Forced removal was an obvious and particularly blunt form of state intervention into black people's relations with the environment, but it was not the only aspect of segregation with environmental implications. Blacks who retained their land also suffered a constriction of their rights, including environmental rights, as they became subjects of state intervention. After the 1930s, the state operated conservation programs and became an active and usually unwelcome partner in blacks' relations with the environment. On African reserves, conservation was part of development programs generally known as “Betterment.” Betterment entailed comprehensive and coercive transformations of the ways Africans lived on the land. Initially legislated in 1939 and refined in 1949, it was the policy of “planning” African areas according to the modern principles of agricultural production and conservation science. It characterized African farmers and herders as wastrels destroying soil, forests, and grazing veld. Highly technocratic, Betterment gave officials in the Native Affairs Department (NAD, later the Bantu Administration and Development [BAD] Department) authority to remedy putative abuses by planning land use. It was also intended to support segregation by maximizing the use of communal lands.