intensive material in terms of machining requirements (titanium alloys) and an in-depth characterisation of the impacts of conventional compared to high speed machining was undertaken. From the study it was clear that a methodology was needed to ensure that energy use can be reduced or optimised. Thus an energy footprint model for a machined component was developed. This model was then used to derive an optimum tool life equation that satisfies the minimum energy criterion. A methodology for selection of optimum cutting conditions was then developed and tested on a component. Thus, the Thesis presents a new and novel model and methodology for selecting optimum cutting conditions for machining, based on minimum energy requirements. The energy savings associated with using such methodologies are quantified and found to be very significant. This work makes a distinct and important contribution to the machining science for reducing the energy and carbon footprints of machined products.

This dissertation explores the impacts of state-imposed development on rural communities and their environment in the mountainous district of Upper Svaneti in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Analyzing these effects is particularly salient as developing countries attempt to attract foreign investment with the option to liquidate natural capital, the wealth and power divide between urban and rural regions widens, and the world is struggles to respond to the global environmental challenges of climate change and biodiversity conservation. The forests, household livelihoods, cultural heritage and traditional property regimes of Upper Svaneti are now under threat by two state-led developments: first, by land acquisitions for the construction of a commercial ski tourism zone; and second, by revisions to the Forest Code that will allow the state to grant 49-year concessions to forests and their underground water and mineral resources. During six months of fieldwork over the summer and fall of 2011, I collected data through 250 household surveys, in-depth interviews with villagers and government officials, and analysis of archival materials and policy documents. This dissertation follows a three-essay format. The first essay measures household dependence on common pool resources (CPRs) and property under traditional private ownership. I find that low-income households are especially dependent on threatened CPRs, as are households in villages at a greater distance from market centers. I conclude that income from new wage employment in the tourism and timber industries is not a sufficient substitute for prospective losses in CPR-based income, due to the importance of diversified livelihood strategies for managing risk, the value of maintaining traditional governance structures and ecosystem functions, the limited substitutability of CPR goods, and the diminishing purchasing power of wage income. I argue that if development trajectories are to create a pathway out of poverty for local communities, they must create new income opportunities that do not limit local access to natural resources or degrade the environment. The second essay utilizes elements of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework pioneered by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues to map governance systems and characteristics of forest users in two villages in the Upper Svaneti district. First, I trace the institutional history of the two villages from the formation of traditional self-governance structures prior to the Soviet period, to collectivization and state control during the Soviet era, through the post-Soviet transition to current structures and policies. I then detail the interactions between government and non-governmental organizations, property rights systems, and monitoring and sanctioning processes. I evaluate the attributes of forest users, including their socioeconomic characteristics, history of forest use, social capital, environmental values, and the importance of forest resources in livelihoods. I compare the results against indicators for successful community forest management (CFM) regimes identified in a recent meta analysis in order to identify both the strengths of the region in its ability to support CFM initiatives and the processes that are inhibiting their emergence. I find that the forest users exhibit many of the characteristics associated with successful CFM, but that the legal framework for forest ownership and financial incentives for regional and state officials are obstructing decentralization. Intervention by the international community could help to support communities in establishing ownership rights over village forests and to change the existing incentive structure facing government officials. The third essay explores how households plan to respond to the "peasant dilemma" presented by the introduction of the ski tourism zone: the choice between maintaining pre-modern agricultural practices, on the one hand, or participating in new wage employment or to embarking on new self-enterprise opportunities, such as opening a guesthouse or small business, on the other. Distinguising between the progressive and regressive, I analyze how changes in livelihood strategies are likely to affect collective action for CFM, opportunities for female-headed households, and wealth inequality. I find that households prefer to allocate labor toward starting a small business over participating in wage employment, that there are negative relationships between wage employment and support for CFM and between political connectedness and support for CFM, but a positive relationship between dependence on CPRs and support for CFM. For these reasons, commercial tourism development can be expected to erode possibilities for successful CFM. Meanwhile, the majority of female-headed households, particularly those in villages outside the administrative capital, are unlikely to benefit from the development, and both inter- and intra-village wealth inequalities are likely to increase. My findings suggest that an alternative development approach, such as ecotourism based on establishing a Protected Area, that emphasizes small-scale business, retains traditional subsistence practices, supports CFM, and provides equal opportunity for households across the district, would be more socially desirable than the development trajectory that is currently planned.

The civil engineering and architectural communities are highly focused, these days, on designing buildings that maximize utilization of energy available from natural resources. This dissertation presents a quantitative study of the effect of high-rise office building morphology on energy and structural performances for the major climates. The parameters of the building morphologies are varied—the building footprint shape, the placement of the structural core/walls, and the building orientation. The energy analysis is performed using Autodesk Ecotect Analysis 2011; while using SAP2000 for the structure analysis and design. The key observations are: (1) the building morphology has a significant effect on the annual energy consumption, (2) placement of the structural core/walls in the east and west sides significantly improve the energy performance, (3) the tradeoff in the cost of placing the structural core/walls to maximize operating energy efficiency is too great, (4) for built to code buildings the energy demand may be considered marginally sensitive to changes in aspect ratio, and (5) high quality thermal properties of code-built envelope systems offer more flexibility to designers with regard to the building site planning without creating negative impacts on total energy demand.

Fishing is an ancient way of food gathering, which has been instrumental for the healthy living of many people, for many years. Nowadays, fishing is particularly important to developing countries since the value of fish surpasses that of agricultural commodities such as sugar and rice. People living along the coast have been harvesting marine resources for basic subsistence for generations and at present several small-scale fisheries operate along the South African coastline, ranging from the shore-based harvesting of intertidal resources such as mussels, to the targeting of migratory line-fish stocks using small motorized vessels. Due to their high dependence on marine resource harvesting, small-scale fishers (SSF) are among the most vulnerable socio-economic groups, and while small-scale fisheries employ the vast majority of the world's fishers, they are often marginalized and ignored. The lack of appropriate governance in South African small-scale fisheries has made it hard for fishers to benefit from the resources that are readily available to them. However, changes within fisheries management practices have led to the move from conventional resource-centred strategies to management approaches that recognize the complexity of the sector. The new small-scale fisheries policy, currently in its implementation phase, embraces many of these new approaches but does not necessary prepare small-scale fishers to actively participate in the co-management of their resources. Furthermore, the lack of reliable data and information about small-scale fisheries, due to historical marginalisation, is currently one of the primary challenges facing the sector in the country, and preventing small-fishers from demonstrating to policy makers the potential of the sector to contribute towards food security and poverty eradication. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential of a mobile app in bringing about a co-production of fisheries knowledge and stimulating the co-management of fisheries, using the fishing communities of Lambertsbaai on the West Coast and Struisbaai along the South Coast as case studies. The research aimed to understand and assess the concerns and uncertainties of formalizing the mobile app (Abalobi) and explore if the mobile app can entice fishers' enthusiasm towards the implementation of

Includes bibliographical references. / Previous studies, using remote sensing, have identified the Kuiseb River in Namibia as the dustiest river in Southern Africa. Dust plumes detected from this basin are mostly associated with the Lower Kuiseb River, between the end of the bedrock canyon at Natab and the Kuiseb Delta towards the Atlantic Ocean. The purpose of this study was to examine the surface materials of the Lower Kuiseb River and establish their potential towards dust production, leading to such plumes. This investigation focused predominantly on the size characteristics of 153 surface sediment samples collected from the Kuiseb main channel, its terraces, delta, gravel plain surfaces and tributaries, dunes and interdune, all of which were analysed using a Malvern Mastersizer 2000 laser diffractometer. In addition, other sediment characteristics such as mineralogy, organic matter content, soluble salts; and selected surface roughness elements were also considered. Furthermore MODIS satellite imagery was used to assess the dust emission activity from each of the geomorphological units sampled in the field for the period from 2005 to 2013. This study has demonstrated surface sediments suitable for dust production to increase towards the coast with particular "dusty" floodplain surfaces between Swartbank and Rooibank, as well as the Kuiseb Delta. It appears that silt crusts formed as the flood water dissipate, provide a main source of appropriately sized material for deflation. The crusts consist entirely of silt and clay sized material, with a maximum of 97% <63&#956;m, 39% <10&#956;m and 6% <&#956;m. Dust producing surfaces of the gravel plain include the gravel plain drainage, which has the largest quantity of clay sized material (maximum of 11% <&#956;m). Anthropogenic disturbances of the surface are likely playing a role in the production of dust, with livestock farming causing a fragmentation of crusts in the river valley, and mining and off-road driving disturbing the gravel plain.

Includes bibliographical references. / The Cape Town Talent Exchange (CTTE) is a Community Exchange System operating locally in Cape Town, while allowing national and global exchanges to take place. Trading activity occurs between members of the community through an alternative currency, Talents. There are numerous incentives driving the participation of the community members. These include various political, social, economic, environmental and philosophical motivations. It is evident, however, that the members’ desires meet through the search for an alternative space where social interactions are experienced and social values are formed through economic activity. The construction of the CTTE as an alternative economy, that re¬&#8208;introduces this social dimension into the economic sphere contributes to the movement away from the hegemonic, capitalist economy to one of heterogeneity. There are, however, tensions that lie in the overlapping nature of these systems, restricting the alterity and autonomy of the CTTE and emphasising the power and dominance of the mainstream economy.