AGRICULTURAL EVOLUTION ON THE FRONTIER*

The evolving agricultural landscapes of frontier settlement are related to distance from entry points, to distance from urban centers, and to aspects of the physical environment. Canonical correlation procedures applied to nineteenth century data for Cape Province, South Africa, and southern Ontario, Canada suggest that commercialization, regionalization and specialization increase through time. Results for southern Ontario are confirmed while those for Cape Province reflect the impact of an expanding frontier area.     

The Knysna Basin, South Africa: geomorphology, landscape sensitivity and sustainability

The Knysna Basin, a southern Cape catchment, drains into the Knysna estuary. The landscape characteristics are the product of a long geomorphic evolution resulting in high sensitivity to change. Consideration of the geomorphology is followed by examples of impacts on the estuary and adjacent areas. The need for sustainability in the context of development is argued. The paper is a southern African contribution to the landscape sensitivity issue.     

The Eastern Beringian vole Microtus deceitensis (Rodentia, Muridae, Arvicolinae) in Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene faunas of Alaska and Yukon

The fossil vole Microtus deceitensis occurs in Early Pleistocene deposits at Fort Selkirk, Yukon Territory, and Late Pliocene beds at the type locality, Cape Deceit, Alaska. Analyses of simple vs complex morphotypes in the cheek teeth, and of differentiation of tooth enamel, show that the Cape Deceit sample of M. deceitensis is less derived, and thus appears to be older, than the Fort Selkirk sample. The fossiliferous deposits at Fort Selkirk are well constrained by fission-track and radiometric dates and are 1.5 to 1.7 myr. Sediments at Cape Deceit bear a normal magnetic polarity, are correlated with the Olduvai subchron, and probably are latest Pliocene.     

Heartbeat of a mountain: diagnosing the age of depositional events in the Karoo (Gondwana) Basin from the pulse of the Cape Orogen

Careful consideration of the effects of the Cape orogeny on sedimentation in the Carboniferous-Jurassic Karoo Basin provides an indirect tool for accurately dating these rocks. Fossil and radiometric data, especially when combined with sedimentological and structural information, yield partly overlapping age brackets which can be used to correlate the successive tectonic pulses with specific depositional events. Application of these principles to associated basins in Gondwanaland can provide a firm foundation for more dependable stratigraphic correlation on a global scale. The exercise also suggests that a number of widely held opinions on the age of certain stratigraphic units in the Karoo Supergroup may be incorrect.     

Access tunnel convergence prediction in longwall coal mining

Summary The paper describes theoretical andin situ studies of tunnel deformation in longwall coal mining. It develops a method to predict tunnel convergence profiles from the faceline in longwall mining. The method accounts for the effect of panel width, extracted seam height, deformation moduli of the goaf material and coal pillar, depth of cover,in situ structural defects, tunnel shape and tunnel size in addition to the strength characteristics of surrounding strata. The analytical technique has been validated by reference toin-situ deformation measurements in 26 face-access tunnels in Cape Breton Coalfield mines. Based on this method a series of vertical convergence profiles for different depths and extracted panel widths have been presented.     

The murky waters of the second wave of neoliberalism: corporatization as a service delivery model in Cape Town

This article reviews how the process of corporatization transforms public sector management by adopting private sector principles. It argues that corporatization, as an institutional form emerging from a second wave of neoliberalism, threatens to undermine the democratic accountability of local authorities by virtue of restructuring the state in ways that are invisible to the public yet with highly negative outcomes for low-income communities. The article provides a case study on the water sector in Cape Town, South Africa by tracing the local authority's adoption of three cost-recovery policies and their impacts on low-income households over a five year period (1997-2001). Engineers are the key agents in the promotion of cost-recovery policies in the efforts to deliver services more `efficiently'. While these officials are highly skilled professionals in dealing with the technical side of the production process, they lack the social training necessary to deal with the politics of distribution. The prominence of the neoliberal agenda in urban management can be in part be attributed to the power of the technical over the political as engineers displace politicians in the deliberations over how to deliver services to poor areas of the city.     

FIGHTING FIRE WITH A BROKEN TEACUP: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SOUTH AFRICA'S LAND‐REDISTRIBUTION PROGRAM*

ABSTRACT. Since the rise of its first democratically elected government in 1994, South Africa has sought to redress its highly inequitable land distribution through a series of land‐reform programs. In this study we examine land‐redistribution efforts in two of South Africa's provinces, the Western Cape and Limpopo. By analyzing a cross‐section of projects in these two locales we develop a political ecology of stymied land‐reform possibilities to explain the limited progress to date. Given South Africa's ambitious goal of redistributing 30 percent of its white‐owned land by 2014 and the incremental and flawed nature of its redistribution program, we argue that the process is like trying to put out a fire with a broken teacup. Our results are based on interviews with policymakers, commercial farmers, and land‐redistribution beneficiaries, as well as on an analysis of land‐use change in Limpopo Province.