LAND USE SYSTEMS IN SOUTH SUDAN AND

THEIR IMPACTS ON LAND DEGRADATION: A

PAPER PRESENTED AT THE CONFERENCE ON
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PLAN IN
POST CONFLICT SOUTH SUDAN.

BY

S J DIMA

JUBA RAHA HOTEL

OCTOBER 31 TO 02 NOVEMBER 2006

SOCIAL, ECONOMIC & ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANTS (SEEDCON)

KING FAHD PLAZA
PLOT 52 KAMPALA ROAD
P O BOX 23798
KAMPALA, UGANDA.
Telephone: + 256 477 108539/ +256 782 272151
E – mail: scopasdima@yahoo.co.uk

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LAND USE SYSTEMS IN SOUTH SUDAN AND
THEIR IMPACTS ON LAND DEGRADATION:

1. INTRODUCTION:

Land use systems are the systems human beings have

evolved over time for the exploitation of the land
resources in their environment. This paper attempts to
explore the systems that the people in the territory of
South Sudan have evolved over the last few centuries
for the use of the land resources for their survival. The
paper then examines the role of each of the land use
systems have had on land degradation, together with
present and future impacts of land deterioration on the
economic development of South Sudan. The paper
uses materials from studies on the impacts of land
degradation in the African continent to expose the
likely consequences of present land use activities on
the land specifically and the environment of South
Sudan as a whole. The paper then concludes with the
lessons that South Sudan should learn from the
experiences of other African countries and offers
recommendations to the GoSS authorities on research
that should be undertaken to provide solutions to the
apparent negative impacts of the present land use
systems on the land and the environment in South
Sudan.

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2. THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT OF SOUTH
SUDAN:

South Sudan can be divided into three broad regions.

These are: -

o The central Rain lands

o The Floodplain; and
o The Equatoria region

The Equatoria region in turn is subdivided into five

ecological zones, namely: -

 The ironstone plateau;

 The central hills;
 The Green belt;
 The mountain slopes and hills; and
 The South Eastern plains.

These features are shown in figure 1. Figure 2 shows

the agricultural development districts as delineated by
the Southern Investigation Team of 1954.

3. MAIN LAND USE SYSTEMS:

a) Crop Farming:

Three different systems of crop farming can be

identified. These are traditional systems of
cultivation, mechanical aided farming and Intensive
farming techniques. Under the traditional systems,

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the land is brought under production through slash
and burn, the so-called shifting cultivation
(De Schlippe, 1954, JRJ Rowland, 1993. and Kevin
M Cleave et al, 1994). This system is very complex
in terms of the sequence of operations after a crop
or crops have been planted at the same time,
weeding – the sequence and times a crop is weeded
and harvesting patterns; the number of crops
planted on one piece of land at the beginning of and
during the season as well as the order in which
crops follow each other in a seeming rotation.

Shifting cultivation is ideal under low population

growth rate, abundant land, limited capital and
technical know-how. The ecological and economic
systems were in equilibrium. The mobility of
operators to new sites after five to eight years of
farming on the same land maintained the stability.
This was augmented by low population growth rates
and the traditional extensive agricultural production
system associated with shifting cultivation. As
populations increased, the fallow periods became
shorter and the cropping became more or less
permanent. This situation warranted soil
conservation, fertility management, plus various
forms of agro-forestry activities and the integration
of livestock into the farming system. This is the
situation pertaining in the Eastern Africa highlands,
Rwanda and Nigeria.

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In the South Sudan, the pioneering study by De
Schlippe amongst the Azande in Western Equatoria
in the early 1950s revealed that although often the
crop sequence and stand in a smallholder’s
compound appear confused, there was a scientific
and systematic order in which the crop operations
were carried out. Studies on intercropping systems
have indicated that it is a better system of utilizing
the soil nutrients and it is this that has given
credence to the present adoption of modern organic
farming, which has direct links with the African
traditional system of agricultural production.

Mechanical cultivation entails the use of machines

to undertake agricultural activities. These include
the use of oxen drawn implements for carrying out
some of the farm operations, use of light tractors for
some selected farm operations on government as
well as on private farms. These two sub-systems
have both advantages and disadvantages. The main
advantage is that large areas of land can be brought
under production within a short time, while the
main disadvantage being that in any mechanical
cultivation, both the oxen/tractors and the
implements tend to compact the soil and destroy the
natural structures of the soils, thus resulting in poor
soil drainage and movement of microbial
organizations within the soil profiles. These affect
plants establishment, growth and eventual yield of
the crop. Another disadvantage of mechanical
cultivation is that if ploughing along the contours is

5
not adhered to, the furrows made by the tractor
wheels create erosion channels, which can
eventually develop into gullies especially in terrains
with steep slopes.

Under intensive agricultural land and the other

environmental resources are intensively used to
produce high crop yields as well as rapid weight
gains in livestock, poultry and other animal breeds.
This demands intensive use of natural manure,
fertilizers and growth hormones as well as efficient
and effective scientific management to ensure that
the quality and the fertility of the land is maintained
and sustained. The land is farmed continuously with
the aid of fertilizers to cope up with the level of
outputs expected. Too much use of chemicals very
results in environmental pollution. For example the
soils may become acidic, the runoff from the land
carries the residual fertilizers and other chemicals
into water bodies, causing problems for the water
itself and natural resources such as fish and other
aquatic life. Both in urban and in rural areas
agricultural chemicals are known for poisoning the
water and rendering unsuitable for humans,
livestock and wildlife.

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b) Livestock Grazing:

Livestock grazing is an important and extensive

land use system in South Sudan. This is largely
practised in the flood plains in the sudd, but also in
the ironstone plateau, the central hills and in the
South Eastern plains. The traditional systems
adopted by the people tend to compact the soils and
overtime result in some grass and shrub species
disappearing from the range. Because of the large
herds kept in some of the areas, overgrazing is now
visible in some of the areas, especially during the
dry season and around watering points along the
cattle routes to the toich. The traditional systems of
keeping cattle and the lack of demand for consumer
goods has been blamed for the low off-take from
the South Sudan herd. Cattle are sold in large
numbers only when there is drought and the
livestock owners do not have sufficient grain.

Besides overgrazing, livestock especially cattle are

known for causing soil erosion through their feet
dislodging grass stems and roots as they graze on
the range. Overtime this results in the loosening of
the soil surface and both wind and water erosion set
in.

c) Forest harvesting and tree planting:

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Since time immemorial, human beings have been
using forests for fuel, food, medicine, building
materials and other numerous uses. We have seen
that most arable land has been taken from natural
forests through the slash and burn system. Cleaver
et al (1994), estimate that Sub Saharan Africa’s 679
million hectares of forest in 1980 has been
diminishing at the rate of 2.9 million hectares per
annum through slash and burn, logging and stabling
of large commercial farms. The resulting
deforestation has been reflected in half of the
farmland having soil degradation and erosion. It is a
common knowledge that the radius for collecting
firewood and charcoal becomes longer, the bigger
the population of the town. This is evident in the
town of Juba where we are, but it is also true in the
other towns of South Sudan.

In the 1960s and 1970s residents used to harvest

thatching grass and building poles on the edge of
the town. These days you a truck to move out of
juba to be able to get good building poles. The
current prices of building poles in Juba, tell this
story better! Deforestation has significant negative
effects on local and regional rainfall and
hydrological systems.

Tree planting is an important land use activity in

South Sudan. But this is limited to fruit trees like
mangoes, citrus fruits, guavas and other popular
fruit trees than replacing of natural trees cut down

8
for opening the land for agricultural production or
for firewood. Some governments have thought
establishing forests in the vicinity of towns to
ensure the supply of firewood for the urban
dwellers, but this is not widespread.

d) Buildings and roads construction:

The construction of buildings and roads take

sizeable areas of land. In some of the cities in
Africa such as Kampala and Nairobi, buildings and
the accompanying compliments of roads network to
serve the residents have consumed fertile
agricultural and forestry land. The clearing of land
for both buildings and roads construction results in
the loss of biodiversity of both fauna and flora,
through the destruction of unique habitats where the
buildings are located or where the roads pass. Often
when the land is cleared for buildings, excavations
result and if not properly covered, result in land
degradation and soil erosion. In the case of roads,
channels meant to divert water from the surface of
the roads, end up being land degradation sources
that result in intensive soil erosion. Right now there
is a huge reconstruction programme in South Sudan
and these processes are on the increase unless
checked. The recently graded Juba Yei road testifies
to this.

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e) Mining and oil drilling activities:

Mining activities the world over are known for

leaving large and ugly land surfaces after the
mineral being tracked has been exhausted. In recent
years companies have been forced to rehabilitate the
land by afforestation or establishing aqua fisheries
and crocodile farming. A good example is that of
the Bamburi Cement Factory near Mombasa in
Kenya, where excavations for the limestone have
been rehabilitated to a beautiful nature trail in which
there are wildlife, crocodile farms as well as fresh
water aqua fisheries. In the South Sudan, the gold
mines in Kegulu, Kapoeta and other places as well
as the copper mines in Hufrat el Nahas in Bahr el
Ghazal are evidences of the scourge of mining on
the earth’s surface.

The drilling for oil and other underground minerals

is a new land use system in South Sudan. Oil is a
dangerous and long-term pollutant on soils. The
experiences of the Ogoni people in the Niger delta
in Nigeria with oil spills into the land and water
systems tell it all. Available information indicates
that soils affected by oil spills may take up to fifty
years to regain their natural structures and fertility
levels. It is probably the recognition of this that has
forced the Ogoni people to battle it out with Shell
the polluter! South Sudan needs to use the
experiences of other countries to safeguard its

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 environment while exploiting its oil and other
mineral resources.

4. IMPACTS OF THE LAND USE SYSTEMS ON

THE LAND:

a) Land Degradation:

Land degradation can be defined as the

deterioration of the quality of land because of it
being subjected to use and abuse. In other words a
degraded land can longer perform its natural
responsibilities of supporting life forms such as
plants, trees, animals and other fauna to a
satisfactory level. A degraded land results in
degraded soils, which lose their fertility and water
absorption and retention capacity with adverse
effects on vegetative growth. This in turn affects
animals both herbivores and carnivores. The limited
number of studies undertaken in South Sudan
indicates that the land use systems have had some
negative effects on the quality of land. The study
undertaken by De Schlippe amongst the Azande
concluded that:

‘To sum up the unexpected changes which due to

cultural linkages, took place as a consequence of
intentional changes introduced administratively, it
must be stated that unfortunately that almost in
every case these changes were deleterious and

11
undesirable, the Azande reverted to their traditional
farming practices with cotton virtually replaced by
rice whose production practices were acquired by
the Azande while they were in exile during the
war’.

The Azande Scheme as it was called with its

headquarters at Nzara Complex was introduced by
the Anglo-Egyptian colonial administration with the
objective of incorporating cotton as a cash crop
amongst the Azande subsistence economy. This was
done without a prior base line study to identify the
constraints in the household smallholder production
system. After four years of production, the quality
of land deteriorated drastically. This was reflected
in the yields of seed cotton the smallholders were
getting which resulted in very low incomes to the
producers despite of the fact that cotton took about
75 % of the labour resources of the settled Azande
households. It is probably this that made the
smallholders to replace cotton with rice, which they
could consume at the household level and sell the
surplus production in the local market. The same
reaction was many years later to be experienced by
the management of the Gezira Scheme, thousands
of kilometres to the North East of the Azande
Scheme, when the tenants rebelled against the
continued production of cotton as the dominant crop
in light of falling yields and world prices, preferring
to produce rice and lubia which had better yields
and prices in the local market.

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In the 1970s and 1980s the Project Development
Unit, a World Bank funded project for which the
writer worked for almost ten years, undertook a
number of studies in South Sudan- baseline socio-
economic surveys, crop trials, sociological studies
and exploratory soil surveys in six development
districts. These were Aweil, Gogrial, Mundri,
Rumbek, Wau and Yei. The soil survey reports
indicate that in almost all the districts, some of the
soils have been degraded and become infertile with
reduced ability to support either crop production or
livestock grazing. This situation is unlikely to have
changed for the better in the intervening years when
the war intensified in South Sudan. The situation in
the rest of the development districts in South Sudan
is likely to be similar except where the inhabitants
were forced out as internally displaced or refugees,
in which case the land reverted to fallow and should
have now regained some of its fertility through
natural regeneration.

Amongst the internally displaced within South

Sudan, some communities moved with their animals
to other districts or even states. The implication of
this is that lands that had been degraded were left to
recover under the normal fallow system, while the
areas where the communities moved, have been
subjected to intensive grazing in the last fifteen to
twenty years. Moreover where whole communities
move with their livestock, the environment is often

13
destroyed. Trees are cut for building poles for
constructing shelters; as they settle down, more
trees are cut for firewood and for burning into
charcoal for sale to the nearest urban settlement. At
the same time the range is overgrazed because the
livestock is kept within the environs of the
settlement. After three to four months of the new
comers settling, the environment is laid bare of trees
and grass; the livestock is moved further away into
fresh vegetation and the process is repeated. As the
land is left bare, trampling by cattle and wild
animals result in the loosening of the surface of the
soil, exposing it to wind erosion and severe runoff
when the rains set in. This process must have taken
place in many parts of South Sudan and therefore
there is urgent need to assess its impacts on the long
development of both the crop and livestock sub-
sectors of South Sudan’s economy.

b) Deforestation:

Deforestation is the wide spread destruction of

vegetative cover. K M Cleaver et al (1994) assert
that deforestation has been responsible for
prolonged periods of below average rainfall and the
cause of the accumulation of carbon dioxide and
nitrous acid (two of the green house gases). The
slash and burn system contributes vast quantities of
carbon dioxide and other trace gases to the global
atmosphere. In South Sudan the annual burning of
forest areas to provide early grazing for both

14
livestock and wildlife no doubt releases huge
quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The intense heat produced during the burning of dry
grass, together with dry leaves and other dead
branches not only destroy the humus in the topsoil,
but also kill many plants and animals each year.
Immediately after the burning, the baked land
surface is fragile and exposes the soil to wind and
water erosion. Every year some of the burnt
forestland is taken for crop production as human
population increases. Large areas of forests
wetlands, rivers and valley bottoms have been
converted to farmlands in West Africa, Eastern and
Southern Africa because of increasing human
population. In the case of Southern Africa, pressure
was brought on earlier when white settlers took the
best land and the blacks were pushed to the
marginal lands. KM Cleaver et al ibid estimate that
average per capita arable land in Sub Saharan
Africa declined from 0.5 hectares per person in
1965 to. < 0.3 hectares per person in 1990. Many
people are now increasingly compelled to remain on
the same parcel of land.

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c) Degraded Soils:

Soil fertility and soil structure deteriorates quickly

when fallow periods are too short. Where
population growth rate has been rapid, reduction of
arable land per farmer and soil degradation have
greatly outpaced the countervailing innovation.
When farming is not viable, people adjust by
moving out to establish new farms on virgin land.
The migrants take to the new places their
knowledge of farming techniques they practiced in
the areas they left and these are often detrimental to
the new environment. In most of Africa rapid
population growth is pushing settles to extend
farming and grazing into areas that are
geographically unsuited to these forms of land use.
This situation was witnessed by the writer in
Nanyuki District in Kenya, where farmers who
moved out of the Central Province continued to
grow maize which is greedy for nutrients and water
in an environment which is semi-arid at best and
arid at worst. Traditional communities will always
do what they are used to and good at wherever they
are. This is the situation in South Sudan. Change to
the unknown is a risky business and tends to expose
families and communities to food insecurity and
social disrepute. It is this attitude that has led most
African farmers to be labelled conservative by
newcomers to the African farming system.
Traditional farmers need to be assured of the
success of new innovations in terms of food security

16
and their status in the society if they are to adopt
them. Very often those introducing new innovations
do not consider the fact that the new innovations
have to compete for the same farm resources that
are used for the production of food crops or rearing
livestock.

d) Deterioration of the natural resources base.

Ecologists expert opinion posit that most of Sub

Saharan Africa’s natural resource base and
ecological environment is deteriorating primarily
because of the high rate of loss of the vegetative
cover, as a result of deforestation and convergence
of global and regional climatic changes and
deviation from longer- term to shorter –term fallow
periods. As has been pointed out earlier in this
paper, these conditions do prevail in South Sudan.
Forests are being cleared for farming and trees are
logged for firewood and logs for timber. We are all
aware of what happened to the high value teak
plantations in South Sudan and other hard woods
during the war and immediately after the CPA had
been signed. The steps that the GoSS Ministry of
Agriculture and Forestry to institute an orderly
exploitation of the forestry resources must be
commended. A 1980 FAO/UNEP study estimated

17
that 3.7 million hectares of forests were being
cleared each year by farmers and loggers (Lanley,
1982). Recent estimates put the figure at 2.9 million
hectares, while reforestation in the same period in
the 1980s was about 133,000 hectares or about 5 %
of deforestation, see table A 19.

e) Impacts of deforestation of land on wildlife:

Deforestation of land has severe negative impacts

on wildlife habitat and biodiversity and irreversible
losses of wild animals and plant life. The intense
heat produced during the burning of forests kills
hundreds of animals, insects and plants. The IUCN
and WRI estimate that 64 % of the original wildlife
habitat in SSA has already been lost due to
deforestation, conversion of wild lands to
agricultural uses and other human activities and
excessive harvesting of wildlife, including poaching
and illegal trade in endangered species. In the South
Sudan it is a common knowledge amongst those
who were in the bushes and forests that wildlife
suffered greatly through killing by combatants on
both sides. The act of killing of wildlife took many
forms, some were killed for food, and others were
killed in the battlefields, while others were killed
for the value of their trophies or hides and skins.
Like the human beings, many wildlife had to
migrate to distant places including neighbouring
countries two incidents illustrate vividly the

18
situation that prevailed during the war in South
Sudan. One SAF officer narrated the story that
whenever they attacked a forest or an area where
they suspected the SPLA were hiding, the amount
of firepower they unleashed was expected to
achieve 95 % kill of human beings, wildlife,
domesticated animals and plant life! My late mother
told us of her experience with the execution of the
scourge earth policy by the SAF. The village of
Laropi was attacked in the afternoon. The first
assault was bombing by the Sudan Air force. This
was then followed by the infantry who destroyed
any thing they found on their way –human beings,
livestock, grain stores as well as growing crops. She
and fellow villagers had to run to the nearest stream
to hide. The livestock seeing the people running,
also starting running with them. Whenever any one
of them lay down to hide, the livestock too hid with
them!

f) Impacts of rangeland degradation on

livestock production:

Twenty five million of the world’s forty million

nomadic and transhumant pastoralists live in Africa.
The FAO estimated that between 1963 and 1983 the
cattle of the pastoralists in the Sudano-Sahelian belt
increased by 74 %; those in West Africa by 65 %
while those in Southern Africa increased by 61 %.
But the quality of the rangeland has declined

19
because of the movement of cultivators to the best
grazing lands and converting them into croplands.
Kenya and Botswana are good examples of this
pattern of movements. In the South Sudan the
situation appear to be the opposite. In the last three
decades the Arab tribes north of the borders of
South Sudan have been pushing southwards in
search of grazing pastures and water. At the same
time some of the South Sudan communities in the
flood plains have been pushing south to the
ironstone plateau and the central hills for better
grazing and watering facilities. Some of these
movements especially those from North Sudan have
often ended up in conflicts with the indigenous
people resulting in many people being killed.
Increasing cultivation of lands adjacent.

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5. Conclusions and Recommendations:

From the brief survey of the land use systems in South

Sudan, it can be concluded that there are clear indications
that the quality of land has deteriorated in many places.
That with expected increase in population of human beings
and animals, the deterioration process of the land and the
environment as a whole is likely to become worse. For
example in the Central Rain lands and the Flood plains,
grazing land and watering facilities nay become battlefields
amongst communities and tribes sharing these resources. In
the Equatoria Region, particularly in the Ironstone plateau
and the Central Hills, soils deterioration is becoming a
serious problem in some places as revealed by the
exploratory soil survey in a number of development
districts undertaken by the PDU in the 1970s and 1980s.
This data together with that from other studies conducted
by other development projects such as ILACO in the Penko
plains, East of Bor are out of date.

From the data on land degradation in many Sub Saharan

African countries, together with their impacts on the
environment and economic activities in those countries, it
can be concluded that South Sudan has many lessons to
learn to avoid further land degradation, particularly decline
in soil fertility.

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Recommendations:

On the basis of the conclusions reached on the quality of

land in South Sudan, as a result of the traditional land use
practices, it is recommended that the Ministry of
Environment, Wildlife, Conservation and Tourism
(MEWCT) should put as one of its top priorities a
comprehensive research programme on land use systems
including. Specifically MEWCT, together with the
international community and in collaboration with the
States authorities should undertake the following: -

1. Urgently undertake a detailed study on the different

traditional land use systems to update earlier studies
to give a complete picture on the status of the
quality of land in South Sudan;
2. Carry out land use classification studies to delineate
appropriate ecological zones together with their
most suitable uses, taking into consideration their
present uses and the traditional and social
sentiments attached to them;
3. Undertake specific ecological studies on serious
degraded land areas with a view to recommend
conservation measures to safeguard endangered
wildlife species; and
4. Finally prepare guidelines for the sustainable
exploitation of the land resource in South Sudan,
under the three broad ecological regions and their
environments.

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Technology. Policy issues for the international community. CAB
International.
2. Kevin M. Cleaver, R. Gotz, and A Schreiber. 1994. Reversing the spiral. The
population, agriculture and environment Nexus in Sub Saharan Africa. The
World Bank.
3. De Schlippe. 1956. Shifting cultivation in Africa. The Z system of agriculture,
Rouledge and Kegan Paul, London, quoted in S J Dima. 1985. Explorations in
Farm Planning as an aid in rural development planning in Equatoria Region,
Southern Sudan. PhD thesis (unpublished).
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5. FAO. 1990 b . The conservation and Rehabilitation of African lands. An
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Agriculture International.
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