What are the cost of land degradation to communal livestock farmers in South Africa : the case of the Herschel District, Eastern Cape

Bibliography: leaves 185-205.A more recent approach to communal rangelands argues that this traditional view has ignored communal farmers' objectives, which are to maximise stock numbers rather than offtake in the form of sales and slaughter, and challenges the view that communal rangelands are necessarily degraded. Long-term livestock records in many former homeland districts of South Africa have shown no appreciable long-term decline in animal numbers. This has led several influential researchers and policy makers to conclude that no loss in productivity has occurred and that these systems are sustainable in fulfilling the objectives of the land users. The aim of this study is to assess the costs of degradation in terms of land users' objectives using a case study in a communal rangeland area in South Africa