Environmentalists — including South African National Parks (SANParks) who, as Fiona Macleod reported (”Damned from the start”, February 3), is opposing the construction of a dam on the Steelpoort river near Jane Furse in Limpopo — are increasingly out of touch with reality.
At the recent 4th World Water Forum in Mexico, it was common cause that the problem is not dams but bad dams that do not benefit communities in which they are built and damage environments.
That is why the Steelpoort case is so interesting. The complaint by SANParks and its allies is apparently less about the dam than the fact that other developments on the Olifants river are reducing the flow of the river through the Kruger National Park.
So why stop the construction of a dam on the Steelpoort, a tributary to the Olifants, which will enable water to be released to keep the river flowing in the dry season? As SANParks has acknowledged, the difficult process of reviewing all water allocations from the river to get existing users to cut back to meet environmental requirements has already started.
Participants in the preparation of the National Water Resource Strategy, SANParks included, were warned by the government that it was going to be a long-term ”generational” process.
It is, however, a practical programme to meet the challenges of the future. Already the strategy is working, for poor people in particular. A good indication is that Limpopo’s growth and development strategy acknowledges the limited water availability. From the premier down, they recognise that they need to balance conservation-based tourism against mining, agriculture and the needs of the poor, using the limited water they have to best effect.
Mining holds huge promise for economic activity and job creation in the province (to say nothing of global renewable-energy production). As important, there are half a million very poor, mainly unemployed people on the nearby Nebo plateau without access to a basic water supply because there is simply not enough water, not even to keep the hospital running.
The new dam will contribute greatly to meeting both sets of needs. That is presumably why the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism approved construction.
One is left with some uncomfortable questions. Where were SANParks and its allies before 1994 when irrigation expansion by white farmers was throttling the river? Or when the apartheid government agreed to construction of Mozambique’s Massingir Dam back in the 1960s?
If SANParks could get beyond its past (when it facilitated safe passage for hostile operations against its neighbour), it would understand that its interests coincide with Mozambique’s. Massingir is important for Mozambican farmers but it will only fill if enough water flows through the Kruger National Park. This is presumably why the Mozambican government also supports the Steelpoort dam.
SANParks cannot justify opposing the Limpopo government’s growth and development strategy. It cannot defend actions that could keep poor people without water, especially not after their mother department has reviewed and approved the project. Nor should it waste taxpayer’s money on lawyers to oppose the government — in possible contravention of the Constitution, which discourages the government from going to court against itself.
What SANParks and the environmental community should concentrate on is protecting jobs in the faltering Kruger National Park concessions. It could ensure that ”conversion” of rural areas from forestry (where there were real jobs) to conservation (where job promises grow like weeds) actually deliver benefits to local communities.
One is left with an uncomfortable flashback to the SANParks and conservationists of old whose concern was about ”our biodiversity”, with ”their poverty” being someone else’s problem.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, delegates heard that the impact of the crippling drought in East Africa is owing not just to poor rains. There is water available but it has not been stored for use in lean times — in part because ritual objections to dams scared financiers away. Building good infrastructure to address drought and climate change and to protect the needs of the poor is now recognised as a vital part of water management and one of Africa’s top priorities if its development goals are to be reached. SANParks and its allies should get into the 21st century.
Mike Muller is a visiting research fellow at the Wits University school of public and development management. He attended the 4th World Water Forum as a member of the Global Water Partnership’s technical advisory committee. He was director general of water affairs and forestry from 1997 to 2005