Past and on-going projects
The comprehensive INCD case study alluded to above was done over 14 years ago. No study of similar magnitude has been done to assess changes that have taken place since then. The case study recommended a number of interventions to alleviate poverty, protect and rehabilitate the degraded environment. The feasibility of these recommended actions was never assessed and there is no information as to which of these were actually implemented. Recommended actions included:
- Community-based ecotourism
- Game farming
- Beekeeping
- Community-based veld-product utilization and management
- Pasture grass farming using harvested rain water
- Research into:
- Resource use productivity and trends
- Indigenous environmental knowledge
- Feasibility of various alternative and better adapted livelihood sources (a-e above)
- Effective community mobilization strategies
- Monitoring of:
- Livestock and wildlife numbers and distribution
- Climate change
- Biodiversity changes due to overgrazing
- Groundwater water levels and quality
- Impacts of resource degradation on human welfare
- Rangeland condition
Another relevant project is the Indigenous Vegetation Project (IVP) whose aim was to promote biodiversity conservation and rehabilitation of degraded land as a means to both environmental protection and the sustainability of livelihoods dependent on ecosystem health. IVP ended in June 2007 shortly after facilitating the formation of a conservation Trust and the development of an Environmental Management Plan.
