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Title Creating Grasslands: Social Institutions and Environmental Change in Mkambati Area, South Africa
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1807/9863
Date 1999
Author(s) Kepe, Thembela; Scoones, Ian
Abstract Through a case study of the grassland system of the Mkambati area in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, the paper explores the interaction of social institutions and ecological processes in the creation of a diverse grassland environment. A number of different transitions between grassland states are examined in detail, highlighting a range of social and institutional factors influencing grassland change. The spatial patterning of different grassland types and the frequency of transitions between them are shown to be dependent on the institutional relationships between different social actors. Understanding such complex and multifaceted processes of environmental change requires analytical tools which combine social and ecological perspectives; an extended form of qualitative "state-transition" modeling, which incorporates institutional dimensions, is therefore explored.
Subject(s) grasslands; state and transition models; environmental change; social institutions; South Africa
Language en
Publisher Plenum Publishing Corporation
Type of publication Article
Format 295503 bytes; application/pdf
Identifier Human Ecology, v. 27, no. 1(1999) pgs.29-53
Repository Toronto - University of Toronto
Added to C-A: 2014-07-13;17:41:24