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Edna Molewa, the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, today, 05 June 2011 led World Environment Day Celebrations at the Golden Gate National Park in the Free State by officially opening the renovated Golden Gate hotel.

Molewa made a clarion call to all South Africans to “Save Tomorrow, Today.” She elaborated that this theme is a call to action and that every citizen had a responsibility to act now and conserve our environment through actions as simple as saving electricity, saving water and planting a tree!
Delivering the key note address at the launch, Molewa, said, “Our celebration this year comes as we prepare to host and participate at the 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) on climate change that seeks to address the challenge we face today of climate change, for us to leave a legacy our children will be proud of.”
She emphasized that climate change is a reality and its impacts are the number one threat to South Africa’s long term sustainable development, economic growth and quality of life. The Minister stressed that we all have a role to play in ensuring that we address the challenges posed to us by climate change.
The commitment with which government views climate change can be illustrated by the Climate Change Response Policy which is nearing completion and the Climate Change White Paper will be presented to cabinet for approval later this year. This policy outlines our vision for an effective climate change response and our transition to a climate resilient and low-carbon economy and society.
“Climate change is a threat to our food security and ability to meet our developmental objectives as a country. Job creation as you know is a key government priority. The New growth path adopted by government offers the opportunity to build new green economic sectors and grow our economy. We need to ensure that our response to climate change grabs the new growth opportunities presented by the global effort to address climate change,” said Molewa.
So it is particularly fitting that our celebration today has brought us to the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in the Free State. National parks are integral to the job creation agenda of this administration, with over 10 000 people every day waking up to work at our national parks.
Additional to that, this celebration here today is even more apt as approximately 30 million Rands have been allocated on the infrastructure upgrade in this park involving amongst others the upgrade of the old Brandwag Hotel, staff accommodation and perimeter fence construction. Phase one of the projects began in January 2005 and the second phase began in November 2009.
Both phases are expected to be completed in December this year, with over 398 local people expected to have benefited from this project through employment for both phases.
So part of our response to climate change is how we change the way we do things. What is also noteworthy to mention is that from a greening perspective, solar geysers were installed to provide hot water to all the rooms, kitchens and laundry facility in the hotel.
Heaters in the rooms were changed from a fan based system 2000 kilowatts to a panel heating system that uses 400 kilowatts. This uses five times less energy and is in line with our energy-efficiency campaign that we drive as government.
Other environmental job creation projects in the vicinity include the River rehabilitation Project for 5 Free State Rivers that aims to clean the upper reaches of some rivers of the nearby Clarens catchment area, with 13.9 million Rands allocated to this project. Over 9 million Rands is allocated to the Maluti-A-Phofung Greening of Environment project in Qwa-Qwa that focuses on amongst others greening the environment through initiatives like planting of trees in RDP houses in Bluegum Bosch, Tshimane, Intabazwe and Tholong.
The Minister said that this national park and the numerous projects carried out by our department in collaboration with our agencies and provinces and municipality demonstrate that the green economy can create jobs for our people. It is also indicative of the fact that environmental conservation can exist side by side with development. Hence we call for sustainable development.
Molewa concluded by stating that this reinforces the fact that our Environment is beautiful and bountiful but there is an urgent need for all to realize that resources are not infinite and we need to take steps now to ‘Save Tomorrow, Today,”