OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Norton, Marieke"

Browsing by Author "Norton, Marieke"

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Open Access
At the interface : marine compliance inspectors at work in the Western Cape
(2014) Norton, Marieke; Green, Lesley; Jarre, Astrid
The Western Cape fisheries are heavily contested. Primary concerns in the contestations are over access to marine resources, which have been regulated through the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998. At the centre of these conflicts, is the figure of the marine compliance inspector, whose task is to enforce the state’s version of nature onto the collective of resource users. This thesis, based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork alongside inspectors of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: Fisheries Branch in the Western Cape, explores the everyday human interactions on which the implementation of marine resource law depends. Exploring interactions between inspectors and resource users, the dissertation seeks to contribute to the task of reimagining fisheries governance. Drawing on ethnographic material deriving from participation in inspection duties; observations of fishing behaviour; conversations with inspectors, resource user and marine resource management officials; and analysis of texts such as relevant legislation and job descriptions, I argue that the issue of non-compliance in marine fisheries in the Western Cape can only be partially understood by the framework offered in extant South African compliance scholarship, which has focused largely on the motivations of resource extractors, or the formulation of law and policy. Given that compliance functions are part of the wider social spectrum of contestation and that the compliance inspectors are the interface between the government of South Africa and its fishing citizens, the study explores the real effects of state-citizen-nature contestations on environmental governance, and presents evidence in support of an argument that the design of the job of marine compliance inspector itself needs to be re-conceived. While compliance is a central feature of fisheries management, the performance of its personnel is taken for granted as the simple implementation of institutional policy, in a number of ways. Efforts to address conflicts will fall short of the goal of providing solutions if the assumptions about nature and humanity that current marine resource legislation embodies are not questioned, and this will exacerbate existing suffering in the ecology of relations between state, science, public and marine species.
Open Access
Barriers and Enablers of Water Conservation in Formal Residential Households in Cape Town, South Africa
(2021) Kassam, Zain; Spear, Dian; Norton, Marieke
In recent years, climate change has caused great changes in weather patterns such as extreme changes in rainfall leading to prolonged drought. Rapid urbanization has led to more than half of the world's population living in urban centres, and the growing urban population must share increasing scarcity of water, exacerbated by climate change. Thus, climate change and urbanization has contributed to the emergence of more water-stressed cities. This thesis is concerned with water conservation as a method of adaptation to an urban water crisis. It looks into the water crisis in the City of Cape Town that took place during 2015-2017. The severe water crisis has been attributed to prolonged drought, rapid population growth, reliance on six-rain-fed dams to provide 95% of the city's water supply, and excessively high water use by formal residential households. The City of Cape Town took various measures to manage both the demand and the supply of water in order to alleviate the stress caused by the water scarcity. From January 2016, a public education campaign was paired with progressively increased water restrictions. However, despite the growing water restrictions and the worsening of the water crisis, Capetonians did not reduce water consumption enough. Against this background, this thesis aims at gaining a nuanced understanding of the barriers and enablers to water conservation amongst residents in formal residential households in the City of Cape Town. The study focuses on formal residential households because the residents use 65% of the total municipal water supply. Data collection was carried out primarily in the Southern and Northern suburbs and consisted of in-depth interviews with 44 respondents using a semi-structured interview guide about daily water conservation as well as perceptions of the water crisis and of their role in mitigating the water crisis. The data analysis involved development of a coding system and identification of three categories of water savers amongst the highest, the lowest, and the median levels of water conversation within the data set, referred to as respective the ‘avid', the ‘low' and the ‘moderate' water savers. The key findings are that the main barrier of water conservation for the ‘low water savers' is lack of willingness to inconvenience one-self in relation to water conservation. Other important barriers to water conservation for the ‘low water savers' included lack of information regarding the on-going water crisis, perceptions of the water crisis as non-urgent, limited trust in water governance institutions, and interest in maximising own benefit from the common water resource. The dominant enabler amongst the ‘avid water savers' is the pro-environment identity they possess, combined with a high self-efficacy to make a difference to the water crisis through their actions. The study showed that this dominant enabling factor works as a catalyst to enhance other enabling factors, especially seeking information and engaging in conversations about water conservation within their social networks. Barriers such as the discomfort of taking short showers, standing inside a bucket during a shower and collecting greywater for re-use are seen as necessary actions that align with their identity and altruistic outlook towards the environment. Interestingly, ‘the moderate water savers' held similar proenvironment identity but were constrained, mostly by institutional barriers, to reduce their water use. Thus, the overall argument is that there is not one barrier or one enabler to water conservation. Rather, the main argument is that an overriding enabling factor for increased water conservation in daily life is a pro-environment identity combined with a high sense of self-efficacy. Finally, this study has shown that the factor of Personal Characteristics, serves as the main enabler and as the main barrier to water conservation because Personal Characteristics have a ripple effect on how factors such as Information, Social, Technical, Financial or Institutional factors affect a respondent's water conservation.
Open Access
Beyond the beach: a look into the community value of the Shark Spotters Organisation
(2025) Besser, Maxwell; Norton, Marieke
The Shark Spotter organisation operates in the False Bay area of Cape Town, South Africa. Their main goal is to help minimise the interactions between beach goers and marine megafauna, with special attention given to sharks. Their employees do this through an exclusion net and a flag signaling system. Shark Spotters provides employees opportunities to increase their knowledge and skills in areas that can be used outside of their employment duties to create supplemental income sources and increase community health. The purpose of this study was to determine the number of persons each Shark Spotter employee supports with their income and investigate if the skills developed through Shark Spotters are being used outside of the employment duties to contribute to the local community or informal economy. This study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative interviews to gather this data, which was analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analyses, respectively. The data was inconclusive about the specific number of dependents each employee had, as households were communal, and they also sometimes contributed to a secondary residence, but showed that their income was essential for the livelihood of their households. The skills being gathered by the employees were shown to not be used outside of their work duties due to a range of factors that include a lack of an available market, a communal spirit that doesn't promote financial gain from neighbours, and violent criminal activity. Since employees were limited in the ability to use the skills gained through Shark Spotters outside of their employment, there was a great interest in increasing non-marketable knowledge through environmental education to participate in local research efforts. If Shark Spotters wish to improve the ability of their employees to contribute to their community or participate in the informal economy, partnerships would need to be made with other organisations to address the complex barriers to entry.
Open Access
Building the Western Cape farmers resilience to climate change: assessing the usefulness of credibility salience and legitimacy framework in linking climate change adaptation information into action
(2023) Siziba, Bridget; Norton, Marieke; Methner Nadine
Despite the increasing availability of scientific information to support climate change decisionmaking for farmers' resilience to the global challenge, a persistent gap exists between knowledge development and its application in decision-making. This is exerting pressure on science to develop more actionable or decision-relevant scientific information to support planning, and climate change decision-making. In the context of communicating climate change adaptation information, this study examined the usefulness of the Credibility, Salience, and Legitimacy (CSL) framework, otherwise known as the knowledge system framework (Cash et al., 2003), in bridging the disconnect between information production and its use in decision-making by commercial farmers in South Africa's Western Cape Province. The study was underpinned by Cash et al.'s 2003 boundary work theory, which argues that there are boundaries at the science and farmer interface which can be managed by knowledge systems employing the CSL framework in knowledge production. As such, the researcher undertook and examined the Western Cape's agricultural climate change response strategy known as the "SmartAgri" Plan, wherein scientists and agricultural experts developed case studies and regional commodity briefs, a proxy of climate adaptation information, to support farmers' resilience to climate change. The research looked at how these communication outputs are actionable in connection to users' perceptions of the credibility, salience, and legitimacy of this knowledge. The research consisted of an online focus group discussion with four SmartAgri scientists and agricultural experts as the producers of the information, as well as semistructured telephone interviews with 11 Western Cape commercial farmers, as users of climate change adaptation information. Findings from the interviews suggest that while there have been efforts to produce credible knowledge for enhanced awareness of climate change and its impacts on the Western Cape province's agricultural sector, availability of salient and legitimate climate change adaptation information remains a challenge at the science-farmer interface. Factors such as, limited experiential evidence, disparities in the scale and resolution of climate projections, the absence of financial support to commercial farmers and limited involvement of farmers in the development of climate change adaptation information, continue to undermine the actionability of climate change adaptation information in the areas studied. As a result, spanning the boundary between knowledge and action has been a challenge. Nevertheless, despite these limitations, commercial farmers consider climate adaptation information potentially useful. Increased engagement with farmers, demonstrations and trials with farmers, documentation and sharing of local best practices will be some of the key steps towards developing more actionable knowledge for farmers' use in climate change decisionmaking.
Open Access
Is sustainable intensification possible in smallholder crop production systems in semi-arid West Africa? The case of the Red Volta and Black Volta basins in Northern Ghana
(2023) Ansah, Prince; New, Mark; Norton, Marieke
Food systems experts consider Sustainable Intensification (SI) a key concept to tackle the increasing global and regional food demand, particularly in semi-arid West Africa, which is prone to socioeconomic and biophysical challenges. In Ghana, crop production varies across semi-arid systems, particularly between the Red Volta and Black Volta basins. Given this context, the study assessed and compared the factors contributing to crop productivity differences between and within the RVB and the BVB and explored how these factors contribute to achieving SI goals of productivity, resilience, efficiency, and equity. This study applies an integrated SI framework and case study approach in these basins, using mixed methods: 200 household surveys, six in-depth interviews, three focus group discussions, five key informant interviews, and two workshops, with both random and purposive sampling. The results identified several important determinants of crop productivity that are relevant to SI. These included water/soil-related risks and strategies, access to agricultural resources, demographic characteristics, institutional collaboration, and household production needs. These determinants, which differ in importance within each basin, impact the achievement of SI goals. Farmers' perceptions of water/soil-related risks have a direct bearing on crop productivity across basins. Access to consistent resources was found to enhance yields, though an over-reliance on sporadic government support posed challenges especially in RVB. Demographic factors, notably age, gender, and education, emerged as significant determinants of farming practices and outcomes. Furthermore, the research emphasized the importance of robust inter-institutional collaboration in bolstering agricultural innovation and productivity. Notably, the choice of crops cultivated was influenced by a delicate balance between household consumption needs and market demands. The study underscores the need for local institutions to mitigate weak policies, limited resources, and poor knowledge transfer that could inhibit SI strategies implementation. The thesis concludes by recommending that national and local agriculture stakeholder should promote the SI concept as a guiding principle for improving existing farming systems through strengthening agriculture policies and facilitating innovations within smallholder crop production systems to enhance sustainable productivity in semi-arid Northern Ghana.
Open Access
Loss and damage from droughts: material and non-material impacts of water scarcity on women farmers in Gugulethu, Cape Town
(2019) Lavirotte, Lucy; Ziervogel, Gina; Norton, Marieke
Climate change is causing loss and damage (L&D) to those who are unable to adapt to its impacts. Coming from a growing recognition that adaptation to climate change has limits, the concept of L&D is a relative new-comer to the international agenda on climate change. To reduce L&D and compensate for it, the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) first needs to understand what these residual impacts of climate change are. However, the literature on lived-experiences of L&D is limited, especially on non-material L&D which is more difficult to measure. Using Warner et al. (2013) definition of L&D, this study first assesses what material and non-material losses and damages from the Cape Town drought have been on a group of urban-poor women farmers. Then, this research uses a barriers and enablers to adaptation framework to understand how to reduce these losses and damages. This qualitative case-study investigates women farmers’ lived-experiences of L&D during the 2015-2017 drought in Gugulethu, a low-income settlement in Cape Town, to feed into broader debates on ways to reduce L&D in global south cities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six women farmers from the Umthunzi Farming Community and five other actors involved in urban agriculture in Gugulethu. The findings suggest that women farmers in this context are already experiencing L&D, with psychological, physical and social implications which appear to be particularly pertinent to their group. All participants had to reduce or stop farming which led to L&D on their urban agriculture benefits as well as L&D on their institutional trust towards the City of Cape Town. Most of these L&D were non-material. Some of the barriers to adapt and reduce L&D were a lack of external support (from the city and NGOs), a lack of financial capacity to adopt coping measures and a lack of knowledge on the possible coping measures and external support options. Enablers to reduce L&D from the drought were access to support from the Western Cape Department of Agriculture (DoA), higher levels of education, a diversity of livelihoods and a strong network with other farmers. In conclusion it emerged that external support from government departments and NGOs to urban-poor women farmers is important for adapting to the possibility of future droughts. The vulnerability of these women farmers in low-income areas need to be addressed at their roots. These emerging conceptual openings emphasise the importance of exploring lived-experiences of L&D to better reduce the risk of L&D in vulnerable communities. Further research is necessary on compensation for unavoidable L&D, which is beyond the limits of this research.
Open Access
Multi-jurisdictional analysis of integration of climate change considerations in regulations and guidelines across 16 environmental impact assessment (EIA) regimes
(2022) Mayembe, Rose; Norton, Marieke; Simpson, Nicholas P; Rumble, Olivia
The contribution of the human activities to climate change is well understood. Yet integration of climate change considerations in tools designed to govern activities affecting the environment, such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), remains underdeveloped and inconsistently applied. There is no clear direction on what measure of consideration is sufficient for environmental decision-making on potential impacts on the climate for proposed policies, programs, plans and projects. This research reviews progress across a range of 16 EIA regimes and outlines the potential for integration of climate change considerations in EIA. The research used a desk review of EIA literature to identify and assess regulations and guidelines that have been established to promote the integration of climate change in EIA. A typology of levels of integration was developed to guide analysis across multiple EIA regimes. The findings identify a global and growing normative expectation for climate change considerations to be integrated into EIA and describe the range of ways this is done across the regimes selected. Climate change integration in EIA is typically concerned with climate change mitigation, specifically greenhouse gas emissions from proposed developments. Fewer regimes are concerned with climate change adaptation, and in general, an integration deficit is identified for regimes where climate change is partially considered. Several challenges to integrating climate change in EIA are identified, including lack of practice guidelines and regulatory frameworks. Reflecting on the variety of approaches, the discussion extends typologies of integration in EIA to examine and provide a better understanding of substantive consideration of climate change in EIA. Examples of high integration indicate that EIA holds potential to play a substantive role in environmental governance at project level decision making affecting climate change. However, the range of examples also cautions that many domestic obstacles can militate against integration including political, socio-technical, and economic imperatives – particularly those affecting sectoral and scope exclusions. Nevertheless, developments across some regimes indicate leverage points for greater integration, including the role of EIA review to establish new precedents for the relevance of climate change to EIA. Potential future research and practice directions are identified, including development of regulations and practice guidelines, inclusion of climate change adaptation aspects, strengthening postdecision monitoring, application to all relevant sectors and activities, alignment with SEA, and integration across all stages of the EIA process.
Open Access
Patches, Silos, Networks: Women's Ways of Leading in South African Fisheries Value Chains
(2021) Fonto, Lauren; Norton, Marieke
Women's contributions to fisheries have often been made invisible. Their leadership in general and in fisheries has also not always been recognised, especially if it is informal or more "behind-the-scenes". The aim of this study is to contribute to the gap in the women and fisheries literature on what leadership roles women play in the South African fisheries value chain. While it is more widely known that women play diverse roles within the fisheries value chain, the leadership roles they play (at various scales) are currently less well-known. This research involved finding women to interview from the various "patches" in the value chain. Without the generation of new relationships/leads occurring in the background, it would not have been possible to find particular patches. When the research was pivoted to digital research due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the "patches" seemed more adrift, and possibly more "siloed", than ever. However, three common threads emerged that showed how these patches are not so isolated after all. The threads were: Networks and relationships; lineage, blood and sustainability; and acts of pioneering, innovating and self-empowerment. Interviews were semi-formal, with most in-person, one done via the messaging service WhatsApp, and one done via email. Digital research consisted of collecting Instagram posts, finding relevant news articles, looking at newsletters, and industry body-related media. Women in fisheries are situated within various networks and "patches" of knowledge. This dissertation has drawn on the notion of "patches" as a central concept. Underlying this were the sub-themes of gender and market access (in this case, markets for marine resources). It is clear that while different women in different patches may not necessarily know each other or interact with each other, the patches themselves still have an effect on each other. This is especially true in the case of how the Covid-19 pandemic affected small-scale fisheries. Effects higher up the value chain meant that small-scale fishers were negatively affected. Thus, fishing industry patches do not seem to exist in silos. Specifically, women in the fisheries value chain are not in silos either. Both print and online media can still allow women to find out where women are working in the value chain, and for which companies or organisations. Such media can also allow women in fisheries to develop knowledge about each other. Firstly, technology, including digital newsletters, allows for women to extend themselves and enrich themselves with relationships with or knowledges of, other people. With the proliferation of both online media and cell phone access in South Africa, parasocial relationships may be formed. These parasocial relationships may help women in fishing to know "who's who" and also for consumers desiring a more transparent buying experience to form a type of relationship with each other, through learning about people's stories. Fishers encountered both in real life and online tended to come from a long history of working in fisheries themselves, as well as coming from multi-generational fishing families. While not all of the women interviewed are leaders in formal positions and/or formal organisations, their knowledge of species, fish processing and other areas was something that seemed to be valued within fisheries-related spaces. This is one factor that indicates the importance of keeping the fishing lineage going into the future for fishers. Fishers were also concerned about the effects on them which were caused by changes at the commercial level, such as a decline in market access due to Covid-19. Keeping a fishing livelihood going, both for this generation and the next, is something very important to the fishers encountered throughout this research. The diversity of jobs women held, both those personally interviewed and those interviewed in digital publications, was significant throughout this research. Some women are in supportive spaces that allow them to pioneer new paths for women in the fishing engineer, such as being a boat skipper or engineer. Women are gradually making their way up through middle management and to executive management levels. However, it is also important to consider the intersections of women's identities, e.g. socioeconomic status, geographic location, and education obtained. Different approaches to empower different groups of women can help the process of women's empowerment in fisheries to be inclusive.
Open Access
The intersection of environmental racism and conservation: a systematic review of publications affiliated with UCT that deal with race and environmental sustainability
(2022) Rathmell, Sophie G; Norton, Marieke
The following research explores the intersection of environmental racism and conservation in literature affiliated with the University of Cape Town, through the means of a systematic review. This systematic review is contextualised by not only the socio-economy of Cape Town and the greater South Africa, but also the self-positioning of UCT as an ‘anchor institution' that is impactful, though its research, on the wider community. The research sorts a total of 81 publications into nine themes, timeboxed by the past 10 years. This study is limited only to peer-reviewed journal articles published in English, in established journals. The results indicate growth in the number of publications on these topics over the decade, with the most being published in 2018, 2019, and 2020, and uncovered that the publications offer a significant amount of critique on the environmental governance in the global south, and in South Africa specifically. Through a deep analysis, this research identifies trends across publications, from the year of publication, the current events at the time of writing, and the range that the various authors explore. The study shows that there is a lack of publications on the implementation of the proposed solutions or strategies that tackle the deeply complex issue of eradicating racism, and building a sustainable future for everyone, particularly in the developing world. This research provides a comprehensive review of affiliated literature with UCT on these topics, while identifying gaps in the publications. It identifies spaces where, if time and resources became available, UCT could collaborate and help implement strategies and policies, above and beyond research and recommendations.

Browsing by Author "Norton, Marieke"

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