This thesis analyses the dynamics, complexities and numerous obstacles that serve to constrain rural development within the ‡Khomani Community of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa. Following the end of Apartheid, given the disparity in wealth evident among the country’s population, in 1994, the South African Government embarked on a process to address inequality. In regard to the rural poor, who constitute the majority of the country’s poor, the Government envisioned that a more equitable distribution of land would result in economic development and poverty alleviation for land reform beneficiaries. Consequently, a Land Reform Policy was introduced, which was used by the ‡Khomani Bushmen to reclaim ancestral land in South Africa’s rural Northern Cape in 1999. More than ten years on, however, the living conditions of the ‡Khomani have not improved, and the Community continues to live in poverty. Despite the award of land and financial input from government and development agencies, the ‡Khomani have no basic services and are unable to significantly diversify or increase livelihood strategies. Multiple factors including a lack of Community cohesion and capacity, limited opportunities due to remote rural location, and the inability of government and development actors to successfully apply effective interventions, serve to constrain development, and maintain ‡Khomani disempowerment. The thesis argues that governments, development institutions and actors must recognise the need for a multidimensional approach to development to alleviate poverty, while recognising the limits of external actors and the role of communities in this regard. Essentially, sustainable rural development will only ensue when communities are able to make effective decisions based on meaningful choices.

The Gemsbok Sub-basin is situated in the south-western corner of the Kalahari Karoo Basin and extends south from the Kgalagadi District of Botswana into the Northern Cape (South Africa); and west into the Aranos Basin (southeast Namibia). The Sub-basin preserves a heterogeneous succession of Upper Palaeozoic to Lower Mesozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Karoo Supergroup. Because the succession is largely covered by the Cenozoic Kalahari Group, the stratigraphy of the succession is not as well understood as the Main Karoo Basin in South Africa. Most research in the Gemsbok Sub-basin is based on borehole data. This study focuses on the intrabasinal correlation, depositional environments and provenance of the Karoo Supergroup in the Gemsbok Sub-basin in Botswana and Namibia. Based on detailed sedimentological analyses of 11 borehole cores of the Karoo Supergroup in the Gemsbok Sub-basin of Botswana and Namibia, 8 facies associations (FAs) comprising 14 lithofacies and 2 trace fossil assemblages (Cruziana and Skolithos ichnofacies) were identified. The facies associations (FA1 to FA8) correspond to the lithostratigraphic subdivisions (the Dwyka Group, Ecca Group, Beaufort equivalent Group, Lebung Group [Mosolotsane and Ntane formations] and Neu Loore Formation) of the Karoo Supergroup. Sedimentological characteristics of the identified facies associations indicate the following depositional environments: glaciomarine or glaciolacustrine (FA1, Dwyka Group), deep-water (lake or sea) (FA2, Ecca Group), prodelta (FA3, Ecca Group), delta front (FA4, Ecca Group), delta plain (FA5, Ecca Group), floodplain (probably shallow lakes) (FA6, Beaufort Group equivalent), fluvial (FA7, Mosolotsane and Neu Loore formations) and aeolian (FA8, Ntane Sandstone Formation). The Dwyka Group (FA1) forms the base of the Karoo Supergroup in the Gemsbok Subbasin and overlain by the Ecca Group deposits. Three types of deltas exist within the Ecca Group: fluvial-dominated; fluvial-wave interaction and wave-dominated deltas. The Gemsbok Sub-basin was characterised by rapid uplift and subsidence and high sediment influx during the deposition of the Ecca Group. Petrographic and geochemical analyses of the Ecca Group sandstones revealed immature arkose and subarkose type sandstones dominated by angular to subangular detrital grains, sourced from transitional continental and basement uplifted source areas. The sandstones of Ntane Sandstone Formation are classified as subarkoses and sourced from the craton interior provenances.

Thesis (MTech (Nature Conservation))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / A survey in 2010 suggested that the lion (Panthera leo) population of the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (KGNP) was exhibiting a skewed sex ratio in favour of males, which can ultimately lead to a decline in lion population numbers. In the KGNP artificial water provision has influenced the abundance of resident prey and potentially, lion diet and body condition. Changes in mammalian diet, and consequently body condition, have been found to influence the sex ratio of offspring. In response to a concern that diet may be influencing lion sex ratios in the KGNP, aspects of the spatial and temporal variation in lion diet were investigated between May 2013 and June 2015. The lion diet profile in the KGNP was described using evidence of prey remains identified through GPS cluster analysis (n = 278) from seven collared lionesses, lion scat analysis (n = 189) and opportunistic observations of lion feeding events (n = 52). Spatial variation in diet was investigated between three regional landscape types (north, south and west), based on the different vegetation types represented within each area, and two habitat types (riverbeds and dunes). Seasonal variations were assessed according to the hot-wet season (November to April), and the cold-dry season (May to October). Findings were also used to assess whether lion diet in KGNP has changed over the last 45 years through evaluating results from historical lion diet studies.

<p>The conventional view on the Kalahari in southern Africa expresses that the area is unsuitable for livestock herding. For this reason, it is argued that livestock herders avoided the Kalahari in the past and were only able to establish themselves in the later half of the twentieth century, when deep-reaching boreholes were introduced in the area. An effect of this concept was that the archaeological record of pastoralists in the Kalahari either was perceived as non-existent or received little attention from scientific enquiry.</p><p>Based on an archaeological survey in the Kalahari of the northeastern part of Namibia, the purpose of this study is to construct an alternative approach to the archaeology of livestock herding. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the areas unrecorded land-use history. </p><p>I depart from the notion that the main ecological constraint for dryland pastoralism is the availability of dry season water and fodder resources. For this reason, the fundamental basis for a pastoral land-use system is places that contain dry season resources. By reviewing recent ecological research, historical and anthropological accounts and previous archaeological research, I establish a link between livestock herders’ procurement of dry season key resources and the practice of digging wells. The link can be motivated from the pastoral ambition of accumulating livestock and high water requirements in the restrained dry season. On this basis, I suggest that artificial wells are useful indicators of pastoral land use in the Kalahari. </p><p>The most crucial task for the study is to address the archaeological visibility of pastoral well sites. By a research approach integrating the theoretical understanding of pastoralism and a methodology including ecology, archaeology, history and the knowledge of the people who keep livestock in the region today, the archaeological survey revealed 40 well sites, including nearly 200 well structures that have all been used for watering livestock. </p><p>However, it would be unfortunate if a study of pastoral wells would solely address the ecological foundation and the archaeological visibility of pastoralism. I suggest that the wells signify the labour of peoples with common or separate histories, with or without own herds, but probably talked about in relation to herds. I will also argue that the wells can be used for tracking and reconstructing a pastoral land-use system that predated the colonial era. Furthermore, the wells can be used to identify changes of the land-use that took place during the twentieth century, which involved that livestock herding was more or less abandoned in large parts of northwestern Kalahari. </p><p>The study surmises that the critical historical perspective is valuable for development projects and conservationist interventions active in the region, especially in the light of the recent trends in the dryland ecology, which shows a larger appreciation for the indigenous understanding of the management of dryland ecosystems. With modifications, the developed approach can be applicable for land-use historical research elsewhere in southern Africa.</p>

The conventional view on the Kalahari in southern Africa expresses that the area is unsuitable for livestock herding. For this reason, it is argued that livestock herders avoided the Kalahari in the past and were only able to establish themselves in the later half of the twentieth century, when deep-reaching boreholes were introduced in the area. An effect of this concept was that the archaeological record of pastoralists in the Kalahari either was perceived as non-existent or received little attention from scientific enquiry. Based on an archaeological survey in the Kalahari of the northeastern part of Namibia, the purpose of this study is to construct an alternative approach to the archaeology of livestock herding. The aim is to contribute to a better understanding of the areas unrecorded land-use history. I depart from the notion that the main ecological constraint for dryland pastoralism is the availability of dry season water and fodder resources. For this reason, the fundamental basis for a pastoral land-use system is places that contain dry season resources. By reviewing recent ecological research, historical and anthropological accounts and previous archaeological research, I establish a link between livestock herders’ procurement of dry season key resources and the practice of digging wells. The link can be motivated from the pastoral ambition of accumulating livestock and high water requirements in the restrained dry season. On this basis, I suggest that artificial wells are useful indicators of pastoral land use in the Kalahari. The most crucial task for the study is to address the archaeological visibility of pastoral well sites. By a research approach integrating the theoretical understanding of pastoralism and a methodology including ecology, archaeology, history and the knowledge of the people who keep livestock in the region today, the archaeological survey revealed 40 well sites, including nearly 200 well structures that have all been used for watering livestock. However, it would be unfortunate if a study of pastoral wells would solely address the ecological foundation and the archaeological visibility of pastoralism. I suggest that the wells signify the labour of peoples with common or separate histories, with or without own herds, but probably talked about in relation to herds. I will also argue that the wells can be used for tracking and reconstructing a pastoral land-use system that predated the colonial era. Furthermore, the wells can be used to identify changes of the land-use that took place during the twentieth century, which involved that livestock herding was more or less abandoned in large parts of northwestern Kalahari. The study surmises that the critical historical perspective is valuable for development projects and conservationist interventions active in the region, especially in the light of the recent trends in the dryland ecology, which shows a larger appreciation for the indigenous understanding of the management of dryland ecosystems. With modifications, the developed approach can be applicable for land-use historical research elsewhere in southern Africa.

Understanding, monitoring and managing savanna ecosystems require characterizing both functional and structural properties of vegetation. Due to functional diversity and structural heterogeneity in savannas, characterizing these properties using remote sensing is methodologically challenging. Focusing on the semi-arid savanna in the central Kalahari, the objective of this dissertation was to combine in situ data with multi-scale satellite imagery and two image analysis approaches (i.e. Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA) and Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA)) to : (i) determine the superior method for estimating fractional photosynthetic vegetation (fPV), non-photosynthetic vegetation (fNPV) and bare soil (fBS) when high spatial resolution multispectral imagery is used, (ii) examine the suitability of OBIA for mapping vegetation morphology types using a Landsat TM imagery, (iii) examine the impact of changing spatial resolution on magnitude and accuracy of fractional cover and (iv) examine how the fractional cover magnitude and accuracy are spatially associated with vegetation morphology. Using the GeoEye-1 imagery, MESMA provided more accurate fractional cover estimates than OBIA. The increasing segmentation scale in OBIA resulted in a consistent increase in error. While areas under woody cover produced lower errors even at coarse segmentation scales, those with herbaceous cover provided low errors only at the fine segmentation scale. Vegetation morphology type mapping results suggest that classes with dominant woody life forms attained higher accuracy at fine segmentation scales, while those with dominant herbaceous vegetation reached higher classification accuracy at coarse segmentation scales. Contrarily, for bare areas accuracy was relatively unaffected by changing segmentation scale. Multi-scale fractional cover mapping results indicate that increasing pixel size caused consistent increases in variance of and error in fractional cover estimates. Even at a coarse spatial resolution, fPV was estimated with higher accuracy compared to fNPV and fBS. At a larger pixel size, in areas with dominant woody vegetation, fPV was overestimated at the cost of mainly underestimating fBS; in contrast, in areas with dominant herbaceous vegetation, fNPV was overestimated with a corresponding underestimation of both fPV and fBS. These results underscore that structural and functional heterogeneity in savannas impact retrieval of fractional cover, suggesting that comprehensive remote sensing of savannas needs to take both structure and cover into account. / text

The focus in this project is on the analysis of empirical evidence collected from the #Khomani and Ngwatle communities relating to representation, theories of reflexivity and research methodology, as well as responses to The Healing Land (2001) by Rupert Isaacson, in relation to research methodology, representation and ethical concerns. This project will examine if and how research can be beneficial to the San, and interrogate whether auto-ethnography/reflexivity as research methodology can be used as a way of representing indigenous people in ways that empower them. Films and books often give little indication of how, by whom and for what reasons they were produced, which imposes limitation on the knowledge gained by the reader/viewer. Reflexivity is a methodology that incorporates the producer and the production process into the final product. Reflexivity directs attention to the' process and the power relations involved in constructing cultural texts. Representation of the San Bushmen has had a long history of othering, of perpetuating colonial domination. The "Other is never simply given, never just found or encountered, but made" (Fabian, 1990:755). The application of reflexive methodology could have the potential to undo the perceptions and stereotypes projected by unidimensional films, writing and pop-anthropology which give no indication of/attempt to disguise the relationship between producer, process, product and viewer in the representation of indigenous people. Awareness of the interaction between observer and observed also leads to consideration of ethics, power relations and responsibility of academics and filmmakers towards their subjects. This project discusses encounters in the Kalahari in relation to research methodology, auto-ethnography and representation. The primary text critiqued is Rupert Isaacson's book The Healing Land (2001). The application of reflexivity to my own project incorporates discussion of methodology, the nature of the encounter, and negotiating my own subjectivities. "To be reflexive is to structure a product in such a way that the audience assumes that the producer, the process of making, and the product are a coherent whole. Not only is an audience aware of these relationships, but they are made to realise the necessity of that knowledge" (Ruby, 1977:4). Unrealistic and disempowering representation of the San is related to their political and social marginalisation. This also relates to the issue of responsibility of researchers to the subject communities which are their sources of images and information. The subject communities have certain expectations of academics and filmmakers. If these expectations are not met or fulfilled in some way, the local informants tend to feel that they are being exploited. The San often have unrealistic expectations and are unaware of the differences between profit-making films and research; financial constraints on academics, writers and filmmakers; and the processes by which policy is implemented that prevent their hunger and thirst being immediately alleviated (Tomaselli, 2001a). I attempt to test these kinds of assertions and examine whether there are instances where the San feel that they have benefited from and are satisfied by the encounter, and how the principles allowing for a mutually beneficial encounter can be developed. Thus this project will deal with empowerment and development for the San. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

M.Sc. (Geology) / Refer to full text to view abstract

Please read the abstract in the section, 09summary, of this document / Thesis (PhD (Zoology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Zoology and Entomology / PhD / unrestricted