GRAAFF-REINET NEWS - The Support Centre for Land Change (SCLC), a non-profit organisation committed to agrarian transformation, hosted its 10th annual Land Access and Land Use Platform in Mossel Bay on 16 and 17 March.
About 60 participants from the Sarah Baartman, Garden Route, and Central Karoo districts of the Eastern and Western Cape provinces representing various sectors – forestry, informal settlements, small-scale farmers, farm dwellers, women, and youth – participated in the event.
This included farmworkers from the Mortimer area in the Cradock district, dwellers from the Vrygronde informal settlement in Graaff-Reinet and the Fish River Transnet settlement near Cradock, as well as small-scale farmers, women and youth from Graaff-Reinet, Rietbron, and Willowmore.
The platform focused on the theme Strengthening Activism and Advancing Movement Building. Discussions centered around how communities can mobilise and support one another to secure land tenure for housing and food production in the different locations where they reside.
On 16 March a site visit to the Powertown informal settlement in Klein Brak River near Mossel Bay was conducted. The site visits enabled participants to engage with the informal settlement dwellers and learn from their struggles.
Commenting on the purpose of the platform, SCLC director Patrick Sambo said that it is completely unacceptable for the rural poor to continue to be marginalised 30 years into democracy. "Indigenous farmers still struggle for access to land and water while forestry, farm, and informal settlement dwellers have insecure tenure and live under constant threat of evictions without proper basic services," he said.
"These communities are also bearing the brunt of the intensifying climate crisis that is adversely impacting on their access to water and ability to produce food and leaving them food insecure and hungry."
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