Land Claims

National

/ 11 September 2021

Rural Limpopo women protest against Sefateng Chrome Mine

Women sleep outside in the cold to stop what they consider mineral theft by a mining company, with state collusion

By Lucas Ledwaba

National

/ 25 September 2020

All mahala say claimants in R1-billion Mala Mala land claim

Endless court cases and threats plague community of South Africa’s most costly restitution settlement

By Lucas Ledwaba

Article

/ 21 January 2020

R1.1-billion land claim ‘captured’

This story was produced in partnership with Pulitzer Center. Details of the land claim settlement for MalaMala, one of South Africa’s most exclusive game reserves, are unlikely ever to be made public after a deal was reached outside of court proceedings in 2013. The settlement was the largest in the country’s history and saw the […]

By Michelle Nel

Article

/ 7 September 2018

Elders cry over land court setback

A Land Claims Court decision reversed on appeal has devastated weary labour tenant applicants

By Lucas Ledwaba

Article

/ 4 August 2018

Threats of war conclude WC land hearings

Panel at Western Cape land hearings receive conflicting ownership accounts and threats to defend land violently

By Govan Whittles

Article

/ 8 June 2018

Coloured civic ‘bloc’ set to contest poll

But there is already polarisation, as some activists disagree with the racist rhetoric doing the rounds

By Govan Whittles

Article

/ 25 May 2018

Land hunger spreads across Cape

Fed up with living in squalor, people in backyard shacks pegged out plots of land illegally

By Govan Whittles

Article

/ 16 February 2018

The bones echo the cry for the return of ancestral land

‘Where homesteads once stood now roams towering machinery, earth-moving monsters that have reduced the walls of Maremane to rubble’

By Lucas Ledwaba

Article

/ 22 January 2018

Exiled Maldives leader accuses China of ‘land grab’

The 50-year-old former president said the increased Chinese presence could threaten the Muslim-majority nation of 340 000

By Agency

Article

/ 24 November 2017

A township obliterates a rural life bulldozed by apartheid

This week the Mail & Guardian is proud to publish a story that is a continuation of a new, specialised reporting genre,

By Lucas Ledwaba

Analysis

/ 5 January 2017

JZ court antics dominate headlines while the destitute remain ignored

Cases about the rights of the vulnerable are overshadowed by his legal-political games.

By Karyn Maughan

Article

/ 13 May 2016

Neighbourly complicity: Yewande Omotoso’s The Woman Next Door

In her new novel, author Yewande Omotoso takes the political into a private space.

By Kwanele Sosibo

Article

/ 31 March 2016

Government ‘drags its heels’ in Hilton College Estate land claim

Labour tenants live in dire conditions and fear eviction. Meanwhile, many farmers have not been notified of claims on their land.

By Raeesa Pather

Article

/ 20 August 2015

ConCourt hands land back to North West community

The Bakgatla-Ba-Kgafela community will hold the legal rights to land they were deprived of during apartheid after seven years of litigation.

By Sarah Evans

Article

/ 18 September 2014

Locals face eviction as state turns paradise into a heritage park

Potentially a tourist magnet, the historic valley of the Zulu kings is at the centre of a land rights row.

By Kwanele Sosibo

Article

/ 7 August 2014

Land claims open Pandora’s box

President Jacob Zuma’s call for traditional leaders to claim old land may do more harm than good.

By Kwanele Sosibo

Article

/ 7 August 2014

Crownless ‘king’ wants precolonial land back

The "real king of the Basotho" has warned of civil war if his "seven million people" – the Bafokeng ba-Mmutla O-Jeoa-Tala – do not get what they want.

By Kwanele Sosibo

Article

/ 7 August 2014

Land claims could blow up in Zuma’s face

Competing demands on land could ignite serious violence and people are being robbed of their rights, writes Aninka Claassens.

By Staff Reporter

Article

/ 7 August 2014

Seven facts about the Restitution of Land Rights Act

Land reform is in the spotlight again after an amendment to 1994’s Restitution of Land Rights Act. Here are seven facts to consider.

By Kwanele Sosibo

Article

/ 6 July 2014

Traditional leaders prepare ‘very substantial’ land claim

King Goodwill Zwelithini is among traditional leaders who are compiling a land claim that could be South Africa’s largest to date.

By Sapa

Article

/ 1 July 2014

Sensitive reform policy sees reopening of land claims

Those wanting to lodge land claims now have another five years in which to do so, says Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti.

By Andisiwe Makinana

Article

/ 18 May 2014

Eastern Cape landowners head to SCA

After a court approved a claim by a group of Xhosa claimants, 17 landowners who lost a land claim bid say they are off to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

By Sapa