Update

GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - The Western Cape is disaster-prone and climate change plays a significant role in our quality of life. 

"It is something we have to plan for," said Cobus Meiring, convenor of the Garden Route Environmental Forum (Gref), that hosted the climate change and environmental management indaba at Nelson Mandela University George Campus on Thursday 29 June. 

"We have to understand what the net effect of climate change will be as we have to be able to plan around it if we want to maintain the levels of lifestyle that we have become used to."

Various experts from all over the country gave presentations.

Marlene Laros, a sustainability expert who heads up the Biodiversity and Coastal Management Division of the Western Cape Environmental Affairs and Development Planning Department, said in 2020, the Western Cape topped the costs of the previous record for disasters. 

Economic costs are stacking up, undermining other core government functions and operations, and its capability to service people. In a provincial context, climate change is an emergency.

Rising coastline

She focused on serious concerns regarding the vulnerability of the Western Cape coastline due to rising sea levels. She gave an overview of the department's coastal management programme which has just been reviewed and incorporates freshly collected data. "This updated science is not bringing better news - the news is worse," she warned. 

The new data is forcing the department to delineate new coastal management lines (CMLs) due to a fast-rising sea level. Some of its previously set 20-year risk lines "are already actually looking like the high-water mark", she said. 

The data will be incorporated into local spatial development frameworks and estuary management plans and could be used as a legal mechanism in coastal development planning. She said authorities are not responding to climate change as an emergency. 

Data has been available for years, but has mostly not been considered in coastal development planning.

Dr Roy Marcus (left), Dr Kaluke Mawila and Prof Josua Louw Photos: Alida de Beer

Environmental management

The impact of inadequate environmental management was also highlighted by Pamela Booth, manager for environmental planning at Knysna Municipality. She said the 2017 fires in Knysna were largely driven by invasive alien species that should have been cleared.

Recent floods in low-lying areas that resulted from the impact of climate change, have caused a section of Thesen Street and one hole of the Knysna Golf Course to be inaccessible for months. "We should never have developed there."

Booth stressed the reduction of carbon emissions and said in Knysna this can be achieved through, among others, improving its waste handling processes. Waste and biomass resulting from alien invasive clearing should be utilised as resources in a waste-to-energy programme for the town. Political buy-in from the council must still be sought for such plans.

Cost

The message of Dr James Blignault, resource economist and professor extraordinaire at the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University, was that the cost of restoring a degraded environment far outweighs the cost of the "disrespectful" decision-making that has led to the destruction of the environment and ecology.

An example of the cost of degradation is the massive soil erosion caused by commercial maize cultivation where three tons of topsoil per ton of maize produced is lost. The cost of the lost topsoil and the long-term economic effect of this, is not calculated into the price we pay for the product on the shelf.

Dr James Blignault

Bleak future

A bleak picture for South Africa was painted by design thinking specialist Dr Roy Marcus in his presentation. He said the country is on the verge of chaos. "We are now at an irreversible state. We cannot go back. As much as Cyril Ramaphosa hopes to rejuvenate the ANC - dit was gewees - it is over."

He was however, cautiously optimistic about some young, dynamic people appearing on the political scene who could bring about fundamental change and a "second democratic wave". In the same breath, he said South Africans cannot leave it to the politicians to bring about positive change - communities on ground level will have to do it themselves.

Pamela Booth

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