ABSTRACT
Introduction A number of provinces in South Africa, especially those that were part of the former Cape colony, have designated areas of land known as municipal commonage. This land is found on the outskirts of towns and was allocated by the Crown to the earliest settlers during the time of the establishment of settlements (Hall et al. 2007). Earlier definitions of municipal commonage refer to them as ‘lands adjoining a town or village over which the inhabitants of such a town or village have a servitude of grazing for their stock, and, more rarely, the right to cultivate a certain portion of such lands’ (Donges and van Winsen 1940: 296). In South Africa, the historical development of municipal commonages has been inextricably influenced by the land laws which governed the country throughout the apartheid era and have subsequently been altered following the introduction of the national land reform programme in 1997. The fundamental question pertaining to the position of commonage under the democratic rule of the present government is, therefore, bound up with questions of fairness, equity and efficiency. The uses of commonage too have changed. This chapter will focus on understanding the place of commonage in the lives of the poor and disadvantaged.
