Weenen | Monday
THE GUJINI community near Weenen, in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands have been given 13 privately-owned farms and about ten thousand hectares of land, Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs said on Monday.
A representative for the department, Nana Zenani, said the land claimants were former labour tenants who were forcibly removed after the land was proclaimed in terms of the abolition of the Labour Tenants System in 1968.
The ten thousand hectares of land would be used for rural housing, agriculture and crop production, grazing and game farming with nature conservation services drawn in to assist the community, she said.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Dirk du Toit told the community that, while they ”celebrated” the return of their land, ”a lot still needs to be done.”
”Nature must be conserved and protected, soil erosion must be stopped, the full co-operation of the tribal leaders is needed and the tribal communities as well as local authorities (are) also very important,” he said.
He added that none of this could succeed without the co-operation of national government as well as the provincial structures on the ground.
Du Toit said since the launch of the Validation Campaign on August 18 last year by the department as a bid to speed up the process of land, 69_000 land claims have been processed with 29_000 claims already settled. – Sapa