Richard Davies
Guest Author
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/ 22 June 2006

New game park to straddle SA, Zim and Botswana

A pact for a new transfrontier game park straddling the borders between Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe was signed on Thursday. The environment ministers of the three countries endorsed the agreement in Botswana on the dry bed of the Shashe River. Once proclaimed, the Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area will cover 4 872 square kilometres.

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/ 13 June 2006

MPs told to lay off the bottle

Members of Parliament have been told to lay off the bottle and stick to tap water. ”There is no need to use bottled water in Parliament; you can use tap water … there is nothing wrong with it,” Water Research Commission CEO Dr Rivka Kfir told members of the National Assembly’s science and technology committee.

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/ 3 May 2006

Catches of SA fish ‘at an historical low’

Climate change and improvements in the technological efficiency of South Africa’s fishing fleets have led to catches hitting an historical low over the past year, says the Department of Environmental Affairs. Reduced catches had resulted in fewer jobs and unemployment was ”rife” in the industry, marine and coastal management deputy director general Dr Monde Mayekiso told a media briefing in Cape Town on Wednesday.

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/ 20 March 2006

Faecal pollution threat to SA’s aquifers

Faecal pollution from human settlements is a big threat to groundwater reserves in South Africa, says the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. Some schemes utilising groundwater had been shut down, and others were being closely monitored as a result of this pollution, said the department’s manager for information programmes, Eberhard Braune.

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/ 17 March 2006

Mozambique upset by ‘theft’ of water by SA

”Theft” of water by South African farmers upstream the Nkomati River has prompted a complaint from downstream Mozambique, after the river’s flow dropped to a trickle last year. The department of water affairs’ executive manager for institutional oversight, Silas Mbedzi, said the Mozambicans had been very upset when the river ”almost stopped” flowing across the international border.

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/ 25 February 2006

De Lille vows court action against Eskom

The power cuts that have cost Cape Town businesses millions of rands over the past two weeks are the result of Eskom’s incompetence, says Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille. ”We must not allow them to get away with this,” she said at an election rally in Mitchells Plain on Friday evening.

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/ 21 February 2006

Presidential pulling power in Macassar

Improved housing and shopping facilities were among the promises made when President Thabo Mbeki hit the campaign trial on the Cape Flats on Tuesday, ahead of the March 1 municipal election. First stop was the home of 82-year-old Macassar resident Lilly Jansen in Krymekaar Street — the oldest street in the low-income suburb.

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/ 15 October 2005

Minister names four new marine protected areas

Four new marine protected areas (MPAs) are to be proclaimed along the Cape coastline, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced on Friday. The new areas will bring South Africa’s total number of MPAs to 27, covering almost one-fifth of its coastal waters up to one nautical mile off-shore.