The natural agricultural resources of Southern Africa are not subject to territorial delimitation - rivers flow across and along interstate boundaries, their floods and loads of detritus and silt respect no border posts and no laws can hold the passage of a nation's soil and fertility over the borders and the sub-continent. International co-operation in respect of the rational utilization and conservation of the natural agricultural resources is therefore fundamental. SARCCUS (the Southern African Regional Committee for the Conservation and Utilisation of Soil) may be described as a government-sponsored agency for the promotion of interterritorial co-operation in southern Africa within the broad field of agriculture and the natural resources.