Vegetation production generally had a strong relationship with rainfall over most of SA. Therefore, human-induced land degradation can only be detected if its impacts on vegetation production can be distinguished from the effects of rainfall. Two methods were tested (i) Rain-Use Efficiency (RUE = NPP/Rainfall or Sigma NDVI/ Rainfall) and (ii) Residual Trends (RESTREND), i.e. negative trends in the differences between the observed Sigma NDVI and the Sigma NDVI predicted by the rainfall. Keywords: Communal lands, Monitoring, NPP, South Africa, NDVI, AVHRR.