Water and Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica will embark on a clean up and tree planting campaign on Saturday in Mamelodi, east of Pretoria, as part of celebrating Mandela Day.

The former South African President Nelson Mandela turns 91 on 18 July, and the call has gone out for people everywhere in the world to celebrate his birthday by doing voluntary work in their communities for 67 minutes.

Madiba has been making an imprint on the world for 67 years, beginning in 1942 when he first started to campaign for the human rights of every South African.

According to the department, "Taking Care of My Environment," is the strong message that will resonate on Saturday as various activities unfold under the environment umbrella in celebration of Mandela Day.

Minister Sonjica, together with the local stakeholders and the community, will clean and green Mamelodi for 67 minutes in keeping with the call to participate in activities aimed at making a difference to communities on Madiba's birthday.

The Mamelodi event will be held in close collaboration with Tshwane Metro, Buyisa-e-Bag, Indalo Yethu and the Mamelodi Community.

Indalo Yethu through its partnership with the SABC1 will make 67 trees available to green the township.

The Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Buyelwa Sonjica will host the Local Government Indaba on Environment on 22 to 23 July 2009, at the Indaba Hotel in Fourways, Gauteng.

The convening of the indaba is informed by the important role that municipalities play in the environmental sector. The Local Government Indaba intends to create dialogue between national and local government around the environment.

The indaba intends to identify priorities as well as key challenges that affect municipalities in South Africa with regard to environmental planning and management. The sharing of best practice experiences on various environmental sector priorities and enhancing the environmental focus in integrated development planning among the three spheres of government are other key objectives of the indaba.

This indaba is designed to capacitate municipalities on compliance requirements of existing legislation, policies, strategies and programmes.

Six thematic areas will be addressed during the indaba and they include, local government planning for environmental sustainability, waste services and management, air quality, climate change, coastal management and conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

The South African consumer should not be punished with the proposed introduction of a carbon dioxide (CO2) emission tax next year, when the fuel necessary to run cleaner-burning engines was not yet available in South Africa, said Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) president and CEO Dr Johan van Zyl on Monday.

As South African refineries did not yet produce the fuel used in Euro IV engines, but were still only working to the lesser Euro II standards, the South African auto industry was unable to introduce more sophisticated, cleaner-burning engine technology to the local market.

Therefore, Euro II engines were still the standard in South Africa.

Euro standards referred to the amount of harmful emissions, CO2 included, produced by an engine, with Euro IV engines producing much less than Euro II engines.

“To us it is inconceivable that the introduction on an ad-valorem duty based on CO2 emissions is being considered, while we are being deprived of the latest fuel technologies that are aimed at addressing that very issue,” explained Van Zyl.

The National Waste Management Act went into effect on July 2.  Until now, South Africa has been without a national law which states how waste should be dealt with as well as the means to regulate this law. But, as with most undertakings as huge as a national system of laws for the minimisation of waste and its safe disposal, the devil will be in the detail, environmental groups fear.

They have reservedly approved the law's enactment.

"I was happy to see that some of the thinking that came out of the lobbying period, such as the notion of the extended producer responsibility, was expressed in the act," said Patrick Dowling of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa, whose input on the act was requested by the government.

The law includes stiff penalties for industrial polluters, with penalties of up to R10-million.

Environmental management inspectors and each level of government will be in charge of enforcement.

The new law requires each municipality and provincial government to establish its own guidelines to meet the requirements of the national law.

Despite the protests and continuing debate, it is clear that massive increase in the electricity price is imminent, and focus has began to shift towards ways and means of negating the effects of the hike on the pockets of the public.

Eskom is driving initiatives that strive toward the more efficient and conservative use of South Africa’s strained power supply. Eskom’s efforts are combined in a process known as Demand Side Management (DSM), which according to Eskom,  is “a comprehensive process in which the planning, implementation and monitoring of the consumer’s electricity use- and the modifying of this use- is considered against the levels of electricity available in the power grid which supplies the nation.”

The overarching goal of DSM is to keep the electricity supply flowing at a steady rate to avoid putting the system under undue pressure. By keeping the electricity flow constant, the system works at its optimal level and the costs associated with generating power are also contained.

The Weekender reported on Saturday that animal blood, and offcuts as well as sewage have been dumped into the Vaal River.

In Frankfort an abbatoir was pumping animal blood and offcuts into its evaporation dam.  This in turn was seeping into the Vaal River said municipality councillor Peter van der Westhuizen.

A member of the Blue Scorpions Nigel Adams said that they had first noticed the dumping of animal offcuts during an aerial survey.

Van der Westhuizen said court orders had been issued since 2004 without effect. The municipality had not repaired broken pipes and water purification works resulting in sewage oozing over land that leads into the Vaal River.

Sewage in particular was the cause of a build-up of blue-green algae containing deadly microcystims according to water scientist Professor Anthony Turton.

In certain areas the microcystims levels are the highest in the world due to sewage being pumped into the water supply.

Turton said in South Africa the level of microcystims in the five largest dams is in the region of 10 000 micrograms per litre. 

The incorporation of environmental education within the school curriculum receives a major boost this month with a R3.5 million commitment by Tetra Pak to fund the national coordination of the WESSA/WWF Eco- Schools Programme over the next three years.

Eco-Schools, a World Wide Fund for Nature and Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa initiative, is a programme for environmental management, certification and sustainable development education for schools. The holistic, participatory approach and combination of learning and action make it an ideal way for schools to embark on a meaningful path to improving the environments of schools and their local communities, and of influencing the lives of young people, school staff, families, local authorities and NGOs.

Hettie Gets, Conservation Education Programme Manager at WWF South Africa says “We are delighted that Tetra Pak has decided to increase their investment in this significant and popular programme by supporting the crucial function of the National Eco-Schools Office.”

Government launched a pilot project in Saldanha on Thursday which will see 150 youth, aged between 18 and 35, being employed in the environment sector.

Through the National Youth Service Pilot Project on Environment, the youth will be working on environmentally focused projects, including greening the environment, conservation of natural resources, coastal management, waste management and upgrading of public infrastructure.

They were officially welcomed into a year of full-time service by the Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Rejoice Mabudafhasi who launched the project.

According to the department, in addition to serving their communities, the youth will be further empowered through training accredited by the National Qualifications Framework in computer skills, entrepreneurship awareness, environmental technical training. They will also receive training to help them obtain a driver's licenses.

The youth involved in the project will receive a stipend to cover their transport and basic necessities, said the department.

In line with international trends, the government has proposed environmental tax incentives in an attempt to address the negative effects of climate change. The draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill 2009, which was released for comment earlier this week by the Treasury, contains two incentives in support of the environment. Businesses will be able to cut their tax bill by reducing their carbon emissions.

Firstly, an income tax incentive is proposed for any business that takes part in a clean development mechanism project. The incentive applies to the disposal of carbon emission reductions. The disposal of these carbon reductions will be exempt from income tax. The cleaning mechanism development initiative was set up under the Kyoto Protocol to allow industrialised countries to invest in projects to reduce carbon emissions. The reduction of carbon emissions is the elimination of harmful industrial by-products.

Emil Brincker, a tax director at commercial law firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, said yesterday there had been a limited uptake of cleaning development mechanism projects in SA. This was largely due to financial difficulties encountered by companies, he said. “The proposal to introduce tax incentives on the disposal of carbon emissions was in line with international norms,” Brincker said. “The government recognised that climate change was becoming a top priority.” In December, petrochemicals group Sasol applied to register a clean development mechanism project with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, for the right to produce and sell carbon credits.

Full Article: http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=72530

Pretoria — Climate change is expected to be the focus of this year's National Environment Month which is celebrated in June.

Spokesperson for the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, Albi Modise said South Africa was raising the bar with regards to efforts to mitigate climate change.

The March 2009 Climate Change Summit laid the foundation for a participatory process to shape the way South Africans respond to climate change, he said, adding that the theme "SA Act Now! Combat Climate Change", was appropriate.

"This is particularly significant as it comes at a time when South Africa is drafting the policy framework for climate change. The Long Term Mitigation Scenarios (LTMS) on Climate Change was approved by Cabinet in 2008."

Mr Modise added that action on climate change was seen as an investment for the future as no action would have worse consequences for the world.

Various activities are planned for the month, including conferences, awareness campaigns, information sessions, tree planting and workshops.

Chris Herold, chairman of the South African Institute of Civil Engineers said that farmers extracting water illegally for irrigation are stealing 180 million cubic metres of water a year.  This amount is equal to the entire yield of the Mohale Dam in Lesotho.

Herold said that without water theft being curtailed a drought would precipitate a serious crisis.

Local authorities may fail to reach the target to reduce water demand by 15 percent by 2013 which is the year the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs had warned that some provinces could face a water shortage.

Herold said that without meaningful water conservation and getting to the next phase of the department’s water project “we will become increasingly exposed to risk failure and when the drought comes it will be a big problem.”  The only recourse then would be water restrictions.

Users are required to register before drawing water from rivers and streams however culprits remove water illegally for commercial use and irrigation.

Herold says too little is being done about prosecuting water culprits as well as some initiatives being hampered by shortages in capacity.

Climate change and energy will be among the top issues on the agenda of a two-day Urban Environmental Management Programme (UEMP) Conference.

The annual UEMP conference, which takes place in Cape Town on Wednesday, aims to alleviate poverty through improved service delivery within the environmental management of urban areas.

Funded by Denmark, the UEMP is a partnership between eleven government partner institutions of South Africa. These also include all three spheres of government, national, provincial and municipalities.

The programme was initiated in 2006 and facilitates a five-year collaboration between the South African government partners and Denmark.

UEMP partners include the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs and Department of Health.

The three provinces which are also partners of the UEMP are Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape provinces.