SUMMARY

The system of Cadastral survey and Land Rights registration in South Africa is fairly rigid and costly to implement.

All land parcels must be monumented and surveyed to tight specifications. This is laid down in terms of the Land Survey Act and regulations. No distinction in terms of accuracy is made between the survey of a $3 000 000 parcel of land in central Cape Town or a rural settlement land parcel in the Karoo desert.

Less than 30% of households in South Africa reside on surveyed land parcels. The remainder of households that are found on the urban fringes of cities and in rural communities are generally located on state land, alienated stated land, local government owned land, or large tracts of private land used for farming or commercial purposes.

The land tenure rights of these households are protected to some extent by a plethora of Acts of Parliament published since 1994. However, families continue to be evicted from land. The national Department of Land Affairs does not have the capacity to cope with the land issues facing South Africa and fears of a Zimbabwe scenario are gaining momentum.

This paper presents a model being developed by the Land Survey profession in conjunction with Government that will provide a cadastral and land management framework aimed at securing the land rights of all citizens of South Africa.

The model includes innovative survey techniques to demarcate land parcels, pragmatic land and information management principals to be adopted and a nationwide empowerment strategy aimed at using "community" surveyors to undertake the bulk of the demarcation work.

A feature of the model is the embodiment of community rules in the constitution of the juristic vehicles used to register the land tenure rights.