In South Africa, government, at all levels, tends to approach the issue of spatial planning and land management from a purely technocratic point of view. This will not work, warned House of Traditional Leaders deputy chairperson Nkosi Langa Mavuso. (Nkosi is a title denoting high traditional rank, such as royalty or high aristocracy.) He was addressing a session of the XXVIII Congress of the International Federation of Surveyors (better known as FIG), at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

He highlighted that, in South Africa, traditional land remained one of the most important economic and cultural assets for millions of people. Traditional Leaders still played a key role in the management and allocation of these lands. The Constitution recognised their role and they were represented by the House of Traditional Leaders.

"Their role is not only ceremonial but developmental," he affirmed.

Meanwhile, there was growing pressure on land. This came from a range of factors, including population growth, urbanisation, agriculture and climate change. 

"A misconception is that customary land administration is informal and chaotic. It is not," he stressed. "The challenge is not the existence of customary land administration; the challenge is to strengthen it."

He pointed out that surveyors had the tools and technology to strengthen customary land administration. But to succeed, the surveyors needed the acceptance and support of the local communities, in order to secure cultural legitimacy. On the other hand, customary land administration without modern surveying would fail.

Among traditional communities, land has great cultural and spiritual, as well as economic, importance. That was why their support was essential to spatial planning and land management initiatives. These communities, their traditional leaders and institutions, had to be partners in such initiatives, and not merely be consulted about them.

Further, the future of land administration in the country had to deal with historical injustices, he emphasised. 

He assured that the country's traditional leaders had committed themselves to the strengthening of accountability, and the inclusion of women and youth, in traditional land administration, among other modernising steps. 

"The future depends not only on technology and policy, but also on people, culture and traditional legitimacy," highlighted Mavuso.