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Airports Company of South Africa (ACSA) fuel spill clean-up and health
risks - 10 November |
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Due to the fuel
spillage incident from OR Tambo that took place on Tuesday, 7
November 2006 and contaminated the Blaauwpan Pan, Bonaero Park,
Ekurhuleni, it has become necessary to inform the public of key
facts regarding the response to the incident and impacts on local
residents.
The product spilled is aircraft fuel, currently
estimated at around 1 million litres. Clean-up is taking place
around the clock and the spread of the spill has been fully
contained. The outlet from the dam has been sealed off since
Tuesday, 7 November 2006, and will not be re-opened until
authorities are satisfied with the water quality.
Rapid Spill
Response teams have been pumping off fuel since Tuesday, 7 November
2006. In addition, an organic peat absorbent is used to absorb
spilled fuel. The absorption product contains no chemicals, and
poses no risk at all. The absorbed waste product will be removed
from the spill site to an authorised disposal site.
The fuel
spilled gives off certain vapours with a strong odour, including
toluene and xylene. Authorities are monitoring the levels of these
vapours on an ongoing basis.
Whilst levels
of these chemicals are higher than normal, authorities are satisfied
that the levels are well within safety limits and pose no medium or
long-term health risk. No levels of benzene have been recorded.
Due to the
strong odour, discomfort might be experienced by local residents.
Residents are advised to stay in well-ventilated areas, by opening
windows on the downwind side. The odour will continue to dissipate
until all the spilled fuels have been removed.
Authorities
have taken water samples, both at the source of the spillage and at
boreholes surrounding the Blaauwpan Dam. Should samples show that
the product has reached groundwater ; the
sampling programme will be extended appropriately.
Residents
surrounding Blaauwpan Dam who rely solely on borehole water should
contact: Jan Bodenstein from Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality
Environmental Health on Cell : 082-302
0469.
Residents and
visitors will not be able to access the Blaauwpan Dam until further
notice.
Enquiries
:
Blessing Manale
Cell : 083-381
2939
Issued by
: Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
SA Government Information
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The govt goes green - 16 November |
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Jocelyn Newmarch
Government’s new green
energy strategy is steaming ahead, combining a strong focus on
renewables and energy efficiency.
Three organisations
have been established this year under the Central Energy Fund, a
state-owned body, with a mandate to research and commercialise
alternative energy technologies. The organisations centralise
functions formerly performed by the government and parastatals such
as Eskom.
The three agencies
will both fund long-term research and facilitate the implementation
of short-term energy efficient programmes, which can be fast-tracked
now.
The South African
National Energy Research Institute (Saneri), a subsidiary of the
Central Energy Fund, develops and demonstrates new energy
technology. Formed this year, its CEO, Kevin Nassiep, was appointed
in August. Nassiep also oversees the National Energy Efficiency
Agency (NEEA), which promotes energy saving measures. The third body
is the Energy Development Corporation, which commercialises
renewable and sustainable energy technologies. All three work
closely together to drive projects.
A biofuels
investment strategy will be ready in a matter of weeks.
"It has been an exceptionally fast
process," said Nassiep. As one of the
government's growth initiatives (Asgisa),
there is strong political interest in biofuels.
According to
Nassiep, the greatest benefit to biofuels investment will be job
creation. "I don't
know of any other venture which can create as many jobs, as cheaply,"
he told the Mail & Guardian.
While the
Industrial Development Corporation spends R100 000 to create a job,
a biofuels strategy could create a job for R10 000, Nassiep said.
Most of these jobs would be created in largely impoverished,
under-resourced rural areas, representing the first significant
investment in the rural economy.
Biofuels represent
an additional income stream for the volatile agriculture industry.
Because the fuels can be produced from food crops such as sugar
cane, maize and soya, biofuels would keep arable land productive. If
the industry grew sufficiently, Nassiep says South Africa could
eventually find itself importing soya from a neighbouring country
such as Malawi, rather than oil.
Consumers also
benefit from alternative energy research. Saneri is testing 500
solar water heaters in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town, to
determine which units perfom best in different climatic conditions.
Nassiep said government is considering making solar water heaters
mandatory for houses that are worth more than a certain amount,
possibly R400 000. But, in order to do that, the correct technology
must be recommended.
Nearly 40% of
household energy bills go towards heating water, so solar heaters
can result in significant cost savings. But they’re expensive -
basic units start at R5 000, double the price of geysers - and add
to the building costs, so government may introduce subsidies,
according to Nassiep.
Then there's
low-cost light bulbs. LED bulbs (light-emitting diodes) generate as
much light as conventional downloaders, but use one-tenth of the
energy - 5W compared to 50W. They can be used in homes and offices,
as well as for street lighting and for the brake lights on cars.
Energy labelling is
another project. For now, Saneri has started with household
appliances. But eventually, cars and buildings will be
"labelled", with
information available on energy use, emissions and running costs.
Energy efficiency
is important for low-cost housing. Most low-cost houses lack
ceilings so their owners freeze in winter and swelter in summer. But
there are energy efficient ways to build that don’t necessarily cost
much. Nassiep said these included orientating the building for solar
efficiency, building roof overhangs, using better glazing materials
and brick construction, and creating natural ventilation by angling
the roof to create natural downdrafts.
Saneri is
suggesting possible amendments to the building codes, to promote
energy efficient construction. It would cost an extra R2 000 to fit
a ceiling to an RDP house, but the energy saving would be enormous.
Retro- fitting these ceilings to existing units would be a
possibility, perhaps with funds from Eskom's
Demand Side Management campaign, which has about R600-million
available.
If the codes were
to change, a training course would have to be developed for property
developers and architects. But without amending the codes, these
energy efficient proposals are unlikely to be adopted.
Consumers need an
alternative to paraffin. Nassiep said Saneri wanted to investigate
paraffin in a gel form, which would not spread so easily, and which
would be coloured for safety purposes.
Business has also
become involved through the voluntary Energy Efficiency Accord, now
a year old. By the end of last year, Mondi's
Richards Bay plant had saved R39-million worth of energy and water,
a net cost- saving of 27% since 2003.
Mail & Guardian website |
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Court sets deadline for pollution clean-up - 21 October |
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Zelda Venter
The department
of mineral and energy affairs and its regional manager must within
two weeks put measures in place to reduce dust and control the water
pollution from the gold mine dump known as "the Princess Dump" at
Victory Park, an extension of Davidsonville west of Roodepoort.
This order was made by
the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday. It also ordered the dump be
completely rehabilitated within two years. The department consented
to the order.
Two residents, Desiree
Raaths and Patrick Lawrence, with the help of the Legal Resources
Centre, asked the court to step in and act against the pollution.
The Princess
Dump is a goldmine tailing dam created by various gold mining
companies, which no longer exist. The dump forms an "L" shape and
Victory Park was developed inside the shape in the early 90s.
In 1996 an
additional row of houses were added on the edge of the dump. Ellen
Nicol, LRC attorney acting on behalf of the applicants, said the
dump had not been rehabilitated and caused dust pollution. Seepage
water from the dump floods the yards of residents and leaves
stagnant pools during the wet season.
DRD Gold, one of the
respondents in the case, failed to rehabilitate that part of the
dump after completing its work, Nicol said.
The applicants claim
that the company is responsible for the rehabilitation of that
section and that in terms of the new
Mineral and Petroleum
Resources Development Act, the directors of DRD Gold are
personally liable for the pollution and for its rehabilitation.
They also hold that
the department is responsible for the rehabilitation of the
remainder of the dump.
Meanwhile, in a
similar application the court declared the gold mine dump known as
"the West Rand Consolidated Dump" at Kagiso, south of Mogale City,
an environmental hazard. This followed an application by residents
who complained that the dump was a health and environmental hazard.
This article was first
published on page 4 of
Pretoria News on October 25, 2006
IOL website |
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EU to punish
environmental crimes - 26 October |
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The EU has urged
tough sanctions on companies that break a ban on shipping toxic
waste to developing countries.
Environment Commissioner
Stavros Dimas told the European Parliament he would put forward new
laws by the year's end.
The move comes after a ship
chartered by a Dutch company released toxic waste in the Ivory Coast
last month, killing 10 people and making thousands ill.
The European Commission has
long tried to criminalise big environmental offences, but EU nations
have resisted.
According to the BBC's Alix
Kroeger in Brussels, the Commission believes the Ivory Coast case
gives its argument for such penalties fresh impetus.
Under European law, EU
member states are banned from shipping their toxic waste to less
developed countries.
Mr Dimas said the shipping
of toxic waste to the Ivory Coast was a crime and should be treated
as such.
"The incident has had
disastrous consequences," he said.
Mr Dimas will put forward
legislation by the end of the year on criminalising serious
environmental offences, including the illegal shipment of waste.
BBC News website |
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Red1
article inaccurate - 14 September |
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The article on
the front page of your newspaper on September 5, "City finance
committee blows fuse on Red1 salaries", refers.
The article
contains a number of factual inaccuracies and incorrectly attributes
certain inaccurate statements to me.
Your reporter
either deliberately misrepresented, or misunderstood, key issues at
the city finance committee meeting.
In
particular, your reporter failed to understand that what was being
discussed was the July 2005 to June 2006 budget, and not actual
expenditure, when it was envisaged that Red1 needed resources to
prepare for the transfer of business from the city and Eskom.
I clearly
indicated in this meeting that the actual expenditure was less than
the budgeted expenditure, but this information appears to have been
lost on your reporter.
For the
record I wish to clarify the following :
• The figure of R4.391 million was budgeted for the staff in
the year 2005/2006 when a larger staff component was envisaged. A
substantially lower amount was actually spent on salaries in respect
of four staff members and not three as reported.
• TThe
figure of R100 000 for secretariat services per month was budgeted
for, but the actual expenditure as indicated in the meeting was R391
000 for the year - a cost incurred to support in excess of 10 board
meetings and committee meetings
• The budgeted amount of R62 500 a month for travel and
subsistence was not just for the board members as reported by your
paper but, as I indicated, was budgeted for the entire organisation.
• With
regard to the salaries of executives of Red1, these were recommended
by EDI Holdings, the company established to facilitate the
restructuring of the electricity distribution industry in South
Africa.
These were
independently benchmarked and were also approved by the City of Cape
Town and the Department of Minerals and Energy in 2005.
It is important to
indicate that the delay in the transfer of business to Red1 is not
due to a "final decision by national government on the formation of
Red1".
The reason for the
delay is to effect the finalisation of the Asset Transfer Framework,
as required by section 14 of the Local Government Municipal
Management Act.
Francis Matabane
Chief financial
officer, Red1
CapeTimes Report website |
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Authorities unconcerned about damage to bush - 15 September |
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I was under the impression
that most people here cared about the environment. I
thought the authorities wanted to protect the coastline
and its indigenous bush from unsightly development and
environmental damage. I was wrong.
I am lucky enough to live
in a house at the Brighton Beach end of the Bluff,
facing the sea. We also own bush right down to the
Admiralty Reserve. I thought this land was untouchable.
It is a haven for birds, monkeys, servals and other
small animals.
My new neighbour,
however, has started cutting down the bush in front of
his house and even trespassed on to our land to cut down
indigenous trees and shrubs.
I tried to talk to him
about this and he apologised for trespassing and said it
was his workers' mistake. They had been instructed to
find the boundary markers.
However, they later cut
down even more vegetation, including a mature tree on my
side of the boundary. The result is a vast swath of
devastation in which alien weeds like triffid weed and
lantana will flourish, but nothing else will.
I have tried
complaining to everyone I can think of. The Wildlife and
Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa) is not
interested and neither is KwaZulu-Natal Wildlife. They
said it was the eThekwini Municipality's responsibility.
I was told to ring the Parks Department.
After trying five
different phone numbers I eventually found a sympathetic
ear. The gentleman knew the area and promised to visit
the next day. However, he was overruled.
Someone else phoned me
to say that if it wasn't council property it was not
their problem. They only restricted development on the
seaward side of the Bluff because the land was unstable.
I have now phoned
Brighton Beach Police Station and a very sympathetic
lady there is going to try to help, but I don't hold out
much hope. What can anyone do now? The bush has gone. No
one except me seems to care.
Susan Martin
Bluff
The Mercury website |
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Hunting for conservation solutions - 27
October |
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Eugene Lapointe
Hunting bans could do
more harm than good when it comes to the long-term survival of
vulnerable species such as African elephants, argues Eugene Lapointe.
In this week's Green Room, the former head of the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) makes the case for
hunting and why it can be a part of wildlife management policies.
Are bans on hunting and trade
the best way to conserve species?
It is natural for people to
jump to the conclusion that they are. After all, if no one is
allowed to kill an animal, the thinking goes, surely its population
will grow.
But the problem is that many
more species are becoming endangered each year and very few are
recovering.
The World Conservation Union
(IUCN) Red List of threatened species worldwide now stands at 16,119
for all flora and fauna and includes a quarter of all mammals. Is it
not time we found a better approach?
Market value
To understand why hunting
and trade bans are not as effective as they are supposed to be, it
is worth considering elephant conservation programmes in Africa,
where countries have adopted two diverse strategies.
Elephant tusks (ivory) are
used in artefacts around the world and, whether we like it or not,
they command a market value similar to many precious metals. As a
result, there is a constant international demand for ivory.
Unfortunately, most African
economies are poor and wildlife conservation has to compete with
many pressing demands for public money, such as the provision of
public housing, sanitation projects, health care (particularly
related to Aids) and education.
So conservation projects are
going to be most successful if they can be self-supporting
; in other words, if they can generate income and provide
local jobs.
In southern Africa,
countries have followed the philosophy of sustainable use. They have
issued permits to sport hunters to kill a limited number of
elephants that are pre-selected according to factors like age and
sex. They cannot shoot breeding animals, for example.
Sport hunting produces
significant income through hunting fees, safari costs (guides,
accommodation, trophy fees, etc.) and this is reinvested into
conservation programmes. Local people support it because it provides
secure employment.
The result is that in
Namibia, South Africa and Botswana, elephant populations are
well-stocked and healthy, while incidences of poaching have been
kept to low levels.
By contrast, Kenya takes a
protectionist approach. Killing elephants is prohibited and the
country steadfastly argues against international trade in ivory.
An unintended consequence is
that poaching is encouraged because local people receive little
added value from the elephants and, instead, see a local resource
going to waste.
In some areas people suffer
when elephants destroy crops and homes. Habitat damage from dense
populations also negatively impacts many other species.
Conservation in Kenya has
become largely a law enforcement operation and, inevitably, this is
a drain on limited local resources.
While elephant populations
have recovered, poaching remains a problem and, in stark contrast to
southern Africa, people have to be paid to shoot problem animals.
Fishing for solutions
In the case of sturgeon,
caught for its roe, protectionists claim that a caviar trade ban
would help populations to recover in their principal location, the
Caspian Sea.
But the real cause of
depleted sturgeon numbers is not the legal trade, which is carefully
regulated, but the illegal one which, by definition, is not, and
which is unfortunately many times larger.
If there was a ban on caviar
trade, as some groups advocate, responsible producers - who have
invested in hatcheries to replenish stocks - would no longer have
any conservation incentives.
The result would be
disastrous. Rather than lead to a recovery of sturgeon stocks, such
an approach would accelerate their depletion, while fishermen would
lose their livelihoods.
Aquaculture can be developed
but does not itself promote conservation in the affected areas.
What we need to do instead
is take steps that positively encourage conservation by providing
incentives to local producers, rather than criminalising them.
Bigger picture
It is to be expected that
people will question how conservation can be aided by allowing
animals to be killed and utilised.
Sustainable use still seems
counterintuitive to some. But the conservation results with species
like African elephants and the fully recovered and abundant Florida
crocodile prove otherwise.
Sustainable use is enshrined
in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and is used as the
basic wildlife management philosophy in countries like the United
States.
And there are signs that
"sensible conservation" may be creeping into vogue as realities hit
home and wildlife officials begin to critically assess realities.
Recently, the BBC reported that authorities in Malaysia have decided
that the best way to protect turtles is to license, rather than ban,
the collection of their eggs.
Unfortunately, there is a
tendency for nations to practice sustainable use at home while
prescribing protectionism abroad.
This is true for African
elephants, seals, sturgeon, whales, tigers, rhinos and many of the
so-called "charismatic" species.
In the future, the fate of
many animals may well depend on the extent to which the public
around the world starts to accept the idea of utilising wildlife in
a sustainable way.
Eugene Lapointe is
president of the International Wildlife Management Consortium (IWMC)
World Conservation Trust, and was secretary-general of CITES between
1982-1990
The Green Room is a
series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on
the BBC News website
BBC News
website |
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Hunting 'has conservation role' - 27
October |
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Elli Leadbeater
Rifle-toting tourists
hunting exotic animals could actually help protect Africa's
vulnerable species, a leading conservationist has suggested.
Elephant populations had
benefited from a permit system that allowed sport hunters to kill a
limited number of the beasts, according to Eugene Lapointe.
Mr Lapointe was head of the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
between 1982-90.
Animal welfare campaigners
rejected the idea as "morally unjustifiable".
Writing in the BBC News
website's Green Room, Mr Lapointe, president of the International
Wildlife Management Consortium (IWMC), said that despite the best
efforts of conservationists, the number of threatened species
continued to grow.
He suggested that it was
time to reconsider bans on hunting: "Unfortunately, most African
economies are poor and wildlife conservation has to compete with
many pressing demands for public money.
"So conservation projects
are going to be most successful if they can be self-supporting
; in order words, if they can generate income and provide
local jobs," he wrote.
A number of nations in
southern Africa had adopted a "sustainable use" philosophy,
including Namibia, South Africa and Botswana, he added.
"They have issued permits to
sport hunters to kill a limited number of elephants that are
pre-selected according to factors like age and sex. They cannot
shoot breeding animals, for example," Mr Lapointe explained.
As a result, these nations
had well-stocked and healthy elephant populations and poaching was
not a major problem, he observed.
Costly conservation
The idea of "trophy hunting"
being a weapon in the conservationists' armoury to protect
vulnerable species was supported by Peter Lindsey from the
University of Zimbabwe.
"Realistically, for
conservation to succeed, wildlife has to pay for itself in Africa,"
Dr Lindsey told a recent meeting at London Zoo.
"If local people do not
benefit, it is usually lost".
Trophy hunting involves
allowing high-paying guests to shoot in the company of a
professional hunting guide. Each hunter pays, on average, 10-20
times more than most eco-tourists would for their holiday.
He said that it can
encourage landowners to accommodate and protect threatened wildlife
in areas that do not appeal to most eco-tourists because they are
politically unstable, too remote, or simply less scenic.
In South Africa, landowners
were given permission to allow shooting of excess male white rhinos
once the species began to recover after a sharp decline.
This gave landowners an
incentive to buy and provide land for the rhinos, which is thought
to have significantly accelerated their recovery.
Dr Lindsey, who is not a
hunter, carried out research to assess both the positive and
negative effects of hunting on conservation.
He found that the industry
is not without setbacks. Estimates of how many animals can be shot
without threatening the population are sometimes based on guesswork,
because no research data is available.
Irresponsible lodge owners,
who allowed illegal and unethical practises, such as hunting caged
animals or shooting from cars, posed a severe threat to the
industry's prospects.
Hunters also needed to find
ways to make sure that the money from rich tourists did not end up
in overseas bank accounts, but reached local communities, he added.
'Unjustifiable'
These concerns were shared
by animal welfare groups. International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw)
spokeswoman Rosa Hill called the idea of shooting elephants and
rhinos "morally unjustifiable".
"There is very little
evidence that the funds raised from killing wildlife are ploughed
back into conversation," she said.
"There are also biological
reasons why trophy hunting is not a good idea. Generally, hunters
want to kill the biggest, strongest and fittest animals and this can
have disastrous implications for the species.
Ms Hill said a lack of
knowledge about how many animals there were and how the creatures
behaved could result in a sudden population crash.
"Trophy hunting quotas are
not set with proper knowledge of true population sizes, so it can be
difficult to measure a species' decline," she explained.
But Dr Lindsey believed that
the overall shortfalls did not outweigh the conservation benefits.
He said
: "The industry's not perfect, and we have to work on the
problems ; but there is no question in my
mind that if hunting were to be banned, the conservation
consequences in Africa would be dire".
BBC News website |
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Man in court charged with breaking hunting laws [UK] - 17 October |
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Richard
Savill
The joint master of a hunt is due in court
charged with breaching the hunting laws in the first prosecution of
its kind brought by police in England.
Maurice
Scott, 63, faces two counts of hunting a wild mammal with dogs.
Scott, an Exmoor farmer, has been joint master of the Devon and
Somerset Staghounds for 25 years.
Peter Heard,
23, from Exford, Somerset, the hunt's
professional second whipper-in, faces one charge of hunting a wild
mammal with dogs.
The breaches
were alleged to have taken place on Exmoor on April 25. The men, who
are on bail, will appear before Taunton Deane magistrates on
Thursday.
Hunts claim
to have been hunting legally under exemptions to the
Hunting Act, which
allows trail hunting, using two hounds to flush mammals to guns,
hunting rabbits or rats and using a terrier to flush foxes from
underground to protect game birds. The League Against Cruel Sports
has made several complaints to police, but until now, the Crown
Prosecution Service has brought no case against a huntsman in
England, although a poacher was prosecuted successfully.
Two earlier
prosecutions against huntsman were brought privately by the league.
The Countryside Alliance said the law was
"very
confused" and the Devon and Somerset pack
had been trying hard to hunt within it.
A spokesman
said :
"They
have been operating within their interpretation of the law using
exemptions to keep the infrastructure of the hunt going and to
continue to manage the deer population on Exmoor".
He said there
was anger on Exmoor that Avon and Somerset police were prosecuting
the huntsmen before the law was clarified in the earlier cases.
"Maurice Scott is a pillar of the farming
community. He voluntarily attended a police station and was put in a
cell for two and a half hours before being charged.
"These are not people going out actively to commit criminal
offences. The nightmare scenario is that there will be a breakdown
between police and the rural community on Exmoor".
A spokesman
for the League Against Cruel Sports said :
"At long last, we are delighted to see the
police fulfilling their responsibilities. The
Hunting Act is clear
legislation and it is right that anyone chasing animals for sport is
brought to court".
Telegraph website |
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