The South Africa Environment Outlook report highlights a general lack of understanding of the links between human and environmental health. If ­natural resources are allowed to regenerate to sustain ecosystems, people will benefit. While people need access to improved services and amenities, they become vulnerable when air and water quality decline, land is degraded and natural resources are over-exploited.

In a nutshell, the South Africa Environment Outlook report warns that the environment is deteriorating while poor people still face unemployment and poverty and the rich ensure that their impact on natural resources is higher than the global average. The assessment is not new.

The South Africa Environment Outlook report highlights a number of emerging environmental risks. These are environmental problems that are not yet fully understood and there are no comprehensive responses to the challenges they pose. Serious environmental challenges which the report identifies as requiring a political response over the next five to 10 years include climate change, ozone layer depletion, acid rain and genetically modified organisms.