Political Ecology: ID's Environmental Policies

Q&A with the ID* on a few front-line issues regarding their environmental resources policies (political ecology). The questionnaire -- sent to major political parties -- interrogated a number of issues ranging from agriculture and the extractive industries to carbon trading, energy and sustainable economics. Due to limited space, only a handful of responses have been pasted below.

ID's environmental priorities:

The ID firstly believes that the economy is a subset of the environment and not the other way round. It is this perspective that informs our approach to environmental issues, where we believe that our current production and consumption habits are depleting many of our life-sustaining ecosystems. The ID therefore believes that it is difficult to rank environmental problems in terms of priority as they are all linked and have a bearing on each other. Globally, climate change is certainly one of the most pressing and complex challenges that humanity is facing, and it will also exacerbate many of the other environmental challenges that we face as a world such as biodiversity loss, desertification, water quality and availability and loss of marine resources amongst many others. In terms of South Africa, climate change represents a huge challenge given both our contribution to it as well as the projected impacts that it will have on our country. In addition, our current energy generation, which is mainly coal-reliant, is also responsible for major local air pollution problems as well as impacting negatively on our water resources through its large usage as well as pollution of river systems. This in fact applies to most of the mining activities in South Africa, which the ID recognises as a major challenge. In addition the state of disrepair of many of our sewerage plants is affecting the quality of our water and leading to an increase in water-borne diseases.

ID's thoughts on SA in relation to our biocapacity and footprint:

It is interesting that South Africa in many ways seems to be a microcosm for the rest of the world. Our ecological footprint is roughly 2 hectares per person, which is just above the level of what is sustainable. It must be emphasised, however, that included in that average footprint is extreme inequality. Middle-class South Africans have an ecological footprint that is between 6 and 12 hectares per person, which is way above sustainability levels. Poor South Africans have an ecological footprint that is about 1.6 hectares per person, which might be sustainable in ecological terms but it falls way short of meeting the human development indicators. The challenge for South Africa, like the world as a whole, centres on reducing inequalities whereby affluent South Africans need to lead more sustainable lives and poor South Africans need to be lifted out of poverty in a way that does not increase our ecological footprint.

ID's stance on democratic ownership of resources:

The ID completely subscribes to the idea of democratic ownership of resources. This principle should not be simply extrapolated to a national level where national government then assumes that it can make choices around resources in the absence of local participation. Democratic ownership of resources has to also operate at the level of local communities.

ID's thoughts as to how democratisation of resources will affect the political ecology and economy in SA (given that exploitation of natural resources rarely benefits communities):

Our economy has in fact been built on a minerals-energy complex. In this process there has been a massive exploitation of workers, indigenous communities and the environment. The ID believes that it is now time to alter these patterns of exploitation and that communities should be empowered to make their own decisions around the usage of their natural resources. There are still too many examples in our country where the national department of minerals and energy grants mining companies the right to exploit a communities' land with very little benefit accruing to those communities. A recent example is the proposed titanium mine in Xolobeni, where the department ignored the concerns and desires of that community in awarding a prospecting licence to an Australian mining company. The fundamental principle which needs to be applied is that of allowing communities to determine their own development path and for them to receive fair compensation for any usage of their natural resources. Any activities which take place should also not undermine their own natural resource base from which they derive their livelihood.

ID on the issue of water as a finite resource; privatisation and public right of access; corporate use, cost and access; irrigation; protection from pollution; hydropolitics:

Water is a basic human right. Every South African must be able to access water for them to sustain themselves and to perform necessary functions such as bathing and sanitation. The court judgement in the case of Mazibuko vs the City of Johannesburg correctly found that the City had behaved unconstitutionally in forcing poor people to accept the installation of pre-paid water meters. The ID believes that the amount of free water allocated to poor households should be doubled and should be provided on a per person as opposed to a household basis. In addition this should be a daily rather than a monthly amount, because as in the case of Johannesburg households had utilized all of their water up by the middle of the month and were unable to access any more for the remainder of the month. This had severe health effects and significantly increased the suffering of poor households.

The ID further believes in the concept of cross-subsidisation where large users of water pay far more per litre than users who are more conservative with their water use.

The vast majority of water is being used by our commercial agriculture sector and measures must be enacted to ensure that less water-intensive forms of agriculture are employed. In particular the ID would promote organic agriculture in South Africa and concentrate on encouraging small-scale farming.

In terms of pollution of freshwater systems the ID is extremely concerned with the quality of South Africa's water. The major causes of such pollution are inadequate sewerage systems and run-off from mines. The ID would invest massively in improving and maintaining our sewerage plants in South Africa that have suffered from years of hopelessly inadequate investment. In addition, we would like at installing bio-gas digesters so that sewerage can in fact become a resource which can be used to generate electricity.

In terms of mining, the ID would come down hard on any mining companies that continue to pollute our water sources and we would change the current situation whereby environmental impact assessments are governed by the department of minerals and energy rather than the department of environmental affairs and tourism.

Where does ID stand on nuclear as, a viable source of energy; economic -- costs involved; social and environment -- health effects, impacts of waste and uranium tailings; PBMR -- costs, lack of transparency; politics of nuclear energy:

The ID is opposed to Eskom's current proposal to expand the use of nuclear energy in South Africa. We believe that nuclear energy is not an appropriate choice for South Africa for a number of reasons. Firstly it is too expensive and will end up increasing South Africa's foreign debt and its balance of payments deficit. The major beneficiaries will be foreign companies like Areva or Westinghouse and very few local jobs will be created as a result. In terms of the PBMR, the ID has been the only party that has consistently been objecting to the billions of rands that have continued to pour into this highly suspect project. The ID firmly believes that this money could have been more effectively utilized in building a concentrated solar power plant which would have already been up and running now as opposed to the PBMR which is constantly being delayed and subjected to redesigns.

ID on renewable energy:

The ID has a vision for South Africa whereby we can become a world leader in renewable energy and in particular solar technologies. Not only will this provide clean energy for our country, but will also create hundreds of thousands of jobs as most of the components can be produced in South Africa. In particular we believe that the use of concentrated solar power holds huge promise in terms of base-load electricity supply. In order to achieve the right conditions for renewable energy to take off, the ID would institute feed-in tariffs that would provide the industry with the necessary incentives and security to start investing in this growing global industry. We would also allow two-way metering which would allow households to install solar panels and earn a revenue from their electricity generation.

ID on supporting the development of renewable energy eg additional R&D funds, subsidisation:

Besides introducing feed-in tariffs, the ID would also look to create various technology hubs for different types of generation such as wind, solar, wave etc. We would then support these hubs by a massive up-scaling of R & D investment from government in partnership with various industry stakeholders. We would also consider offering production subsidies so as to ensure that the technologies are produced in South Africa and contribute to local job creation.

ID on whether government has taken advantage of recent improvements in renewable energy technology eg concerning solar panels…or integrating solar water heating (eg South Africa could save 50 billion rand and reduce electricity demand by half a power plant if 4 million homes were fitted with solar heaters)

Although the government and Eskom has a rhetorical commitment to the roll-out of solar water heaters it is clear that they do not have the political will nor ability to devise the right model for it. Although they set a target of installing 1 million solar water heaters within three years, they only installed 800 in the first year. Clearly there needs to be a rethink on how we roll-out SWH. The ID believes that SWH must be made mandatory for every new building constructed and that they must be integrated into all low-cost housing developments. The subsidy scheme also needs to be revised as it is not making it an attractive offer for many households. Households should be able to retrofit their existing geysers with solar water heaters and be allowed to pay for the initial capital outlay through a financing scheme.

ID on food sovereignty/security eg GMOs (patents, environmental risk, labelling … recent studies from the University of Michigan to the UNEP reveal that organic practices double yields, lead to greater water retention, healthier soils, and higher plant nutrient content, as well as accelerating development of infrastructure, increasing income, environmental and social health, self-reliance and skill)…

The ID is extremely concerned about the use of GMOs and the control that corporations like Monsanto are gaining over food production. What we are witnessing is companies attempting to control every aspect of food production, with farmers then being beholden to them for seeds and all of the necessary inputs. The ID believes that this is a very dangerous concentration of power in a sector that is vital for human life. The ID would in contrast rather encourage more democratic and less intensive forms of agriculture such as organic agriculture.

GMO is still an experimental form of agriculture and we are currently not aware of all the potentially devastating effects it could have on our biodiversity. As South Africa is the third most biodiverse country in the world we believe that it is very risky for us to be engaging in a massive roll-out of GMOs.

The ID certainly supports the position of labelling as we believe that consumers have the right to decide what they wish to expose their health to. It is for this reason that the ID did not support the recent GMO amendment Act as the ANC refused to allow for labelling to be included as a provision.

The ID is extremely concerned about the threat that GMOs pose to farmers in terms of removing their power over the inputs and placing them firmly in the hands of corporations.

The ID fully concurs with the UNEP study and we believe that South Africa needs to promote organic agriculture for all the reasons stated above. In fact we would support the building of an institute for organic agriculture in the Eastern Cape whereby unemployed rural youth could be trained in these skills and then be hired as extension workers to go and impart skills to rural households.

ID on factory farming/cruelty to animals/hormones/animal by-products

The ID believes in the rights of animals and feels very strongly that they should not be used to satisfy the cosmetic needs of humans. There should also be a very strong code of ethics which regulates the treatment of animals in the medical field. The ID is also concerned with the current practice of injecting hormones and antibiotics into animals and there should be stakeholder engagement to try and find ways of moving away from this practice.

ID on chemically intensive farming (economic cost, ecological and social impacts)

The ID is extremely concerned with the current agricultural model of monoculture and chemically intensive farming. Our agricultural sector, like agriculture in most of the industrialised world, is highly dependent on inputs like fertilisers, pesticides, etc and most of the soil has been denuded of all its nutrients.

This type of agriculture is very dependent on fossil fuels and petrochemicals to produce food. Essentially our soils have become nothing more than a sponge which can only produce crops if various inputs are placed within it. This also has the negative effect of dangerous chemicals then entering the water cycle as well as living organisms.

The ID believes that we need to encourage a form of agriculture that doesn't fight nature but rather works with it to maximise food production and biodiversity. In addition, we need restrictions on some of the chemicals that are currently used. In this regard I posed a question to the agricultural minister as to what chemicals are currently allowed in South Africa and much to my horror found that some of them are banned in other countries. Therefore we need far greater control of the chemicals used in South African agriculture. Ultimately though we should be supporting organic agriculture and gradually trying to turn our agricultural sector over to organic farming, which respects the biodiversity instead of turning our landscape into monoculture deserts.

ID on marine stocks (sustainability, corporate -- foreign and domestic -- access, conservation zones)

The ID is extremely concerned about both the sustainability of our marine resources as well as their unjust allocation through the present quota system. The ID believes that the policy governing the allocation system should have been drawn up with the direct participation of the fishing communities and that more effort should have been put into receiving the buy-in of these communities in order to prevent problems such as poaching. The ID also believes that the enforcement arm of MCM needs to drastically strengthened as many foreign fleets are able to move into our waters and fish out our marine resources.

**A poll conducted by Markinor surveying over 3500 registered voters revealed that the 'ANC enjoyed the stated support of 64,7% of respondents, the DA 10,8%, COPE 8,9%, the IFP 2,7%, and the ID 1,1%.