Dear Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development,

The Surplus People Project (SPP) is a non-government organization based in Salt-River, Western Cape. We work on Solidarity with social movements and other partner formation to advance land, food and climate justice. Our target groups include small-scale farmers, backyard producers, farmworkers and forestry dwellers in both Western and Northern Cape Province.

Surplus People Project had been supporting ex-forestry workers/ dwellers since 2011 whereby a forum was established, known as the Forestry Community Forum (FCF). These communities were established in the 1960s/ 70s as worker villages. The Forum consist of 11 forestry communities. We support the formation through organizing, educational, trainings and capacity building. We also play a facilitation role within formation such as creating strategizing and planning spaces to advance the struggles.

We engaged in many departments regarding the issues of forestry dwellers/communities. Today, these communities continue to be tenure insecure, infrastructure drastically degrading such as sewage, water and electricity and unemployment.

The forum with the support of SPP also engages in access to land / plantation land as land reform opportunities for the communities/ agroforestry/ community forestry. But this is not supported by department.

We are writing to the portfolio committee because we are aware of the situation of knoflokskraal and the committees engagement/ meeting that took place on the 13th of September. Our question is , why are we not recognized as forestry communities, who can partake in community forestry. We tried engaging with the Minister but our attempts are continuously rejected. For years we been trying address our challenges as forestry dwellers but knoflokskraal seems to be closer in achieving this in just two years.

Thank you for the opportunity to write to you - Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development