ABSTRACT
The case study on South Africa was produced for the Project on Environment, Population, and Security at the University of Toronto. This chapter analyses environment-conflict linkages in South Africa as a whole. It outlines the physical geography of South Africa and overviews the degree of environmental scarcity. Intra-ethnic divisions—caused in part by the effects of environmental scarcity— produced levels of violence in the region akin to civil war. The chapter shows that environmental scarcity has reached alarming levels in many of the former homelands and informal urban settlements in South Africa. The average population density of the former homelands was ten times the density of rural 'white' South Africa. Agricultural potential decreased in the homelands because of growing population densities, water scarcity, and soil erosion. Scarcity and its interactions produce several common social effects, including lower agricultural production, migrations from zones of environmental scarcity, and weakened institutions.
