{"id":236898,"date":"2022-09-12T20:27:26","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T18:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land\/"},"modified":"2022-09-12T20:27:26","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T18:27:26","slug":"khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Khoisan settlement faces eviction from prime forestry land"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Ashraf%20Hendricks\/knof\/knof-20220530-img_1805hr.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">First occupied in November 2020 in order to establish a self-sustaining \u201csovereign Khoisan community\u201d, Knoflokskraal near Grabouw in the Western Cape has now attracted thousands of people. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment says the Khoisan occupation at Knoflokskraal in Grabouw will face eviction proceedings.<\/li>\n<li>Some residents are pushing for negotiations with the department and the municipality about the future of the settlement, but the leadership can\u2019t reach a consensus.<\/li>\n<li>Parliament will be briefed on Tuesday on an investigation into \u201corganised land invasions\u201d in Grabouw.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) has confirmed to GroundUp that the occupiers of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/grabouw-occupiers-want-to-create-soverign-khoisan-community\/\">Khoisan settlement<\/a> in Grabouw, known as Knoflokskraal, will soon be facing eviction. The land, located in the Elgin Valley, belongs to the Department of Public Works and it is managed by the DFFE.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>DFFE spokesperson Albi Modise said the department would \u201clike to proceed with evictions\u201d but is awaiting feedback from the public works department on whether it will support the court process.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2020, only a few people settled on the land with the purpose of reclaiming it. Since then the occupation has grown significantly. Modise said that the department offered alternative land for human settlement on condition that the residents relocate, noting that the land is part of the Kogelberg Biosphere and of \u201cenvironmental importance\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Currently 1,800 hectares of the land are under a containment court order, meaning that no residents are allowed to move onto or build further on the property.<\/p>\n<p>Andy Wynand, resident at Knoflokskraal, said they want the containment order removed, and they want to begin negotiating to have the land handed over to the community.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Ashraf%20Hendricks\/knoflokskraal-20220730-img_3238hr.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Andy Wynand told a crowd in July that they are going to work hard to have the containment order from the Western Cape High Court removed. Photo: Ashraf Hendricks<\/p>\n<p>On 30 July, about 150 people from the community gathered for a meeting close to the entrance of Knoflokskraal where Wynand addressed the crowd about the future of the occupation.<\/p>\n<p>Wynand told GroundUp that they are now looking into a process of mediation with Public Works, the DFFE, and the Theewaterskloof Municipality.<\/p>\n<p>Cornelis van der Waal, CEO of the Grabouw Development Agency (GDA), also spoke to the occupiers, saying the community had to establish a leadership and develop a proper plan for the land, and then take it to government and try to do a mediation process outside of court.<\/p>\n<p>We previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/grabouw-occupiers-want-to-create-soverign-khoisan-community\/\">reported<\/a> on Knoflokskraal leadership wanting to establish a sovereign Khoisan community on the occupied land. Residents said that they are reclaiming the land based on their rights as indigenous Khoisan people.<\/p>\n<p>But Wynand said that the current leaders of the occupation are \u201cnot coming to the table\u201d and \u201cnot willing to accept certain things\u201d. He said the leadership \u201ccould never reach a consensus on what they wanted\u201d and that the occupation \u201ckept on walking away from mediation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe received a mandate from the community to take their interests further with the negotiation process,\u201d Wynand said. He said that community representatives have in the meantime also met with the Theewaterskloof Municipality.<\/p>\n<p>GroundUp sent questions to the municipality asking about its involvement in the negotiation process, whether it will support the eviction proceedings, and whether it has considered providing water and sanitation services to the residents. But the municipal manager, Boy Manqoba Ngubo, did not respond to follow-ups despite saying they would \u201crespond in the coming days\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Knoflokskraal resident Lamees Claasen told GroundUp that the eviction proceedings are not \u201cfair\u201d on them. Claasen and her husband moved from Rocklands in Mitchells Plain to Knoflokskraal over a year ago. She said it was a sense of relief moving from an area that is quite dangerous. Even though they do struggle, she said they find Knoflokskraal \u201cquiet\u201d, \u201cpeaceful\u201d and \u201ccomforting\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>She said that it\u2019s necessary for everybody in the occupation to come together and for them not to be so divided.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the DFFE will be briefing the National Assembly on the investigation into the \u201corganised land invasions\u201d at the Khoisan occupation in Knoflokskraal.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First occupied in November 2020 in order to establish a self-sustaining \u201csovereign Khoisan community\u201d, Knoflokskraal near Grabouw in the Western Cape has now attracted thousands of people. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment says the Khoisan occupation at Knoflokskraal in Grabouw will face eviction proceedings. Some residents are pushing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-236898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/khoisan-settlement-faces-eviction-from-prime-forestry-land.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}