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FAIR COMPENSATION
FOR COMMUNITIES
AFFECTED BY MINING
The many ways in which rural residents use and are connected
to their land must be weighed up, say researchers.
Recent work from the Land and
Accountability Research Centre at the
Department of Public Law sought to
identify elements that need consideration
to ensure just and equitable compensation
for communities displaced by mining.
Commonly, compensation analyses
such as this are focused on the market
value of land or immovables such as
homesteads. However, the centre’s
research proposes that this should be
broadened to include valuation of the
economic and cultural aspects of rural
residents’ dependence on their land to
support their livelihoods.
The research focused on residents of
Makhasaneni, consisting of about 300
households in the KwaZulu homeland. It
found that all households in the area were
involved in activities that relied on the
land, including access to home gardens,
firewood, honey and medicinal plants.
These activities not only provide a
valuable food source but play a social
role as well. Indeed, the researchers
revealed the communities’ interaction
with the landscape is firmly embedded
in their local identity.
“The many ways in which rural
residents use and are connected to their
land need to be weighed in their full
complexity to arrive at an understanding
of what it means to place an individual
in the same position that he or she
would have been, had the disruption and
dislocation from their land not occurred,”
concluded the researchers in an article in
The Conversation.
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