The concepts discussed in this short paper come from the experience gained over the past nine years in growing the Tlholego Development Project (TDP) as a training and demonstration center for sustainable landcare practices. While the Tlholego experience covers only a small footprint of rural development in South Africa, (that of rural farming communities west of Rustenburg), it is more the experience in holistic or ecological approaches to developing basic human life support systems, that has value in this context.

The National Government and the scientific community recognize the need for using a holistic approach to implementing ‘Landcare’ in South Africa. Landcare is a National Department of Agriculture special strategy for sustaining the natural resource base, focussed on national assets of soil, water and vegetation where ownership and management occurs through partnerships between communities and civil society.

Landcare like Reconstruction and Development (RDP) is an excellent plan for sustainable development but struggles to be implemented. Both Landcare and RDP include a long-term and short-term vision for sustainability. TDP as with many rural projects, falls directly in line with the ethics and objectives of RDP and Landcare but continues to struggle with financial stability.

The experience at Tlholego reveals a clear fault in the way rural projects are financed especially for those involved with long-term objectives like improving soil fertility, developing water resources, growing trees and building human capital in rural areas. Typically what happens is that funding is structured on a short-term basis with the intention that sustainable jobs will be created which will support long-term objectives.

In practice this strategy fails for community systems because without long-term sustainability already in place, resources generally drain toward short-term survival. This gives a current scenario where we are failing to implement national programmes like RDP and Landcare while we are continuing to consume soil, water, vegetation and jobs. In order to realize value from this pattern of poverty and financial unsustainability, we need to invest in a plan that brings together long and short-term strategies for funding and project design.

We now understand soil, water, vegetation and people to be the core that sustains our lives and those of our children, our national asset to manage and develop over years. The reality however is that this capital, which is currently degrading, is mostly experienced as a liability. This problem with sustainability of our natural resources is on the increase, as is outlined in Landcare South Africa Document[1].

Taking an example from the Tlholego experience. The current running costs are around R15,000.00. per month. This supports an educational institute and ten farm worker families (+/- 50 people) who have invested nearly ten years in learning the processes involved in forming an Eco-village[2] as a foundation for 21^st century sustainable living in rural areas.

The primary long-term strategy for sustainability at TDP is focussed on the management of 2000 date, olive and carob trees maturing over a 10-20 year period. The basic design for sustainability of these trees ensures they are planted into an ecological landcare system that optimizes economic value, community self-reliance and the development of soil, vegetation and water resources.

Simplified, at current market prices this amounts to a sustainable business with an annual revenue of R1.2 million[3] and economically sustainable for many hundreds of years. In the case of Tlholego, this strategy will create a sustainable livelihood for at least 10 and 20 rural families (70 to 150 people) and ecological management for around 120ha of natural resources. With a long-term foundation locked in place, there is ongoing potential for investment in education, tourism and organic systems of production.

Based on a stable foundation, projects like Tlholego can begin to support similar strategies for sustainable development within the local watershed. In the case of Tlholego this would include up to 3000 people in farm-worker communities and resettlement projects and at least the same number hectares of land including a Bakwena iron-age heritage site, wildlife conservancy and mixed-use farming lands.

From the perspective of Tlholego, It seems there are thousands of community projects that are ready to take up this sort of challenge, but no financial instrument available to support such a programme. Funding is often available in ‘one off’ amounts and three to five-year time frames are considered long-term.

This strategy at best keeps people alive in the short-term but achieves little in the way of growth of new capital. What we are looking for is a goal between the posts - a strategy that has a certain long-term stability as well as focussed short-term activity and where the long-term activity is interdependent with short-term viability.

To sustain the long-term process in practice it will be necessary to invest a certain amount of capital up front against the future asset value of soil, water and trees under sustainable management. This capital would be invested in part for physical resources and in part into a special fund that would produce a sustainable revenue stream.

As an example, if R1million were invested in a ‘village level community fund’, it could generate between R10,000.00 and R15,000.00 per month for 10 to 20 years, with the principle still intact[4]. This commitment creates a sense of trust on the ground and biological and human processes can be set up and nurtured through their lifecycles to fruition. A healthy environment is also created for spawning new businesses and living the learning of becoming sustainable entrepreneurs.

With a sustainable financial strategy in place, a project like Tlholego would sustain itself long enough to realize profitable returns on long-term investment. This would register as land, soil, water and trees under management in partnership with rural communities who live sustainably and own and manage ecological systems of production worth at least R1.2 million in revenue per year. In addition a community with this capacity and experience would be capable of spreading a similar pattern to the surrounding catchment, 10 to 30 times the potential in value.

On a national level if this strategy were to spread to 1000 communities, the collective revenue producing potential of the primary landcare system of soil, water and trees under ecological management, could be worth at least R1Billion per year. Possibly 10 to 100 times larger depending on what is grown and developed in the downstream of this system. Either way this strategy will result in a very strong foundation to grow a sustainable economy on in the decades to come.

Perhaps a wide spread strategy could be implemented through a company structure, which forms long-term partnerships with communities around sustainable management of soil, water and trees. The value of natural resources under sustainable management in 10 to 20 years is hard to imagine, already carbon-credits[5] can be traded in the global marketplace. Additionally, growth in the organic food and health products industry in the USA, Europe and Australia has grown 20 to 30% this past year indicating the potential of massive new opportunities in these areas.

The strategy described above has emerged from nearly a decade of practical experience in introducing ecological development patterns to the farming community west of Rustenburg and the South African population in general. These ideas have come from a gut experience of what works on the ground and a trusting in the ability for soils; water, trees and people to grow and flourish when cared for over time.

The potential success of this strategy has significant implications for all South Africans, especially for the children who are not yet aware of the sustainability crisis before them. This document is intended as an initial introduction of ideas around a long-term strategy for financing sustainability in rural development projects, based on the objectives of Landcare and RDP.

Implementing such a strategy would ensure an ongoing and expanding process develops around building soil and water resources and high value eco-systems in partnership with rural communities with the capacity to drive an economic engine that can make sustainable development work for us. For our survival and prosperity, the sooner we begin investing in making sustainability work, the lower the costs and the greater the returns will be.

Paul Cohen

29 May 1999

For further correspondence click here

Implementation Framework for the Landcare Programme in South Africa - Dicsussion Document (Feb 99) Enquiries: Dr M B Molope, Chief Director, Resource Conservation and Quality Control, National Department of Agriculture. Tel: 012-319 6446
Information on Eco-village development globally can be found at http://www.gaia.org
R1.2 million is based on an average retail price for dates in 1999 being R30 per kg and a tree production of 20kg per tree per year for 2000 treess under sustainable management.
This example uses 12% to 18% interest rates on cash in the bank as one potential financial instrument that coud work for this model. The principle however is that financial capital is invested now in order to ensure the realization of sustainable environmental, human and social capital in the future.
International law around green house gas emission controls are forcing polluters to pay fines or buy the carbon-credit rights to sustainably managed forest systems, which are net absorbers of carbon emissions.