by Debbie Sutherland, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform
Where is Giyani and why is it getting unprecedented attention?
Giyani was placed on the map, so to speak, when President Zuma included the town in his State of the Nation address on 3 June 2009:
“Working together with our people in the rural areas, we will ensure a comprehensive rural development strategy linked to land and agrarian reform and food security, as our third priority...While having drawn the necessary lessons from earlier rural development initiatives, we have chosen the Greater Giyani Local Municipality in Limpopo as the first of the pilot projects for the campaign.”
Giyani is a town found in the Limpopo Bushveld on the northern banks of the Little Letaba River just west of the Kruger Park. It was once the capital of Gazankulu, a Bantustan, and is now the administrative hub of the Mopani District. But what makes this town and area so significant?
Greater Giyani is a poster perfect example of rural South Africa, apparently neglected as far as development goes, but certainly with great potential. Dozens of villages dot the landscape and the area has poverty issues but again the possibilities abound.
Tourism is a word too often bandied about as a panacea to an area's financial woes, so let us look at the facts. The subtropical climate of the area, hot summers and mild winters, are perfect. On the golf course at Giyani zebra, buck and other herbivores graze nonchalantly but viewing of these animals has not yet been commercialised.
If not tourism, what else does this region have going for it? The climate and soil are perfect for agriculture with maize, peanut, tomato, potato, banana and cattle farming forming the backbone of this economy. Travelling by road is not always viable as many of the dirt roads are impassable during summer. Clearly the challenges abound for the Giyani pilot project.
In line with this focus the Department of Land Affairs, has transformed, and become the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. This is a move we, Surveys and Mapping, feel comfortable with as we know that any decisions (planning and monitoring) around rural development depend on geospatial information and that is our forte.
Surveys and Mapping’s maps of the national map series include those at
1:10 000, 1:50 000, 1:250 000 and 1:500 000 scale. With the exception of the 1:10 000 the whole country is covered with these maps. These maps are updated on a regular basis depending on the amount of changes taking place. Surveys and Mapping plans to update 1650 maps during the 2009/10 period.
Surveys and Mapping provides a unique spatial referencing system across the whole country to which all surveys and maps are linked. The rural areas of South Africa cover vast distances and it is necessary to have a control survey network that links these vast areas. The control survey network, including Trignet (a network of continuously operating satellite positioning stations), improves the speed and accuracy of undertaking surveys and mapping work. The rural areas are well served by the permanent beacons but additional Trignet stations will have to be installed in some areas to improve the accuracies and speeds required to use the satellite positioning system.
Our aerial imagery provides a detailed record of what exists on the ground at a particular time and is also used for the historical record of what existed on the ground many years ago. It is necessary to "refresh" the aerial imagery on a regular basis to record these changes. Surveys and Mapping acquires aerial imagery on an annual basis and during 2009/10 a total of 280 000 km2 is planned. The most recent aerial imagery for the Giyani area is 2009.
Having all of the relevant geospatial information (maps) will be of no value unless it is usable by the decision-makers and planners, including the community leaders. To empower people to access and use the geospatial information, Surveys and Mapping conducts map awareness and map literacy training workshops for adults. It also supports schools by training educators and providing learning materials. In 2009/10 plans have been made to conduct 20 adult learning workshops. Surveys and Mapping will also conduct workshops in Giyani.
In an effort to provide access to geospatial information (maps) to visually-impaired persons, Surveys and Mapping has produced a Braille atlas of South Africa. There are plans to produce a Braille atlas for each province over the next three years with Limpopo Province being prioritised. A list of schools for the visually-impaired in the Giyani area will be compiled and the Braille atlas will be distributed to any such schools.
Surveys and Mapping are ready, more than willing and able to contribute to this new challenge of rural development.
Contact Debbie Sutherland, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, Tel 021 658-4338, dsutherland@sli.wcape.gov.za
