The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said on Friday that the Air Quality Bill will be resubmitted to Parliament this year and air quality officers will be appointed to crack down on offenders in pollution hot spots.
Addressing the Mail & Guardian‘s Greening the Future awards breakfast in Johannesburg on Friday, Van Schalkwyk trumpeted his department’s successes, saying it has cleared 200 000ha of alien vegetation, rehabilitated 400 wetlands, cleaned 700km of coastline and established 32 waste-management programmes.
He thanked the South African public, “the foot soldiers in our greening revolution”.
“No wave has ever been powered from above — it is in our neighbourhoods and communities that the push for a greener future is gaining momentum.”
He said he has prioritised streamlining and improving the effectiveness of the environmental impact management process. Van Schalkwyk said this will include revised legislation and regulations, the implementation of service fees for environmental impact assessments from 2005, and a 20% reduction in the time it takes to process an assessment by 2007.
The Mail & Guardian‘s Greening the Future: Investing in the Environment competition focuses on companies and small, medium and micro enterprises, as well as organisations in the not-for-profit sector, that are investing in innovative environmental management practices and/or projects that are making a tangible difference.
In the category for companies and organisations with innovative environmental strategies that improve business performance, Anglo American was one of the winners. The judges were very enthusiastic about the leadership role the company plays in terms of sustainable development management systems. Three of Anglo’s base-metal mines occur in the Succulent Karoo biome — which ranges from southern Namibia to the southern Karoo. One of these mines, Namakwa Sands, participates in an advisory committee that is rehabilitating the ecosystem and at the Black Mountain mine, there is a project under way with the community to establish a 60 000ha protected area.
The second winner in this category was tRichards Bay Minerals (RBM). The company is a leading producer of titanium slag, high-purity pig-iron, rutile and zircon. RBM is the trading name for two registered companies, Tisand and Richard’s Bay Iron and Titanium (RBIT). Tisand is responsible for dune mining and mineral separation projects and RBIT takes care of the smelting and benefication. RBM takes rehabilitation of the dunes seriously and has extended its rehabilitation programme over a period of 20 years.
In the category for the most improved environmental practice, the National Ports Authority won for its environmentally sensitive management of ports.
In the category for the most improved environmental practice or innovation in multi-stakeholder relations, the South Durban basin multipoint plan took first prize, for its novel system to manage the air quality in the area.
The Sasol Wax company won the chemical safety award and the South African Scout Association won in the not-for-profit organisations section for it’s environmental project in the North West province.
The judges of the competition were Saliem Fakir, the director of the South African office of the IUCN:The World Conservation Union; David Grant, the group environmental officer from SABMiller, Arend Hoogervorst, an industrial environmental adviser; Karin Ireton, the Anglo American group manager for sustainable development; Paul Kapelus, the founding director of the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship; Tzila Katzel, a project manager at the IUCN-The World Conservation Union; Mary Metcalfe, deputy speaker in the Gauteng legislature; and Khungeka Njobe; an executive director of water, environment and forestry technology at the CSIR Environmentek.