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Date : 29/07/2004
Source: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
Title: L Ndabandaba: KwaZulu-Natal Environmental Affairs Prov Budget Vote 2004/2005


KWAZULU-NATAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS, BUDGET SPEECH 2004/2005, PRESENTED TO KWAZULU-NATAL LEGISLATURE, BY PROF LBG NDABANDABA, MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS, 29 July 2004

Mr Speaker, on a day like this, I cannot avoid the temptation of becoming poetic. I therefore want to say: A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness. That beauty refers to the ANC. I sing praises also to the Honourable Mr Makhaye, my predecessor, for shaking the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs. I shall continue from where he left off.

When I crossed the floor 16 months ago, prophets of doom criticised me destructively. I have no doubt that they now envy my post crossing experience. They are free to use me as a good role model. Some went to the extent of saying they had fired me when I had, in fact, exercised my democratic right of freedom of association by defecting to the ANC.

Having said that, I want to thank the Honourable Premier for the privilege and honour bestowed on me to lead this Department and for granting me freedom to run the Department unperturbed. I will not disappoint you, Manzankosi. Indeed, I did not enjoy this freedom when I served under the previous Premier. I would like to take this opportunity also to sincerely thank my family for their support. A special word of thanks also goes to the officials of the Department, in particular Dr Mjwara and my support staff for their loyalty and support. Keep up the good work.

As I indicated earlier on, KwaZulu-Natal is generally regarded as a tourist destination in South Africa because of its rich endowment with rare diversity of flora and fauna, unique landscapes, coastal areas and natural forests. It boasts two internationally declared World Heritage Sites, being the Greater St Lucia Wetlands Park and Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park. The Province has since won five Blue Flag Awards. The Blue Flag award is an internationally recognised accolade for the best coastal management practice, thus making the Province environmentally unique.

There has been considerable capacity building within Environmental Management to ensure that staff is adequately trained to effectively carry out its duties. Environmental Management is a rapidly growing and dynamic field, and it is therefore imperative for the staff to be continually trained and ready to ensure effective service delivery.

Capacity building is not only important within the Department, extensive awareness campaigns have been organised by my Department to engage all stakeholders in the Province on a variety of environmental issues. These workshops create awareness and educate the people of the Province on topics such as Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures, air quality, environmental legislation, integrated waste management, coastal management and environmental governance and reporting.

The Honourable Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has confirmed this in her emphasis of ensuring a balance between ecology and marine activity in particular. She stresses that increasing land-based activities, encouraged by economic policies, which emphasise development and growth, erode the sustainability of marine resources because of increased pollution in the coastal areas. Environmental experts also agree that if social and economic issues are addressed separately from environmental issues, a very negative developmental scenario could prevail, ultimately leading to ecological and social decline. By the same token, economic activities that generate income for the required social upliftment of the poor masses cannot be ignored. A good illustration is seabed mining, which creates jobs; environmental awareness as well contributes to the regional and national economy. However, as a report on the state of the national environment has pointed out that recovery from mining activities takes decades and "it is unknown whether marine ecosystems can ever recover fully."

My Department has, during the past year, finalised the Province's First Edition of the Environmental Implementation Plan (2002), a requirement in terms of the National Environmental Management Act of 1998. This Plan will ensure the promotion of environmental governance in the Province through integration, alignment and improvement of environmental management in the Province. Environmental governance is a shared responsibility between the National, Provincial and Local Governments; hence the Department has assisted municipalities in drafting their Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) compliant with environmental requirements. The Department aims to continue its support to municipal needs on environmental planning to achieve the objectives of the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) by promoting a safe and healthy environment.

The establishment of a State of the Environment Reporting Programme for the Province signals a new dawn in the implementation of environmental and information rights for all stakeholders in environmental management. As a result of this the Annual Cooperative Environmental Governance Compliance Report will show a marked improvement since last year because of improved intergovernmental relations. The aim is to achieve full compliance to the Provinces' Environmental Implementation Plan of 2002. Mr Speaker, Sir, I am glad to announce that the development of a Provincial Environmental Audit System to promote sound environmental performance management will come to completion in the 4th quarter of this financial year.

Indeed, Chairperson, we are complying with our constitutional obligations. The Bill of Rights guarantees the individual the right to a clean and healthy environment and my Department is in compliance. Improved access to environmental information is of critical importance in transparency, environmental accountability and improved stakeholder confidence and satisfaction. I am glad to announce that the first ever-comprehensive State of Environment Report for KwaZulu-Natal will be produced in 2004.

Last year this Department made funding available to the establishment of community recycling centres in five municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal. After a resounding success, in this initiative, further funding will be made available for more municipalities to establish community-recycling projects. This has a multiple positive effect:

* It contributes to effective waste management by reducing the amount of waste sent to land fill sites, thereby increasing the lifespan of the landfill site
* It creates sustainable jobs out of waste recycling.

A number of other waste management initiatives are currently being co-ordinated by my Department. These include:

* Developing provincial legislation on waste management;
* Assisting municipalities with the development of Integrated Waste Management Plans;
* Maintenance of Waste Information System;
* Conducting waste audits;
* Ability to respond immediately to pollution incidents.

In keeping with its core mandate, my Department has identified vulnerable areas that are worst hit by poor air quality. These are Newcastle, Richards Bay, Pietermaritzburg, Port Shepstone and Durban. The Department has purchased air quality monitoring equipment for these areas. This will allow us to gather the data that we require in order to develop appropriate technology and systems to effectively combat air pollution.

Mr Speaker, Sir, it is important to indicate here that air pollution contributes to global warming, and could destroy the ozone layer that protects us from damaging ultra-violet rays from the sun and little work is being done to help farmers adapt their farming practices to a changed climate. Ozone Layer Day will be celebrated on the 16th of September this year and my Department will use this opportunity to raise awareness about climate change and its adverse effects.

Another essential function of my Department is Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs). This Department, up until June 2004, has received 5 020 EIA applications since the enactment of the EIA regulations. To manage this huge number of EIAs, my Department developed an Environmental Database Support System (EDSS), which enabled us to deal with these applications in the most efficient manner and as a result of the success of this programme, the National Department of Environmental Affairs, and Tourism has since adopted a similar programme.

A number of Environmental Impact Management guidelines are currently being prepared, including the Minimum Administration Requirements, the Minimum Information Requirements for Community Forestry Applications and Interim Guidelines for Environmental Management Plans.

Environmental capacity building and awareness has been one of the success stories for Environmental Management. About 35 educators' workshops have been conducted in the province involving close to 900 educators. Environmental awareness has also been created through the celebration of environmental days, which has resulted in the implementation of 25 environmental projects ranging from alien plant eradication to clean-up campaigns. In addition, 20 environmental literacy packages in the form of newspaper inserts have been produced and distributed to more than 3 000 schools province-wide.

In line with the concept of the Expanded Public Works Programme, the Department has engaged in an alien plant eradication programme, which has seen many jobs created to the benefit of the rural masses whilst at the same time improving our biological diversity and maintaining agricultural productive land. To this end my Department is in the process of establishing an integrated approach to alien weed eradication with various stakeholders and this initiative will be spearheaded by the Honourable Premier.

We therefore applaud the initiatives of organisations like Umzansi, Environmental Association and Environmental Justice Networking Forum. The latter is a network of more than 350 Community Based Organisations, subscribing to the principle of environmental justice and operating in our nine provinces. One of the questions posed by the Environmental Justice Networking Forum is:

"Has our democracy brought about environmental justice or are the poor experiencing more environmental injustices?"

On Sunday, 25 July 2004 I had the honour of addressing this networking forum.

These initiatives therefore show that we are making some breakthrough in protecting the human race from hazardous substances that harm our environment, especially the poorest of the poor who cannot afford the pleasure of staying in environments not threatened by ecological degradation.

The KwaZulu-Natal coast is an important income generator for the Province, and therefore we are obliged to protect it. The draft KwaZulu-Natal Coastal Management Policy is currently being gazetted for public comment. A 'popular' version has been prepared which summarises the policy. My Department is also working in close collaboration with the Oceanographic Research Institute and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife to develop a monitoring program for effective coastal management.

Responsible management of biodiversity is recognized worldwide as being a critical success factor for sustained economic development. Proper conservation is critical for maintenance of natural resources and ecosystems.

Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife is the custodian of biodiversity conservation in the Province. KwaZulu-Natal produces 25% of South Africa's water (a large proportion of the water for KZN and Gauteng) through the effective management of the water production processes in the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Park, the most significant water catchments area in Southern Africa. It manages 8% of the landmass of the Province in 110 protected areas that contain critical life support systems. It manages an increasing marine protected area and is leading the world in this. Ezemvelo influences the management of a greater proportion of the land mass to benefit sustainable resource use and biodiversity conservation objectives, and takes a leading role in the conservation of some of South Africa's endangered species such as black rhino and wild dogs.

As a Department, we therefore have a great challenge to ensure that big companies put policies in place to ensure that communities in their surroundings do not have to put up with the constant threat to their lives because of what is manufactured by companies in their surroundings.

The seriousness with which we view environmental issues is also illustrated by the fact that the Minister of Environmental Affairs and his Deputy Minister will visit our Province on 2 August 2004 to interact with the community regarding the impact of pollution in the Province and to monitor and evaluate the project status of the Air Quality, Management plan and subsequent health studies, as well as to monitor the National Projects on Air Pollution standards and vehicle emissions strategy. The visit will include tours to Sapref, Wentworth, Monitoring Station, Engen Refinery and Merebank Park. The Portfolio Committee is invited to attend.

I want to thank the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture and Environmental Affairs for their co-operation and wish to assure Chairpersons, Honourable Nahara and Honourable Inkosi Gumede, that I shall always co-operate with them and their committees.

Honoured colleagues, I am providing you with all this information because we may not always realise the extent to which we in KZN are leaders in the field of conservation. As I indicated earlier, Ezemvelo has contributed significantly towards the establishment and management of two newly declared world Heritage Parks, and has the most tourism beds in the Province, an industry that provided 80 000 jobs in 2002 according to a 2003 World Bank Report. Nature-based tourism is a progressive sector providing a significantly greater distribution of jobs to historically disadvantaged communities and individuals and a significantly greater overall economic share for local communities and small commercial entities than for the economy as a whole.

Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has an especially important role to play in job creation and poverty alleviation in remote rural areas where the socio economic position of communities living adjacent to parks is declining, a situation that is exacerbated by the HIV and AIDS pandemic. Often the nature conservation protected areas are the only catalysts for economic development for these local communities. Ezemvelo has actively implemented a participative, inclusive, benefit sharing strategy and has become more relevant to communities living adjacent to the Parks. Programmes include a community levy, charged to day and overnight visitors to Ezemvelo Parks that provides funding for properly motivated, sustainable community projects. In this regard, more than R15 million has been distributed for community projects since inception.

Last year September Ezemvelo hosted the fifth IUCN World Parks Congress, which was held in Durban. 3 000 delegates from 157 countries attended this prestigious congress which takes place every 10 years. The event proved to be one of the most successful conservation events organised by the IUCN and hosted by this Province. The fact that this Congress was held in South Africa, and in particular in KZN, bears testimony to the reputation that South Africa and particularly Ezemvelo is a recognised centre of excellence and leader in the field of sustainable biodiversity conservation management in partnership with people. An example of this is the Lebombo Transfrontier Conservation programme, which is now underway, and gathering momentum.

Despite the drought that has been experienced throughout the country and the fluctuating value of the rand, the annual game auction held in June 2003, realised over R19 million in terms of game sales. This was approximately R5 million above the projected income and once again shows the significant contribution that the sale of game makes.

Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife manages a number of poverty relief projects and the budget for this has increased from R6 million to R24 million in the last financial year creating more than 3 000 jobs across the Province. Many of these projects are in remote rural areas and the wages and training are direct benefits for people from communities adjacent to the Parks. Ezemvelo will continue to actively implement a participatory, inclusive and benefit sharing strategy to become more relevant to communities living adjacent to the Parks.

Ezemvelo is currently engaged in a strategic and comprehensive Business Review Process with a view to accelerate transformation and enhance service delivery in terms of its statutory mandate to ensure sustainable biodiversity conservation and ecotourism management in KwaZulu-Natal in partnership with the people. The primary objectives of the Business Review Process at Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife include:

* The rationalisation and transformation of Executive Management in line with the strategic objectives and statutory mandate of the organisation;
* The review of all management and operational structures against the statutory mandate and obligations of the organisation; and
* The review of the manpower budgets for the core functions and support services structures against the strategic objectives of the organisation.

Whilst this business review is underway, I urge you as the public and members of Parliament to be supportive of this process, as it will ensure greater sustainability to this organisation whilst rendering world-class service in environmental management.

Furthermore, significant progress is underway in reviewing some of the important Environmental Legislation. These pieces of legislation will have a significant impact on how biodiversity is managed in South Africa.

In line with the National Framework, we will be reviewing our own legislation to ensure proper alignment. During that process, we will also apply our minds to the institutional arrangements i.e. the Board and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife. We believe that it is not desirable to have two separate institutions and will therefore seek to consolidate and refocus the executive powers to the Executives. To this end the Board will play an advisory role to me as the Minister while also giving strategic support to Ezemvelo. However, in order to comply with the current legislation, I have appointed the new Board commencing on 1 July 2004 and am in the process of finalising the outstanding appointments.

Mr Speaker, Sir allow me to then present the Environmental portion of the budget.

2004/2005: R 000

Programme 3
Environmental Services: 37,014

Programme 4
Conservation: 241,285
Total: 278,299

Speaker and Honourable Members, we have to agree that the implementation of these key challenges requires visionary, strategic and decisive leadership and in order to achieve this imperative, we have to commit to change. I also trust that you will always be behind us. I hope that this budget meets with your approval.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs, KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
29 July 2004

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