Unsustainable land use practices pose a major threat to ecosystems and the livelihood of local communities. It damages flood plains, river banks and wetlands, reducing the regulating capacity of catchments and increasing erosion and sediment loads. This raises the risk of flooding.

Forestry plantations are grown to provide wood for construction and raw materials for the paper and pulp industry, creating a large number of jobs in these value chains that contributes significantly to South Africa's economy.

However, plantations are made up of exotic tree species (pine, eucalyptus and wattle) that generally use more water than the surrounding natural vegetation, and have the potential to spread invasively. Therefore if not managed responsibly, plantations can have a number of environmental impacts, such as reducing steam flow, and potentially spreading invasively outside of the plantation areas.

80% of the plantations in South Africa's are certified by the FSC or PEFC international forestry standards, which significantly reduces this risk in many areas of the country.

Fracking is a technique used to exploit underground shale gas deposits which involves drilling and the injection of fluids at immense pressure into gas-bearing rocks. The technique has received substantial attention for its potential application in the Karoo but few realise that large areas of the rest of the country show potential of holding significant deposits of gas, petroleum and other fossil fuels. Large parts of the Southern Drakensberg fall into this area and licences are being granted to prospect for shale gas. Fracking pose a substantial risk of polluting ground and surface water, particularly when boreholes leak or fail. These impacts could be catastrophic to downstream water users.