Tensions in the government are sharpening over controversial plans to mine one of the country’s most ecologically valuable areas.
Conflicting plans for developing Pondoland in the Eastern Cape will be challenged next week at the Johannesburg +2 Conference, called on the second anniversary of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
Chippy Olver, Director General of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), told the Mail & Guardian that the issue of development in Pondoland will be one of the key debates at the conference, which is expected to play a leading role in implementing a national sustainable development strategy for South Africa. ”Quite frankly, the controversy behind the Wild Coast debate is really a sustainable development debate,” he said. ”What is the set of trade-offs that have to be made around any big infrastructure developments like the Wild Coast toll road? And what is needed for the area? Is it ecotourism or mining, or both? Those are sustainable development debates. They go right to the heart of the need to address poverty in South Africa.”
In a frank discussion this week, Olver linked the proposed toll road to the ecotourism option. ”I don’t think the N2 should go ahead if we don’t choose ecotourism,” he told the M&G.
The toll road has become the topic of one of South Africa’s top environmental debates since the government announced four years ago it would build it through one of the country’s most pristine and biodiverse areas to boost economic development in the impoverished province.
Two years ago it was revealed that an Australian-led consortium, Mineral Resource Commodities, was prospecting in Pondoland. The consortium promised to create 700 jobs in a region that has seen little development until now.
Although both Olver and Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk have publicly condemned plans to strip-mine the red dunes in Pondoland, it is by no means assured that they will be able to convince the Eastern Cape authorities that ecotourism is a better development strategy than mining.
The toll road cannot go ahead without Van Schalkwyk’s backing. Opening the new R61 road in Pondoland at the beginning of the month, Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau urged him to approve it. Sigcau, who grew up in the Pondoland area, said the coastal area was ”perhaps the one area that presents great economic potential for the Eastern Cape.
”It would be a shame if development comes and goes without ensuring that communities benefited not only in terms of jobs, but also in terms of communal ownership of the economic benefits accruing to that which is under and above the land and the coast,” she said.
But Olver said it was not as straightforward as simply approving the construction of a road. ”We need to grow the economy of the Eastern Cape and we need to preserve the environment. How do we do that?” he said.
”How do we keep all the different balls in the air at the same time?” He doubted whether a non-development option would be approved. ”A development strategy has to come about,” he said. ”The question is, what will that strategy be?”
The Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) and Mineral Resource Commodities have promised much- needed jobs in their Pondoland development proposal. ”The DME obviously has a strategy,” said Olver. ”And if [the environmental affairs and tourism department] do nothing, mining will go ahead. And you won’t win by simply crying about the environment, because people in Pondoland are desperately poor.
”The people in Pondoland do not give a fig about the fact that the Pondo palm only grows on one bank on one side of the Msikaba river. If someone comes along with a strategy showing you a chance for employment — and for your children to have food in their stomachs and go to school, you are going to take it.”
But the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism also has plans to develop ecotourism as an alternative to mining. ”We think the best long-term solution to that coast is an ecotourism strategy,” Olver said. ”Our department has been pumping resources into the Wild Coast for many years.” Any ecotourism development must be large-scale, however. ”That means we need a number of large ecotourism ventures with a high degree of private investment that can maximise job creation.”
Olver doubts whether ecotourism and mining can comfortably coexist in Pondoland. ”Some people say they can. I don’t think so,” he said. ”I struggle to see how. If you are driving through this beautiful park on the N2, but the first 20km you only see strip mining, well it kills the idea upfront.”
Olver said the conference will probably not resolve the debate, but his department hopes that a clear process towards a national strategy for sustainable development will be established.