SA's land crisis is ongoing, not historical

Reverend Mbhekiseni Mavuso faced his community being forcibly removed from their ancestral land in the 1960s. Today, they face renewed threats from a proposed iron ore mine that could displace thousands, destroy fertile agricultural land and desecrate ancestral graves in Entembeni, Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal.

Despite past resistance, the pressure to allow mining resurfaces, underscoring the real-world dangers faced by land defenders who often endure intimidation and threats. Mavuso was one of the guests of a podcast series, uMhlaba Talks.

The series was released mid 2025 and saw episodes pick up momentum on platforms such as TikTok in late 2025 and currently in 2026, with thousands of views and engagement on the topics.

One of the hosts of the uMhlaba Talks podcast, a project of the Land and Accountability Research Centre, argues that until South Africans stop seeing land purely as an economic asset and instead recognise it as central to identity, dignity and survival, the country will continue to battle profound social and political crises.

Thiyane Duda was also a researcher at the Land and Accountability Research Centre in the Department of Public Law at the University of Cape Town, he told Daily Maverick.

“The discourse around land in SA is often siloed, treated as a narrow legal or policy issue detached from the broader political and economic landscape. However, for the centre, the issue of land is the pivot around which so many of the country’s intractable social problems turn,” Duda said.

The centre’s core mandate is supporting struggles for the recognition and protection of land rights and living customary law in the former homeland areas. The organisation in a written response to Daily Maverick said its work was the foundation for its podcast, uMhlaba Talks.

It said that what first drew it to this central theme was the way “land dispossession cuts across so many social, economic and political issues”.

The need for a platform to bridge this gap and situate land within wider struggles for social change and historical justice led to the creation of uMhlaba Talks.

When asked why a podcast as a medium the centre said that it recognised the necessity of reaching people where they were in the digital age, with the aim of making complex issues of customary law, land and rural governance more accessible and engaging.

“The broader aim is to build knowledge and capacity, especially among young people, women and rural activists, enabling them to engage meaningfully with the decisions that shape their lives,” the centre said.

“The notion that SA’s land question is a historical issue that has been resolved is a dangerous illusion. In reality, landlessness and insecurity continue to shape the everyday lives of many people, particularly in former homeland areas.”

Despite legal interventions aimed at protecting land rights, rural citizens remain deeply vulnerable to dispossession. The pressure from mining and other extractive industries is a major threat, often resulting in agreements being concluded between traditional leaders and private interests without meaningful community consent. This results in widespread tenure insecurity and exposes the depth of inequality that persists.

“These realities show that land is not a historical issue that has been resolved, but an ongoing struggle that sits at the centre of questions about power, accountability and social justice in SA today,” Duda said.

One of the episode’s guests was Nolundi Luwaya, a director at the centre who has done extensive research and advocacy work with affected communities. When asked where we are in SA now in terms of land reform, Luwaya said: “The short answer is that we’re stuck. The slightly longer version of that answer is that all three of the programmes that are designed to work collectively to advance land reform are facing serious challenges and serious shortcomings.

“It is estimated that it would take over a hundred years to resolve the claims that are in the system already, never mind people who haven’t yet lodged and haven’t had a chance,” Luwaya said.

Luwaya said that the root of the delay was in part a lack of political will.

“I also think that our state and the kind of lack of political will is partly because I’m not sure that there is much, that there’s been much consideration given to just how deep the wound of dispossession actually is,” Luwaya said.

“If you’re willing to use what is effectively a national wound as almost kind of a cheap tool to bring and rally support, I think it says quite a lot about how you think about that national wound and how you actually think about solving it,” said Luwaya.

Land and Food

When asked about the parallels between land ownership and food security, the centre stated that land ownership and access shaped food security in indirect and practical ways in SA.

It said that that for many rural households, land was not only a place to live but a primary means of producing food, whether through small-scale farming, grazing, or subsistence agriculture.

“When people have secure access to land, they are better able to feed themselves, reduce dependence on expensive food markets, and sustain culturally appropriate diets. Conversely, land dispossession and tenure insecurity undermine food security. Communities facing threats of eviction, mining, or commercial development often lose access to fertile land, water sources, and grazing areas, making it harder to produce food and forcing households to rely on purchased food amid rising food prices and unemployment,” the centre stated.

This was especially significant in former homeland areas, where historical dispossession, overcrowding, and weak land governance systems continue to limit people’s ability to farm productively, the centre said.

Women, in particular, are often most affected as they are central to household food production, but frequently have the least secure land rights.

“In this sense, food insecurity in SA cannot be understood only as a problem of poverty or supply. It is also a land question. Without secure, equitable access to land, efforts to address hunger and nutrition will remain limited and uneven.

How does the research centre think policy discussions on land could better integrate the realities of hunger and nutrition?

Ultimately, it said, creating policies that effectively address tenure insecurity requires moving beyond abstract frameworks and engaging directly with the lived experiences of rural communities.

“Particularly women and young people, who are most affected by tenure insecurity and food scarcity. Engaging communities in this way ensures that policies are informed by local knowledge. Understanding how communities grow, distribute and manage food, as well as how they govern themselves, helps make interventions practical, contextually appropriate, and more likely to succeed,” the centre stated

Guests on the uMhlaba Talks podcast provided valuable perspectives on this issue.

They called for a shift in the conversation about land, from focusing primarily on its commercial potential to understanding how access shapes everyday life, sustenance, nutrition, and overall community wellbeing in South Africa, the centre said. DM