From pre-colonial leadership through to the Apartheid regime, local traditional authorities played an essential role in natural resource management throughout rural South Africa. The advent of democracy in 1994, however, generated much confusion over the modern function of traditional leaders in many rural communities, specifically regarding natural resource regulation. By understanding local perceptions of governance regimes, resource use initiatives can use and enhance institutions already in place to combat further over-harvesting. The aim of this study was therefore to determine the perceived functions of traditional and democratically elected community leaders in the governance of firewood harvesting and compare perceptions between interviewed leaders and their community members. The study was conducted in six villages spanning two chieftaincies and four municipal wards in Bushbuckridge Local Municipality, Mpumalanga Province. In-depth interviews were conducted with the following local leaders: the chiefs from the two chieftaincies, the nduna (headman) from each village, the ward councillor from each ward and three members of the Community Development Forum from each village. Five community focus group sessions were also run in each village to determine local community perspectives on wood availability and governance regimes. It was found that the majority of respondents, from both individual interviews and focus groups, believed that firewood availability had decreased in recent years. In addition, 21 of the 30 focus groups (across both chieftaincies) suggested that there was insufficient firewood to meet the needs of their village now. While all interviewed parties across both chieftaincies regarded the chief as the ultimate authority in firewood management, his actual system of regulation as well as the perceived roles and responsibilities of subsidiary leaders appears highly differentiated between the chieftaincies. Results also indicate that although there is some ambiguity around community-level firewood regulation, these instances of uncertainty are village-specific and could indicate diminished village-level enforcement of regulation. Overall, however, other lines of evidence evince a general weakening of traditional local control across all the villages. Some authors maintain that this deterioration of village firewood management stems from community confusion and/or contestation over the roles of local leaders. However, I argue that reduced government budgets as well as leader’s empathy for poor firewood-dependent households have also contributed to the increasingly relaxed implementation of strict firewood systems. With this in mind, future policy decisions need to consider ways in which to reduce rural over-harvesting, either by increasing the affordability of alternate energies or by implementing strategies that allow for continued firewood harvesting but in more sustainable ways. Recommendations that detail such approaches are presented for the study region.

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2005. / Bibliography: leaves 277-290.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 233-250).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 158-162).

No description available.

This is a study in the economics of deriving energy from wood. Its objective is to provide guides to industry managers that will enable them to better assess wood's fuel potential. It is written with this business audience in mind. An introductory section describes the "energy crisis" as nothing more than a radical shift in relative prices, requiring that a significant investment be made in capital assets designed to economize on high-cost, fluid fuels. A second discusses wood fuel supply within the context of the total timber supply. Heightened demand for fuelwood unleashes both opposing and complementary forces that affect the supply of wood fiber. These are described. A continuum is developed to show how the marginal cost of deriving effective energy from wood changes depending on the level of subsidy provided by other joint-products of the log. One chapter is devoted to a comparison between wood and fossil fuels on the basis of caloric value, combustion efficiency, environmental impact, and fuel form conversion. Final sections set forth guides for profit-maximizing fuel selection: • A case study of Continental's Hopewell, Virginia, Kraft linerboard mill is used to develop a linear programming model that selects the optimal wood-coal mix for a combination boiler. • A short-run analysis section discusses wood sourcing and allocation between energy and fiber uses. Four methods are described: Least-Cost Sourcing, Conversion Surplus Valuation, Relative Fiber Valuation, and Return-to-Capital Valuation. The last approach is shown to be superior. • Finally, a long-run analysis section looks at risk in capital investment for energy assets, and defines it in terms of semi-variance. A simulation approach is described that allows one to calculate an index of risk for various fuel system investment alternatives. / Ph. D.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Johannesburg 29 September 2017 / As in other developing countries in Africa, unsustainable harvesting of fuelwood in South Africa has become a matter of concern among policy makers and researchers. This is despite the country having the highest electrification access in the continent, because the majority of rural households in communal woodland areas cannot afford to cook on electric stoves, due to high levels of poverty and unemployment,. Moreover, relevant institutions do not have the capacity to monitor compliance with harvesting rules, resulting in resource users harvesting livewood due to the scarcity of deadwood with almost impunity, despite this constituting an illegal activity under the traditional management rules. Other interventions such as woodlots have largely been unsuccessful in addressing the unsustainable harvesting problems. Thus, researchers have recommended that rotational coppice harvesting be implemented by the local institutions in partnership with local resource users as a potential strategy to sustainably provide fuelwood, while addressing incapacity problems in terms of the shortage of physical and human resources in the relevant institutions. The majority of South Africans using fuelwood reside in the savanna biome which covers 34% of the country. Savanna tree species generally coppice (resprout) easily and this provides an opportunity for rotational harvesting strategies, involving local resource users. Although ecological data suggest that rotational harvesting of coppice regrowth can be sustainable, rotational harvesting of coppice has not gained popularity in South Africa, because of tenurial and institutional challenges in communal areas. Thus, whether or not rotational harvesting strategies are feasible in communal woodland is yet to be established. This thesis reports the findings of a study that assessed the implementation of a rotational harvesting scheme in selected rural communities. In order to investigate the ecological and socio-economic feasibility of community-based coppice management (CBCM), four communities across Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces (Thorndale, Peninghotsa, Homu and Makhuva) in South Africa were selected based on a set of criteria, and involved in a coppice management trial. The harvesting trial was implemented over a one year period by the local traditional leadership in partnership with local resource users and relevant government institutions, facilitated by the researcher. The trial was successfully piloted through one iteration of the adaptive management cycle in the first two villages. The intervention entailed rotational harvesting of specified stem size classes and species in blocks (coupes), according to consensus-based rules that were enforced by local institutions in cooperation with resource users. The study period was not long enough to monitor the rotational harvesting of coppice per se, but enabled the creation of coppice stools and a community-based system for rotational harvesting of wood resources. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this action research study to assess fuelwood harvesting and use patterns, ecological sustainability, social feasibility, and the adequacy of local resource-governance systems to implement CBCM, over the course of the first year of the intervention. Data such as energy mix used in the households, time spent acquiring fuelwood, compliance with harvesting rules, perceived cooperation between institutions, and socio-economic information were collected using questionnaires. Data were collected in two survey periods, the first occurring in early January 2014 before the trial started, and the second one from April 2014, after it had started, to January 2015. The fuelwood resource base, coppicing, and wood harvesting patterns in the village communal woodlands were assessed before and during the trial in fixed 100 m2 circular plots. Allometric equations were used to convert the observed density of stems and coppice shoots into wood biomass. The measured growth rates of coppice shoots were used to estimate the amount of time that would be required for shoots to reach the allowable harvest diameter of 4–9 cm, and hence the number of years required for one harvest rotation between coupes. These data, along with the measured rates of self-thinning of shoots and village wood demand, were used to make projections of fuelwood supply by coppice and unharvested stems in the village coupes over a number of harvest rotations. The effectiveness of management under traditional management rules and that of CBCM were assessed in focus group discussions, interviews and questionnaires with the local traditional leaders and key informant interviews with government rangers before and during the trial. Levels of compliance by resource users with the agreed CBCM rules were high in Thorndale and Peninghotsa because they were given an opportunity to decide and agree on harvesting rules that were conducive to their harvesting practices. Although the intervention did not change the energy use patterns in the households in these villages, local resource users spent significantly less time acquiring fuelwood than they did prior to the intervention, thus reducing the opportunity costs of wood harvesting. There was a noticeable decline in the incidence of illegal harvesting of fuelwood by “outsiders” due to greater vigilance by resource users and community-based monitors as a result of the successful implementation of CBCM in these villages. Based on the growth rate data averaged across species, coppice shoots would reach the harvestable diameter of 4 cm in 3 years in Thorndale and 4 years in Penninghotsa. The difference may be explained by species differences in these villages, e.g. Terminalia sericea which coppices vigorously was one of the predominant species recorded in Thorndale. The successful implementation of the trial in Thorndale and Pennighotsa in the first year of the intervention is attributed to a number of socio-economic factors, including relatively small and homogenous populations, innovative and adaptive local TAs which were flexible and had encouraged community participation and supportive resource users who had positive perceptions of their leadership and the project. This is in contrast to Homu 14B and Makhuva which were characterised by larger, more heterogeneous populations, inflexible leadership who were incapacitated by lack of physical resources, lack of transparency by the leadership, and negative attitudes and perceptions of resources users. This study demonstrates that community-based coppice management is potentially applicable and feasible for sustainable provision of fuelwood in communal areas, and identified under what conditions it is most likely to succeed. / MT2018

No description available.