In July 2008 the Omusati Communal Land Board received 11 applications to have enclosures of communal land recognised by the Land Board and registered. Lawyers acting on behalf of the applicants referred to Section 28(1) of the Communal Land Reform Act, Act 5 of 2002 which provides for the recognition of existing customary land rights. In other words, the applicants claimed that they were granted rights to fence off communal land under customary land and land tenure, presumably on the strength that the respective traditional authorities approved these applications before the Communal Land Reform Act came into force in 2002.