‘State of SA environment is worsening’

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/state-of-sa-environment-is-worsening-1.360364

By John Yeld

The condition of South Africa’s environment is deteriorating.

This is the unhappy conclusion of South Africa’s second national State of the Environment Report, just released by the national department of environmental affairs and tourism.

Work on the 800-page report began in 2004 and finished in September last year.

The department was strongly criticised by the “Big Six” environmental non-government organisations for the delay in releasing the report, but it answered saying there had been intensive intergovernmental consultation on how best to respond to the findings.

According to the executive summary, the report shows that South Africa has made “significant progress” in environmental management over the past decade.

“Despite this, there have been increasing pressures on our resource base and some aspects of the environment have deteriorated… In general, the condition of the South African environment is deteriorating.”

Major problem areas include increasing pollution and declining air quality that are harming people’s health; natural resources being exploited in an unsustainable way; declining water quality and aquatic ecosystem health; continuing land degradation; and the overexploitation and collapse of commercial and recreational fish species.

“At the same time, the basic needs of the current generation are not yet being adequately met,” the report states.

“With the majority of poorer South Africans directly dependent on natural resources to survive, we can ill afford to let the environment deteriorate.”

Other than providing basic natural resources that sustain life – such as clean air, water and food – the environment is the basis for economic activity, it notes.

“Thus a healthy environment is not only a constitutional right in South Africa, but fundamental for a vital society and a sustained economy.”

The report says there are increasing pressures on the country’s natural systems, but that the ability to deal with these pressures is “weak”.

“The message is clear: we need to act now, individually and collectively as a nation. If we do not act decisively, we run the risk of losing the environmental services that we all depend upon.”

The report cites four “major environmental priorities” that require “urgent intervention and concerted focus in the immediate future”: the availability and quality of water; climate change; human vulnerability in extremely high levels of poverty and inequality; and the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

It also identifies four “fundamental cross-cutting issues as key leverage points for change”.

“If we are to confront and deal effectively with the major environmental priorities facing South Africa, we need to improve implementation and enforcement significantly; increase and consistently monitor information and make it accessible; build the capacity of local government; and shoulder our joint responsibility to make development more sustainable.”

The department says the views in the report, based on papers by expert groups and other information gathered by the project team, are not necessarily those of the government.

Responding, director-general Pam Yako said: “We are confident that our response strategy to these issues will continue to ensure our country is a leader in sound environmental management.”