land

The Supreme Court of Appeal has sharply criticised the Land Claims Court (LCC) for ruling that restoring tribal land in the North West to the Baphiring community is not feasible, without any evidence.

The Appeal judges referred the matter back to the LCC to reconsider the feasibility of restoring the agricultural land known as ‘old Mabaalstad’ in the Koster district to the community.

The LCC was also ordered to take into consideration the nature of the land and surrounding environment and changes that have taken place since the dispossession in 1971.

According to the Africa Agriculture Status Report, Africa has 60 percent of the world's arable land and most of its countries depend on farming as the mainstay of their economies, yet productivity is low, the average size of land holdings is shrinking, soil fertility is declining, fertiliser use is the lowest in the world and rural people are unable to break out of poverty.

According to Kealeboga Dihutso, it took another court battle for the Botswana government to accept that whatever plans they had to remove Basarwa from Ranyane were wrong.
 
Dihutso is of the view that the government would like the Batswana to believe that this is an out-of-court settlement and that there is no issue as they agree in principle and that it was not ‘really’ forcing anyone out. 
 
"The government for whatever reason does not want Basarwa there and whether we can believe their reasons or not is a story for another day," adds Dihutso.
 

The Kalahari Khoisan tribe is taking Botswana's government to court to reaffirm a previous ruling that granted the tribe legal rights to its ancestral land.

According to international advocacy group, Survival International, Botswana's government has been denying the Khoisan right to return to their land despite a landmark decision in 2006 that reversed the eviction of around 1 000 tribesmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).