However, the overall state of the rural economy is an important driver of land degradation in all regions. Recent research by the Universities of Pretoria and Sussex has shown that South Africa has paid a very high price for historic land inequity. Very briefly, the consequence has been “premature de-agriculturalisation” of the economy, i.e. the sector has shrunk more rapidly than would have been the case in any other country. This has been coupled with an excessively weak development of the non-farm rural economy, poverty in the majority of rural households, aggravated by dependence in rural households on remittances and social transfer to the rural economy, and rapid complex migration to towns, and then cities, and sometimes back again, with high social costs. The extensive urbanization has paradoxically been paralleled by overpopulation in the former homelands, and under-population in the rural parts of the former RSA. There are thus deep structural problems to address in promoting sustainable land management.