Help to conserve an unspoilt part of Joburg
November 13, 2008
Posted in Conservation
A huge new conservancy area is being established in southern Johannesburg, centred on the Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve in Kibler Park, and you are invited to get involved.
The new Klipriviersberg Conservancy extends over 150 square kilometres. The area has considerable tourism, recreational, cultural, educational and developmental potential, but needs proper and careful environmental management and protection from untoward development. This is why landowners and residents in the area want to establish a conservancy.
The Conservancy lies between the N12 highway to the north, the R59 highway to the east, the R550 and R554 to the south and the N1 highway to the west. It covers urban, rural and pristine, unspoiled and environmentally untransformed areas of land.
The 680-hectare Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve, the largest proclaimed nature reserve in Johannesburg, lies at the centre of the area. A variety of game roams freely in the reserve.
“The ridges, rivers, ruins, residents, reserve and recreation of the conservancy need to be moulded into something we can all be a part of and take ownership in to protect and promote its mix of
cultural, historical and environmental wealth and beauty,” says the Gauteng Conservation Association.
The GCA is inviting anyone who is interested in the conservancy to attend the inaugural meeting and becoming part of the development and establishment of the Klipriviersberg Conservancy.
Date: Wednesday19 November 2008
Time: 18:30 to start at 19:00
Venue: Klipriviersberg Recreation Centre, Peggy Vera Drive, Kibler Park.
The Conservancy is located within the municipal areas of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Midvaal. It will be registered with the Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment (GDACE) and it will register as a member of the Gauteng Conservation Association.
- For more information contact: Clem Kourie (clemkourie [at] gmail [dot] com 082 458 2816) or Andrew Barker (abarker [at] icon [dot] co [dot].za 083 274 4424)
Kamfers Dam: Northgate development gets green light
November 11, 2008
Posted in Conservation
The Northern Cape department of tourism, environment and conservation has given the go-ahead for the Northgate commercial and housing development to be built near Kimberley’s Kamfers Dam lesser flamingo breeding site, Volksblad reports.
The record of decision includes conditions that take the protection of the flamingos and issues with the Homevale sewerage works into account. Raw sewerage has reportedly been leaking from the sewerage treatment works into the dam and has been a major source of concern for the flamingo conservationists.
The RoD states that construction cannot start until “the alternative sewage system (which will be used) is approved in compliance with all applicable laws, constructed and operational AND/OR the upgrade on the existing Homevale sewerage treatment works, which will improve the capacity to the extent that it can accommodate additional effluent, is completed”.
Measures to protect the flamingo include:
- a solid wall with no open gaps or windows must be built with the mininmum height of 2 metres prior to any further construction.
- The wall must be electrified with at least three strands of electric wire
- The development footprint must be completely walled in with controlled access gates
- 24-hour security monitoring including a camera covering the island is recommended
These measures are aimed at minimising human movement to the dam and preventing disturbance of the flamingos by residents.
The RoD was issued on November 7. Interested and affected parties have 30 days to appeal.
The Kamfers Dam site is one of only six lesser flamingo breeding sites in the world and the only one in South Africa. News on the Save the Flamingo campaign Facebook site is that the second breeding season has begun. The first egg was spotted on October 23 and there are high hopes that this season will be as successful as the first one. In May, 9,000 chicks were counted at the end of the first breeding season on the dam.
Wine industry can help conserve cork forests
November 10, 2008
Posted in Conservation, Lifestyle
Photo: A cork oak tree in the mountains near Alcala de los Gazules, Andalucia. Spain
© WWF-Canon / Edward PARKER – WWF
The growing use of plastic and metal substitutes for cork in the wine industry is threatening the Mediterranean’s cork oak forests, says the WWF.
Cork comes from ancient Mediterranean forests. It is a totally natural, renewable and recyclable product. No trees are cut to harvest the cork, instead bark of cork oak trees are stripped every 9-12 years. This is one of the most environmental friendly harvesting processes in the world, the environmental group says.
The cork used in wine bottles and its role in sustainable forestry was an issue raised by the environmental organisation at the general assembly of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) held in Cape Town last week.
The WWF highlighted the vital role the wine industry plays in maintaining the economic value of cork and thus conserving the cork forests. Cork for wine bottle stoppers accounts for almost 70 percent of the total value of the cork market.
“cork forests are home and a source of income to thousands of people and support one of the highest levels of biodiversity in the planet. Decreasing demand from the wine industry for cork stoppers would force entire communities to leave, resulting in more forest fires, desertification and the permanent loss of 2.7 million hectares of forest,” the organisation says.
In its efforts to preserve cork oak landscapes, the WWF is using FSC certification as a market-based tool to drive best management practices on the ground while ensuring sustainable cork markets.
Wine bottles sealed with FSC cork are already available on the market. Three wine producers/ bottlers have certified their chain of custody and seal their wine bottles with FSC cork stoppers (South Africa, Oregon, and Spain). And wine retailers such as Woolworths in South Africa are showing a growing interest in FSC cork, says the WWF-SA.
The FSC is an independent, non profit organisation whose certification system helps consumers make more informed choices when buying timber products. The FSC label is an indication that a product comes from a sustainably managed forest. Although there appears to be disagreement over its certification of “monoculture plantations”.
Dredging a path out of poverty
November 10, 2008
Posted in Conservation
The proposed dune mining project on South Africa’s Wild Coast appears to have been put on hold for the moment but, in the meantime, another mineral sands project, this time in Madagascar, is about to start producing ilmenite, according to a report in Business Report last week.
The mining area is estimated to hold 75 million tons of ilmenite deposits, enough to sustain mining operations for about 40 years. The first shipment will take place in the first quarter of next year, according to the BR report.
Mining investment is seen as a way to alleviate poverty on the island, known for its many unique plant and animal species, but environmentalists have expressed concerns about the sustainability of this development path. Similar concerns have been raised about the proposed mining project on the Wild Coast.
Environmental issues have been a significant obstacle in the development of Rio Tinto’s QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM) project, Gary O’Brien, QMM’s president, was reported as saying in BR.
Massive investment
The $1-billion mining project near Fort Dauphin in south-eastern Madagascar is reportedly the largest investment in the island’s history and will be a catalyst for broader economic development. Rio Tinto also says the mine is a model for further projects likely to follow in Africa and the developing world because of the care it has taken in managing the social and environmental impacts.
Research commissioned by Friends of the Earth in 2007 found that the mining project – which is 80 percent owned by Rio Tinto and 20 percent by the Madagascar government and has received World Bank funding – was failing to deliver sustainable development.
“Rio Tinto claims that the Madagascar mine development is whiter than white, designed to benefit local people and preserve the unique natural environment. But the new research tells a very different story. The reality on the ground is a murky shade of grey, with local people losing their land and livelihoods whilst receiving negligible benefits from the project in return,” Friends of the Earth’s corporate campaigner Sarah-Jayne Clifton said in a press statement on the release of the report last October.
World Bank standards
Rio Tinto responded to the criticisms on its website, stating: “While we face enormous challenges to get it right, we are satisfied that our management of the project is setting new benchmarks in responsible mining practices.” The company added that “Rio Tinto’s conduct is subject to World Bank standards which are rigorously monitored by competent regulatory agencies.”
But Friends of the Earth has concerns about the World Bank funding mining projects as a way to alleviate poverty. It urged the World Bank to act to ensure standards were being implemented on the ground in Madagascar and to call a halt on investment in future mining projects because evidence shows that they are failing to deliver sustainable development.
A recent report by AFP said the massive mining project had “knocked sideways” the sleepy fishing town of Fort Dauphin, doubling its population in three years and causing the prices of food and rent to rise by up to 40 percent. On the other hand, the report said that the investment had brought hope to the area, and improved the transport infrastructure and hotel industry. But there was also concern that many of the new businesses would not last over the longer term, the report said. And local fishermen claimed the mining was affecting their livelihood.
The Madagascar government has reportedly thrown its weight behind mining as a way to alleviate poverty on the island. A spokesman told AFP that a suitable balance had been found between the preservation of biodiversity – which is also the island’s main tourism asset – and the development of the mining industry.
Forest rehabilitation
Ilmenite, which is used in the manufacture of titanium dioxide, a white pigment used in a range of products from toothpaste to paint, is extracted by dredging mineral sands. This will result in the destruction of about 1,000 hectares of rare coastal forest.
Rio Tinto says on its website that it plans to rehabilitate the area when the dredging is complete. It says people from non-governmental organisations were hired to develop a credible biodiversity programme. And an independent biodiversity committee made up of Madagascar experts is advising the company on the rehabilitation of the indigenous forest.
Rio Tinto’s South African interests include a 50 percent stake in Richards Bay Minerals, which in the 1990s had tried to mine the dunes in St Lucia, KwaZulu-Natal.
Africa ‘too risky’ for CDM investors
November 10, 2008
Posted in Business, Green News
African countries are not profiting from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects to tackle climate change in developing countries because of administrative and technical problems, according to climate specialists who met in Dakar last week. “People think it is too risky to invest in Africa,” a delegate was reported as saying. [AFP]
Africa has only 25 of the 1,192 CDM certified greenhouse gas cutting projects around the world – a mere 2.27 percent. Eleven of these projects are registered in South Africa. The CDM is a mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol through which developed countries can offset their greenhouse gas emissions by investing in emissions reduction projects in developing countries.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the European Union has put forward a proposal to share renewable energy technologies with African countries and may also offer funding to African countries to develop their economies sustainably, reports Bloomberg. The proposal, which will be discussed in Algeria later this month, is being viewed as a way to break the deadlock in global climate change talks.
It was also announced last week that the Western Cape provincial government has established a Clean Development Mechanism office in Cape Town which is working on €60-million public transport project with the Italian government. The department of transport deal project reportedly involves between 100 and 150 higher-efficiency diesel buses, of the sort used during the Beijing Olympics. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with the Italian government for the provision of the buses. [Engineering News]
Will Obama lead the world to greener pastures?
November 3, 2008
Posted in Green News
Tomorrow Americans will vote for someone to replace George Bush as their president and whoever wins will be an improvement on the incumbent – there can’t be much doubt about that.
For the past eight years, the Texas oilman’s administration has been an obstacle in the way of a global climate change deal. Despite scientific consensus that human activity is causing the global average temperature to rise, Mr Bush has folded his arms and told the world: “I’m not going to tidy up my mess until China does”.
The leader of the last superpower – whose country has only recently been knocked off the top spot as world greenhouse gas emitter number one by China, according to some accounts, but whose per capita emissions are far higher than China’s – was only prepared to do things on his own terms in a case of “we look after our own interests first and to hell with the rest of you”. Not the best example to set if you want to persuade developing countries, such as China, India and even South Africa, not to follow your own easier, cheaper, carbon-intensive path to economic development.
But things appear to be looking up. The belligerent Mr Bush will be replaced in the White House very shortly by someone who actually accepts the scientific evidence that climate change is caused by human activity.
Both Barack Obama, the Democrat, and John McCain, the Republican, have said they want a cap-and-trade system to cut US emissions. Obama’s ambitions are greater. He has said he wants US greenhouse gas emissions to be cut by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. McCain is looking at cuts of 60 percent. Obama has said he would auction off all the available emissions credits, McCain would be more generous to polluters, giving away many emissions credits at first and phasing in auctions.
Renewable energy will play a significant role in Obama’s climate change plans. He has said he will invest R150-billion dollars over the next 10 years in renewable energy sources – which will create 5-million green jobs. And has set a target that 25 percent of US electricity needs will be met by renewable sources by 2025.
McCain’s preference is for the building of new nuclear power stations and “clean coal”. The US apparently hasn’t built a new nuclear power station since 1978 – although nuclear apparently still accounts for 20 percent of US electricity output – but, according to reports, McCain wants 45 new nuclear power stations by 2030. He also proposes spending $2-billion a year on research into clean coal technologies.
Obama is said to have expressed reservations about nuclear safety and on how to deal with radioactive waste – but he’s not entirely opposed to nuclear power. Neither is he opposed to “clean coal” technologies, which may be a bit of a disappointment for environmentalists. But as an article in Grist points out, if he wants to win the election he’ll need more than the green vote – which he apparently has in the bag anyway, regardless of his position on coal.
What the new man in the White Houses decides to do about climate change will more than likely determine whether the target of keeping the global average temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celcius can be met or not.
For Africa, US climate change policy could influence whether tens of millions of people suffer water shortages as rainfall patterns change and drops in food yields put millions at risk of famine. Africa is responsible for a tiny fraction of the emissions that are causing the Earth’s climate the change, yet it will bear a disproportionate amount of the impacts, say scientists – and it is the continent least able to afford to deal with them.
But it’s not just Africa that will suffer, half the world still lives on less than $2 a day and does so only by subsisting on natural resources provided by the environment, the WWF says in a Greenprint it has drawn up for a new US administration.
Climate change, natural resource exhaustion and ecosystem collapse are “among the most profound and long-term threats to peace and security in the 21st century. The conflict imperiling the planet in the coming millennium is less likely to be between nations than between man and nature,” the WWF report says.
“And the United States is still the only nation capable of exerting the leadership needed to mobilise the globe into confronting these challenges.” But it needs to drop its old-fashioned Cold War approach to foreign policy and look more closely at issues such as climate change, global food and water security and natural resource conservation, says the WWF.
Experts say that there is no way to keep the global average temperature increase under 2 degrees Celcius unless the big emitters, like the US, start taking action immediately. The industrialised nations have an obligation to lead the way to a low carbon economy because they are responsible for the build-up of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere to date and they have the technological and economic capacity to move the world to a low-carbon economy.
John P Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard University and director of the Woods Hole Research Centre, wrote in Scientific American recently that it was now time for the US to start to lead the world. “That is the best remaining hope for averting global climate catastrophe.”
Holdren added that if the US finally stepped up to the plate, the rest of the world would follow. “In my judgment, if the US finally takes the lead, the EU will quickly adopt an economy-wide approach. So will Japan, and probably Russia,” he wrote. And, he added, that there’s a good chance that the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and Indonesians will follow.
South Africa has already expressed a willingness to rein in its emissions, but it wants the industrialised countries to show their willingness to take responsibility for leading the change and financing the solutions.
For the world’s environment and many of the people who depend on it for their livelihoods a lot is at stake in this US election. I’m hoping, along with many other people in Africa, that Barack Obama will win and that, if he does, he won’t let us down.
Sources: Grist, AFP, SciAm, WWF, Barack Obama’s website, John McCain’s website
Photo of Barack Obama by Marc Nozell used under a Creative Commons license
Greenpeace takes on dirty coal
November 1, 2008
Posted in Renewable energy
If you’re a Bond movie fan you’ll love Greenpeace’s new hero who’s out to save the world from the evil bad guy Coalfinger. They’ve made a video with fantastic animation and horrible puns – but a very important message, obviously … The big question is:
Do we dogmatically pursue new coal in a business as usual scenario, or do we commit the world to a clean energy future, creating green jobs, increasing energy security and, crucially, slashing our carbon emissions?
Click on the image or go to www.coalfinger.com to see the vid and get informed.
