This study conducted an evaluation of farmer and shepherd perceptions on Anatolian Shepherd dogs, used as livestock guarding dogs to mitigate farmer–wildlife conflict and meet conservation ends. The case study involved Anatolian Shepherd dogs bred at the Anatolian Shepherd Dog Breeding Project in the Namaqua National Park, and placed mostly on farms and at stock posts near the Namaqua National Park in the Northern Cape. The data were collected during structured and semi-structured interviews with livestock farmers and shepherds that received Anatolian Shepherd dogs from the Breeding Project. Anatolian Shepherd dogs were evaluated in terms of their contribution to reduce livestock losses and conservation of wildlife species. In terms of effectiveness in preventing or reducing livestock losses, 84% of the dogs eliminated or reduced livestock losses. Respondent satisfaction with the dogs was high, with 95% of respondents willing to recommend the Breeding Project and the use of Anatolian Shepherd dogs. Of the respondents, 95% perceived their dogs to be economically beneficial. Another 48% of respondents reported some form of behavioural problems at least once during the placement of the dogs. The most common reported problem was resting in the shade rather than accompanying the livestock. However, corrective training was effective in all cases where training was undertaken immediately. In terms of conservation, fewer respondents used lethal predator control methods in the years after placement of the dogs than before their placement. The overall perception regarding the use of lethal control methods (e.g. gin traps, shooting and poison) was that such control is cruel and that it is better to use non-lethal control methods only. However, a few respondents reported that lethal control measures were occasionally necessary to make a living when no other control measures were available, especially when the herd was relatively large. The effects of Anatolian Shepherd dogs on non-predator species in this study were minimal. The presence of the dogs therefore aided predator conservation and improved farmer tolerance of predators, especially by effectively reducing livestock losses.

This research focuses on the potential convergence between the 'form' of corporate sustainability (CS), represented by selected South African companies' integrated reports (IRs), and the underlying 'substance' of CS, being the integration of sustainability into companies' strategy and operations. The research also explores the extent to which organisational culture and management systems underpin and operationalise integrated reporting (IR) and CS. The research is approached from two perspectives: firstly, the research investigates the strategies and implementation of IR and CS independent of one another, and aims to reveal contemporary IR and CS practice and challenges; secondly, the research focuses on the potential relationship between IR and CS by seeking to identify any synergies between the IR and CS, and aims to provide insight into whether IR can further a company's CS ambitions, and if so, how this occurs. The research follows a case study research methodology, which is considered suitable for research into new fields given its predisposition to theory building. The cases were selected from those included in Ernst & Young's Excellence in Integrated Reporting Awards for 2012 (EY 2012 survey), which reviewed and rated the IRs of the top 100 companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). The sample includes a total of six companies selected from the above-mentioned top 100 companies, being two companies from each of three JSE super-sectors. Of the two companies in each super-sector, one company was recognised by the EY 2012 survey as having produced a superior integrated report and the other company had not achieved such recognition. A detailed review of each company's two most recent IRs and sustainability report was undertaken to inform and facilitate meaningful and insightful interviews with appropriate personnel from various departments within each company, including corporate affairs and communication; environmental; strategy and business development; finance; sustainability; human resources; governance, risk and compliance; and corporate social investment. Primarily open-ended questions were posed to allow for the collection of qualitative, company- specific information on companies' IR and CS strategies and implementation. The broad-based adoption of IR in South Africa, in response to the JSE regulation requiring listed companies to produce an integrated report or explain why they have not, has provided a sound platform for revealing the early stages of IR practice. Although CS is not a new corporate discipline, it remains a somewhat contested corporate practice, evident from the broad spectrum of companies' approaches to CS: these range from a basic compliance standpoint to more holistic synergistic strategies aimed at integrating CS into all parts of the business. Given the differing approaches to, and appetites for, IR and CS amongst the researched companies, the findings identify certain dominant themes of contemporary practice, and reveal opportunities for expanding and improving IR and CS. Indications are that management systems play an important role in the implementation of IR and CS strategies. IR, a relatively stand-alone corporate function, shows limited dependence on organisational culture, which is a key determinant for CS given its extensive reach within companies and reliance on employee buy-in for engaging with CS. The findings also uncover other key insights into the multi-faceted relationships between IR, CS, organisational culture and management systems. Finally, although there are some synergies between IR and CS, these represent a more subtle, constrained IR and CS relationship. To conclude, although the findings recognise that IR can stimulate a focus on CS in companies that have yet to seriously engage with CS, succeeding in IR does not appear for the most part to provide an indication of proficient CS capability, reflecting a decoupling of IR practice and success from that for CS.

Living in impoverished urban areas, female headed households are most vulnerable to food insecurity. In order to reduce the risk and abate the experience of household food insecurity, civil society (NGO) and government have established numerous poverty reduction programmes and initiatives. However, in spite of ongoing efforts, the proportion of South African households experiencing food insecurity has not decreased but rather plateaued (SANHANES-1, Shisana et al, 2013). In order to address this plateau, the research has answered the question - how do food insecure female headed households experience the contributions of poverty reduction programmes in meeting their food security needs? The purpose of the study has been to add to relevant literature, with the aim of describing what food insecure households consider the contribution of poverty reduction programmes to be in meeting their food security needs. The research had four objectives - to describe (1) what food insecure households believe food in/security is, (2) how food insecure households experience food insecurity, (3) the characteristics of effective poverty reduction programmes from the perspective of food insecure households, and (4) the characteristics of ineffective poverty reduction programmes from the perspective of food insecure households. A descriptive qualitative methodology was used with data gathered through the methods of Photovoice with photo-elicitation interviews, semi-structured interviews, collage, observation field notes and a self-constructed questionnaire. The research participants, five female heads of households, were purposively sampled from a low-income Cape Town community. The research found that participant's food insecurity could not be separated from their lived experience of poverty. Making use of and influenced by Internal and External Drivers, participants were found to actively engage their living conditions with the use of social networks to be of particular importance. Participants experienced the contributions of programmes as 'half a help'. While programmes did help the participants and their households, that help served to only sustain rather than uplift them out of poverty and towards food security. If the plateau is to be addressed, then this study has argued that local programmes need to better engage their users and join with other multi-scale actors to form integrated poverty reduction programmes which offer more comprehensive, collaborative and dynamic approaches to the realization of household food security in South Africa.

Tourism is increasingly seen as a panacea for the problems of rural areas, especially in developing countries. It is promoted by governments and international development organizations as a vehicle for achieving development, poverty reduction and economic growth. However, tourism has resulted in many unwanted economic, social, cultural and environmental consequences for local communities. Through a case study conducted in Ponta do Ouro, Southern Mozambique, this research sought to investigate the contribution of tourism to coastal livelihoods. The research assessed the extent to which tourism contributes to livelihoods of coastal communities of Ponta do Ouro, and their perception of benefits and negative impacts associated with tourism. Qualitative methods were used to collect data and included five focus group meetings, 46 key informant interviews, and participant observation. Findings of this study reveal that despite providing employment and other economic benefits to the livelihoods of the community of Ponta do Ouro, tourism also resulted in negative impacts on community livelihoods. These included overcrowding during high tourism seasons, loss of access to public land, rising prices of properties, goods and services, and an increase in crime, alcohol use and pollution. Therefore a pro-poor tourism approach is recommended as an attempt to ensure that benefits of tourism are better distributed and serve the needs of the local and broader community in terms of infrastructure development and improvement of social services and facilities.

Conventional fisheries management approaches have been shown, in many instances, to have been ineffective in dealing with complex conservation concerns such as bycatch. Greater considerations for broader-scale and holistic approaches, as proposed by the 'Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries' (EAF) and the 'balanced harvesting approach', are beginning to challenge some of the negative misconceptions around bycatch, especially in small-scale fisheries. The need for a more holistic approach to fisheries management, particularly in small-scale fisheries, in South Africa is highlighted by its commitment to an EAF and the recent Small-Scale Fisheries Policy, for which the Marine living Resource Act of 1998 provides the legal framework to implement. The case study of the Olifants estuary small-scale traditional gillnet fishing community, located on the west coast of South Africa, provides a particularly relevant example of a complex fishery requiring a holistic approach. Current regulations prohibit the harvesting or retention of any bycatch species. Fisheries management worldwide and in South Africa, generally view gillnet fisheries as destructive, due to the occurrence of bycatch and the fact that many of these bycatch species are considered overexploited, which has led to numerous attempts over the years to phase out the Olifants gillnet fishery. The purpose of this study was to, firstly, use an EAF framework to contextualise the issue of bycatch in the Olifants gillnet fishery, and secondly, to identify the relative contributions of all fisheriy sectors to the four key selected linefish species caught as bycatch by the fishery. An extensive review and analysis of available secondary data, as well as primary data collected for this study, have estimated, with acknowledged limitations, the magnitude of the exploitation by all known fisheries of these species. Key information from small-scale fisher interviews and community-monitoring data highlight the capture rate of key linefish species by this fishery. This is echoed by recent landings for 2012 indicating the relative contribution of the national beache seine and gillnet fishery to the overall catch of (Elf [Pomatomus saltatrix] - 26.94%; Silver Kob [Argyrosomus inodorus] - 0.88%; White Stumpnose [Rhabdosargus globiceps] - 1.05% - excluding the recreational sector). A significant finding of this study is the substantial levels of cross-sectorial exploitation of Silver Kob and White Stumpnose, and to a somewhat lesser extent Elf and White Steenbras.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS THESIS IS EMBARGOED. Historically, urban agriculture (UA) in the African context has been viewed as a food security and livelihood intervention. However, influenced primarily by discourses in the Global North, the framing of urban agriculture has shifted. Increasingly, advocacy from urban planners has shaped how UA “gets done”. Drawing on contemporary planning concepts, these practitioners have been innovating new forms of urban agriculture that connect UA to the built environment, such as vertical farming, rooftop gardens, and mixed-use urban “agrihoods”. However, scholars from the fields of Southern and African urbanism and critical urban planning, have raised concerns regarding the uncritical application of Northern theories, including those from urban planning, into the African context. Specifically, there is concern around planners’ lack of regard for the inherent characteristics of African cities as they attempt to world them into global cities. Against this background, this dissertation examines the process behind attempts to integrate these new forms of urban agriculture into the African context through a case study of the Lukhanyo Hub project in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa. Focusing specifically on visions for urban agriculture at the Lukhanyo Hub, this dissertation asks, How do each of the actors articulate the purpose/function of urban agriculture? What is the spatiality of their ideal urban agriculture and why? and What is the role the state, civil society organizations and community in that vision? To answer these questions, participants from the project development team, municipal government, and civil society organisations were engaged in in-depth interviews and participant observation. The results centred around four themes: creating a farmer network, urban agriculture and environmental education/training, economic or distribution model, and creating a contextualised but replicable Hub model. Several challenges and critiques emerged throughout the data collection process, which seemed to stall the development. The author argues that this forced the development team to take a more participatory, co-development approach. This should have positive effects on the future of the project, though further research will be required to say for certain.

There is a recognised need to turn the abstract concept of resilience thinking into practical action for resource management. This is often difficult as resource management is complex and multifaceted. Nexus thinking attempts to address this by promoting a framework that integrates and coordinates resource management across many different but interlinked resource pillars and sectors. This research focuses on the local level implementation of the food, energy, water, land and biodiversity (FEWLB) nexus framework, and assesses farmers' understanding and implementation of nexus thinking in relation to the support of the Bergrivier Municipality. Agriculturalists (farmers) have been described as significant custodians of natural resources, as they sit in a key position when it comes to implementing and practising sustainable development. There has been little research into the relationship between farmers and local municipalities, or into the role that local government can play in supporting holistic resource management through agriculture. While there are many different actors contributing towards resource management, this research focuses on the agricultural sector within the municipality. Qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation and surveys, were used to undertake a case study of the agricultural sector within the Bergrivier Municipality. In a context where local government struggles to find its role in supporting socio-ecological resilience, the FEWLB nexus framework offers an opportunity to implement effective planning and policies that could enable more efficient resource use.

Wildfire, an essential element for the Fynbos Biome of South Africa, can be a threat to property and human life if it is not well managed. Despite many studies on the dynamics and management of wildfire, the role of the atmosphere in inducing regional circulations that promote widespread wildfire is not well known. This dissertation studies the characteristics of wildfire in the Fynbos Biome, identifies synoptic-scale atmospheric features that produce favourable conditions for the wildfire, and examines possibility of using the features as indicators for wildfire occurrence. Ten years (2003 - 2012) of fire data from the MODIS "active-fires" datasets were analysed over the study domain. Daily Fire Danger Index (FDI) was calculated over Southern Africa for this period using maximum temperature (Tmax), minimum relative humidity (RHmin), and maximum wind speed (Wmax) data from the Climate Forecasting System Reanalysis datasets (CFSR) at a 0.5°x0.5° horizontal resolution. The Self Organising Maps (SOMs) technique was used to classify the FDI (anomaly) patterns on the fire days, and the atmospheric dynamics associated with each pattern were studied.

Includes bibliographical references / A great deal is riding on conservation efforts of the twenty-first century. In an era of extinction rates one thousand times faster than ever before, protected areas have emerged as the most widely used tool available to conservationists to curb the loss of species (Child, 2004; Jepson & Ladle, 2010) . The number and extent of protected areas has increased dramatically over the past century, and their future growth is guaranteed by international and national policies (Brockington et al., 2008). The growing prevalence of protected areas on a global landscape has increased contact between communities and conservation, frequently with conflict arising as a consequence (Dowie, 2009). Increasing recognition of the impact of protected areas on local people has given rise to international consensus is that there is a dearth of knowledge surrounding these implications which needs to be addressed (Brockington et al., 2006; Igoe, 2006; West et al., 2006) . It is this gap that this study sets out to ameliorate. The overarching aim of this research was to investigate the benefits and burdens that local communities experience from living beside a protected area. Further, this study also investigated the causes of these benefits and burdens, how they were distributed between communities at a local scale, and how local perception of the protected area was influenced as a result of these experiences. The Cederberg Wilderness Area, which has a history of restricting resource use dating back to the 1890s, was selected as the protected area of interest. Of the nine neighbouring communities, consideration of the origin and similarity between communities resulted in Bosdorp and Heuningvlei adopted as representatives for the study area. Household surveys, key informant interviews, observations and documentary evidence were utilised to obtain data, and triangulation was used across methods to validate findings (Jick, 1979). Household surveys and key informant interviews were conducted over two separate field visits between March and April, 2014. In particular, the findings of this study were considered in terms of the ecosystem services framework, as the dominant theory suggested in literature surrounding the benefits and burdens that people obtain from protected areas (CBD, 1992; Government of South Africa, 2010; MA, 2005). This study found that a total of 14 beneficial uses of natural resources provided directly or indirectly by the Cederberg Wilderness Area were enjoyed by the case study communities at a local scale. The distribution of these beneficial resource uses between the two communities varied widely, with just six of the 14 uses enjoyed in both communities. In addition to income generated directly by the Cederberg Wilderness Area through conservation and indirectly through tourism, participants agreed that they received benefits in terms of aesthetics, recreation, education, and spirituality. Seven burdens were raised by participants, with all but one shared between communities. However, the less economically able of the two communities, Heuningvlei, did experience a greater number and distribution of burdens than Bosdorp, the village from which most employees of the CWA originate, and the community who receive considerably more average monthly household income. Although all participants in Bosdorp disagreed with the statement that life would be better without rules associated with the Cederberg Wilderness Area, a third of Heuningvlei participants agreed therewith. The most noteworthy observation in terms of incongruence with the literature was the extent to which both communities benefited from the protected area. The reason suggested for this observation was twofold. First, the long history of living with resource restrictions in Heuningvlei has allowed the community to adjust its norms, values and practices in order to maximise benefit from the Cederberg Wilderness Area. Second, the establishment of the Bosdorp community in close proximity to the operational offices for the Cederberg Wilderness Area has allowed residents to maximise employment and other opportunities from the protected area. In order to ascertain the causes of the observations mentioned above, the findings were framed in terms of the ecosystem services framework. This framework was subsequently found to be ineffective in identifying these causes. However, all observations left unexplained by the ecosystem services framework were explained by adopting Access Theory (Ribot & Peluso, 2003). This highlighted the important role the communities played in realising ecosystem services, and allowed for an evaluation of the appropriateness of the ecosystem services framework for incorporating social dimensions in conservation approaches. In conclusion, it was ascertained that many of the findings observed in this study were highly contextual and more often determined by the social systems in question as opposed to ecological systems. Therefore, conservation approaches that aim to achieve more resilient systems must take these social systems into consideration. It was also concluded that the current dearth of information about the social implications of protected areas limits the utility of debates surrounding the need to take these implications into consideration in conservation practices, and poses a potential fatal flaw to conservation practices based on false assumptions of social systems. This study ends by calling for further research on this matter in order to achieve management approaches that result in resilient biodiversity conservation.

Transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) are considered the latest evolution of a more holistic approach to transnational environmental management that brings together conservation and development agendas. As part of bio political governance, TFCAs are ecologically, economically and politically motivated. Using a discourse analytical perspective of claims advanced for TFCAs in Southern Africa, this study explores how Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) TFCA has been motivated. The study questions the interests of Botswana government participation in the KAZA TFCA and examines the effects of the KAZA TFCA on local communities. This study employs a qualitative approach employing triangulation methods of data collection. KAZA is one of the largest and most ambitious transboundary initiative in the world that stretches across the political borders of five sovereign states. KAZA acknowledges that nature knows no boundaries hence conservation corridors should traverse political boundaries and borders of the state. Against this backdrop, the rationale for KAZA is to provide the large herds of elephants (approximately 120,000) in Botswana with access to large area of grazing land. The study demonstrates how the burgeoning elephant population is inextricably linked with border policing, tourism and conservation. KAZA considers participation and local community involvement in planning and decision making as legitimate for sustainable natural resource management. However, the current realities exist in contrast to these considerations. The study reveals that there is a disparity between theory and practice as KAZA is yet to deliver its promises to the local communities. The thesis asserts that it is critical to view KAZA as a complex, evolving and long-term initiative that will be interesting to follow in the future.