Riemvasmaak is a 74,000 ha hyper-arid region in the Northern Cape province of South Africa which receives about 128 mm of rain per year. In 1974 all of the inhabitants of the area were forcibly removed and the region declared a conservation area. However, following South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, people were resettled in the region. Together with their livestock, many individuals and families established their farming enterprises once more. A long-term monitoring programme was established in 1995 to assess the influence that the change in land use might have on the environment. This programme was based on repeat photography and transect surveys at 29 core sites in the region. All sites were rephotographed and resurveyed in 2005, and again ten years later in 2015. The cover of grasses and shrubs in three different landforms (slopes, plains and ephemeral streams) was estimated at each time step from a visual inspection of the repeat photographs and from species cover estimates recorded during the transect surveys. The size class distributions of Acacia erioloba individuals were also recorded along fixed transects at four localities in 1995 and again in 2015. Results from a linear mixed-effects model showed that grass cover decreased significantly (p < 0.001) between 1995 and 2005 but increased significantly (p < 0.001) between 2005 and 2015. There was no significant difference (p = 0.20) in grass cover between 1995 and 2015. The cover of woody plants in the landscape had not changed significantly (p > 0.05) over the 20 years since resettlement. Trends in total cover, grass cover and woody cover were consistent between landforms. The total number of individuals of Acacia erioloba along the four transects which were surveyed had declined since 1995, particularly within the smaller size classes ( < 2 m), and little or no new recruitment of this species had occurred since the initial survey. It is difficult to disaggregate the relative impact of rainfall and herbivory on the composition and cover of vegetation especially when sampling periods are ten years apart, and when detailed rainfall and livestock data are not available. Large numbers of animals clearly do have an impact on grass cover and also on the long-term population dynamics of key woody species, such as Acacia erioloba. However, drought and high rainfall events are also important drivers of the cover and dynamics of species within both of these growth forms. Even though there were significant fluctuations in grass cover between sampling periods, Riemvasmaak's rangelands did not look fundamentally different in 2015 from what they looked like in 1995, apart from a few areas which had been cleared for agriculture. The area has not become desertified since resettlement and continues to provide for the needs of many households which have derived a livelihood from the region's resources over the last 25 years.