The irrigation water boozed by South Africa’s burgeoning golf-course estates would satisfy the basic water needs of at least 75% of South Africans, a few simple sums indicate. According to Tony Vaughan, publisher of The Property Magazine, each golf course consumes between 1,5-million and two million litres of water a day.

Recent floods in Gauteng demonstrated the importance of caring for wetlands and keeping them intact. Homes were washed away and a young mother was killed because of building and dumping in a wetland area in Diepsloot, north-west of Johannesburg, Gauteng. Development in the wetland and a landfill created for rubbish had diverted a river and disturbed the wetland in Diepsloot.

Dog breeders and foreigners moving to South Africa are barking mad at the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs after its officials destroyed or sent back their precious pets on the basis of a dodgy veterinary test. In the past four months, quarantine facilities have been crowded with dogs being brought into the country at great expense.

Boksburg’s ”Erin Brockovich” has effectively stopped the building of an allegedly illegal petrol station in a listed wetland after Sasol, the main investor in the development, pulled out of the project. But Nicole Barlow, a medical representative from the East Rand town, is still being hauled before the high court by the developers for ”harassment”.

Scientists warn that the intense storms, droughts and floods South Africa is currently experiencing will increase in years to come as a result of the greenhouse ”steroids” people are pumping into the atmosphere. They predict the western side of the country will become increasingly dry as the eastern side becomes wetter.

South African government negotiators played a central role in charting a future for reducing climate change at the giant United Nations conference in Montreal recently. Alf Wills, leader of the 50-strong South African delegation, presided over a central committee trying to ensure a way forward for the Kyoto Protocol and its attempts to limit harmful greenhouse gas emissions.