What ECARP says is wrong with current land policies

In the detailed arguments of the memorandum, ECARP says land plays a central role in the social and economic platforms of contemporary society.

“This is so because it an essential resource to: (a) acquire substantive rights to tenure and housing, and (b) to enhance and diversify livelihood options,” the memorandum states.

Describing current state strategy as a neo-liberal macro-economic one, ECARP says while the state has regulated of the rural labour market in line with the Constitution, land and tenure practices have not similarly benefited.

“The main focus of the land redistribution process thus far has been market-driven reinforcing the ‘willing–buyer willing seller’ progression,” the memorandum states.

“The Carlisle Bridge area is a reflection of the dire implications of a neo-liberal land reform programme adopted by the African National Congress.”

Going on to recount the sale in 1998 of eight farms in the area to Norwegian civil servant Ivar Henriksen, who turned them into a single game reserve, the document says: “Land acquisition and land grabbing of this nature are encouraged by the principle of the willing-buyer willing-seller. In essence the willing-buyer willing-seller thrust of land reform encourages a situation whereby white commercial farmers are selling their farms to foreigners and among each other to set up game farms.”

The memorandum cites several disputes that arose when land changed hands – both after the original sale in 1998, and also in the current period.

In the memorandum, ECARP uses these disputes as the basis for arguing as follows:

“The Carlisle Bridge land issue demonstrates that the market-driven land reform programme does not produce a harmonious state in which everyone is better off. Instead, it has produced even greater levels of social inequality and the circumvention of positive land rights for landless and poor people.”