Diversifying Land-Use Practices in Forest-Based Land Restitution Communities for Sustainable Development: Evidence from KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Provinces

The multifunctional use of the land has the potential to diversify opportunities for community beneficiaries of the land restitution program to accrue multiple benefits from their land. This study assessed the diversification of land-use practices in forest-based land-restitution communities’ projects in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. Purposive sampling was used to select the four communities that benefited from the land restitution program. Using a semi-structured questionnaire, data were collected from 100 heads of households in each community. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data into percentages, while inferential statistical tests, including Multinomial Logistic Regression, assessed the independent socioeconomic factors influencing the perceived importance of forestry land-use practices, and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to determine the statistical differences between the importance of forestry and agricultural-based land-use practices. Friedman’s mean ranking test analysis was performed to determine which land-use practice was ranked most important (1) and least important (10) using a 10-point Likert scale. The results showed that vegetables (1.64), followed by potatoes (2.62), maize (3.15) and beans (4.07), were the most common land-use practices. On the other hand, MLR results showed that male-dominated households were more likely to rate forestry land-use practices as highly important than as less or moderately important. Furthermore, the results indicate that highly educated heads of households were more likely to rate forestry land-use practices as highly important. This highlights that education and community participation are sustainable development strategies crucial to addressing inadequate forest management in rural communities and avoiding severe degradation of natural resources, while access to credit and extension services is also an important factor that could aid land-use diversification. Although the study’s findings are limited by their context-specific nature, they offer a powerful localized diagnostic of coupled socioecological systems and provide an empirical basis for future national-scale or broader national-scale case studies, as well as confirmatory research employing population-proportional representative sampling. Such research would facilitate broader comparative analyses, strengthen the evidence base, and improve the understanding of the factors shaping the sustainability of forest-based land restitution projects. Nonetheless, our study’s findings provide valuable information about the importance of various land-use types for sustainable economic and livelihood options in rural settings.