It is a well-known fact that the South African palaeoenvironmental record is fairly limited, mainly because the environmental conditions here do not lend themselves to the preservation of proxy data sources. This being said, new evidence is emerging from the Wilderness Embayment along the Southern Cape coast of South Africa. This area is of particular interest from a palaeoclimate perspective due to its location within the small year round rainfall zone of South Africa, while the presence of both Fynbos and Afrotemperate forest within this region further highlights the importance of studies in the area. This study presents a new high resolution late Holocene pollen and charcoal record from Eilandvlei, extending from c. 3 800 cal yr BP to present. The record is marked by several significant periods -- largely corresponding to the timing of the three events that typify the late Holocene: the Neoglacial, the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. The record also encompasses the arrival of European colonists in the region ca. 1800 AD, marked by the appearance of Pinus, with subsequent notable fluctuations in other taxa, e.g. Podocarpus and Stoebe-type, possibly the expression of the anthropogenic effect on the landscape. This high resolution record thus highlights significant, albeit short term, fluctuations in climate and vegetation patterns along the Southern coast of South Africa and adds to the inadequate records available for the region thus far.

Bibliography: p. 222-237. / This thesis seeks to relate the concept and practice of public participation (PP) to an evolving theory of sustainability. This relationship is framed within the context of the South African local state, where government institutions interact with civil society to support socio-economic development, as wen as environmental protection. In this respect, key mechanisms are land use planning and environmental evaluation, which interact to influence decision-making processes surrounding at times contentious land development applications. PP plays an important role in this process, and to analyse this role is the aim of this thesis.

ABSTRACT The overall aim of this study is to understand the contribution made by small-scale fisheries to food security and income of fisher households. The study also investigated the characteristics of Ocean View small-scale fishers and their dependence to marine resources for food and livelihood. The study further examined the international and regional instruments as well as domestic legislations managing small-scale fisheries and promoting food security and fishers' participation in management and decision-making. The study focused only on interim relief permit holders from Ocean View. Data were collected by means of literature review of research papers, government documents and reports as well as articles in the press. Group discussions and semi-structured interviews were held with Ocean View interim relief permit holders to assess fish consumption patterns, income earned from fishing, fishing nature, participation in management and decision-making to document fisher perceptions on management of resources they harvest. Informal discussions were also held with key informants from the community. The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism introduced interim relief measures in 2007 and consequently 2008 for traditional small-scale fishers who hold no fishing rights to harvest marine resources for household consumption as well as to sell their catch. Based on the study findings, IRMs contributed significantly to fisher household food and livelihood needs particularly, during the period when fishers were harvesting both West Coast Rock Lobster and line fish species of snoek and hottentot. The consumption of fish increased significantly in fisher households as fish was the most consumed meat protein in the households. The study also showed that households with limited sources of income were selling a large proportion of their line fish catch compared to better-off households. Although there was a positive contribution by IRMs, there is a concern about the sustainability of the harvested resources during inconsistent monitoring and enforcement by officials. Furthermore, the study showed that management decisions on marine resources in South Africa are still centralised and rely mostly on scientific inputs as the rights and livelihood needs of small-scale fishers are seldom considered in decision-making. The study further indicated that participation of fishers in management and decision-making is lacking due to little interest shown by government officials. ii In conclusion, this study highlights the need to adopt an integrated and inclusive approach to small-scale fisheries management and ensuring that livelihood needs of small-scale fishers are taken into consideration to enhance and sustain their food and livelihoods.

Bibliography: leaves 40-42. / Namiba is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa and has been projected to reach an overall water deficit by 2020. Southern Namibia is especially arid, and appropriate and holistic management of water resources is thus becoming increasingly essential

Bibliography: leaves 113-124.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-91). / The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the changes that have occurred in the economy of CapeTown, South Africa over the last half of the 20th century and what the possible effects of this change have been on social inequality. Literature on economic restructuring in cities all over the world provided the framework of ideas within which this analysis was conducted. These works focused on how in many cities. progressive deindustrialisation has led to the loss of middle-income jobs, while growth in the service sector has resulted in greater numbers of high- and low-skill and income jobs. Others argued that most cities economies' were becoming increasingly organised around professional, managerial and technical skills only, and that increased polarisation occurred solely in those cities that were subject to large-scale immigration. The overriding question that emerged from this body of work then was whether the occupational distribution of employment in cities was becoming increasingly polarised or professionalised. Careful examination of population census data on sectoral and occupational changes in the economy of Cape Town showed that the city's working population was becoming increasingly professionalised, and not more polarised. Survey data were also used to dispute the contention that a large unskilled migrant population was a sufficient condition for social polarisation. Theories about the impacts of deindustrialisation and the decline in blue-collar work on unskilledethnic urban minority groups were also discussed. Again, using population census data, it wasshown that the Coloured population had dominated manufacturing employment. Therefore, it wasconcluded that the decline in manufacturing employment would most likely have the greatestnegative impact on Coloured employment levels. This would most likely affect Coloured men most though, as Coloured women were gaining more employment in all the other types of occupations that were growing while blue-collar employment, on which men seemed to rely that much more, was declining. The argument was also made that service sector growth, while leading to increased feminisation of the workforce, also causes women to be segregated into low-skill, low-pay service jobs. However, the data for Cape Town concurred with other author's data that showed that the occupational distributions of both women and men are becoming increasingly professionalised. Some authors argued that the decline in manufacturing jobs and growth in low-skill service sector work favours unskilled women over unskilled men, as the manufacturing sector tended to hire more men and the service sector tends to employ more women. This was shown to be true in the case of Cape Town, with African women dominating unskilled labour by 2001.

Bibliography: leaves 108-112. / In this dissertation, it is proposed that the level of satisfaction experienced by the beneficiaries of subsidy-based housing is strongly dependent on the degree of involvement by the beneficiaries in the decision-making process associated with housing development initiatives. A comparative case study analysis of three subsidy-based housing developments in the Cape Metropolitan Area (CMA) has been undertaken. One of the case studies was a housing project in Philippi East that forms part of the Integrated Serviced Land Project (iSLP), while another was a cross-subsidised housing project that forms part of an integrated development initiative at Westlake. The third case study was a People's Housing Process (PHP) project in Ocean View. The major obstacles to effective beneficiary participation in the three case study projects have been identified and discussed in this dissertation. It is suggested that many of these obstacles would be applicable to other subsidy-based housing developments in the CMA. Key lessons have been drawn as to how these common obstacles to participation in subsidy-based housing development could be overcome. The key lessons that emerged are as follows: * It is important that the housing development process is effectively facilitated. * There is a need for capacity building to form an integral component of all subsidy-based housing development projects. * Beneficiary control over the finances for subsidy-based housing development projects should be promoted. It is proposed that, if these suggestions are taken into account in subsidy-based housing developments, a relatively high degree of beneficiary participation should be realised and, subsequently, increased levels of satisfaction should be experienced amongst beneficiaries. This dissertation also proposes that subsidy-based housing projects implemented by means of the PHP (as opposed to the conventional developer-built route) should be characterised by effective process facilitation, relatively high levels of capacity building and a high degree of beneficiary control over development finances if they are carried out properly. Consequently, many of the common obstacles to beneficiary participation in subsidy-based housing development in South Africa could be overcome by effectively following-the inherently participatory PHP route to housing delivery.

Bibliography: pages 71-72. / The World Commission on Dams (WCD) has completed a global survey of the performance, impacts and decision-making aspects of 125 large dam projects - th Cross-Check Survey. The primary aim of the Survey was to determine broad patterns and trends indicative of past performance, impacts and decision-making aspects of a selection of large dams that reflect the global population. Consequently, the findings of the Survey provided a link between the broad patterns and trends emerging at a global and regional level and the more in-depth findings provided by the other components of the WCD knowledge base. Thus, the Survey provided an entry point to "cross-check" the collective evidence to the WCD knowledge base - comprised of over 900 topic-related written submission, four regional consultations and workshops, 17 thematic reviews, 11 case studies and three country studies. The Cross-Check Survey sought to inform the WCD knowledge base on large dams in a responsible and consequential way but without any claims for being necessarily complete.

Includes bibliographical references. / To establish an understanding of the long-term community dynamics of the Knysan forests, and gain a better understanding of the impacts of colonial exploitation of the forests agains a background of environmental change, sediments were extracted from the lake shore of Groenvlei, an endorheic coastal vlei in the Wilderness Lake system on the southern Cape coast, some 10 km from the present-day forest core. These sediments were described, dated by radiocarbon means and subsampled for the analysis of fossil pollen and charcoal particles, environmental proxies used respectively to infer a vegetation and fire history for the region.

Bibliography: leaves 117-125. / This research is focused on determining the most significant constraints hindering the implementation of the EIA regulations in South Africa by the Relevant Environmental Authorities (REAs). The impetus for this research was provided by a literature search, information obtained at an International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) workshop held in 1999 and personal discussions with the main participants in the EIA process. This study adopts a broad approach to obtain the perceptions of the main participants in the EIA process (Regulatory Authorities, Consultants and Interested and Affected Parties), in order to identify the most significant constraints hindering EIA implementation in South Africa. The research was conducted in six of the nine provinces. Although many criteria were considered, the three main criteria used for selecting the six provinces include the research budget, geographical location and the economic characteristics of each province.