Straight-talking ecologist and educator Derick du Toit, who understands the emancipatory possibilities of learning theory, has been working in the environmental field for more than 35 years. He works in complex environments with multiple stakeholders who have competing interests, and has managed projects in education and natural resources management for a range of institutions. He specialises in scientific research, project development, developing and running training programmes, resource materials development and public participation facilitation. This involves working with local communities, government departments and institutions to try to understand natural resource systems such as water and the livelihoods of all stakeholders concerned. Derick’s work has taken him from Namibia, where he worked with the Desert Research Foundation, to Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa as both an ecologist and education specialist introducing education reform in the national curricula. He is a long-standing associate of the nonprofit Association for Water and Rural Development and has worked with the Water Research Commission on the six major rivers in the Lowveld, including the Olifants River and the Crocodile River catchments. Many sectors — from coal and electricity to agriculture and tourism — use water from the catchments, putting the water system, water quality and management at risk. Derick is also the learning specialist for Africa’s first investigative environmental journalism unit, Oxpeckers, for its #WildEye projects, which provide professional support and training for reporters. His work on the Tala Table Network & Youth Programme supports climate-smart agriculture with smallholder farmers. Derick has also written and contributed to numerous research papers and publications.
What’s been your/the organisation’s greatest achievement in your field?
In addition to developing tools that support environmental management practices, we are involved in the interpretation of complex environmental policies and legislation so that they have meaning for government officials, practitioners and laypeople across a broad spectrum of disciplines and contexts. Understanding what “an environmental approach means” is foundational to moving resource management forward
Please provide specific examples of how your organisation’s practices and work have a positive effect on the environment
From a biodiversity perspective, we see that few municipalities, despite being responsible for land use planning, have any clue as to where important biodiversity is located within their boundaries. We are in the process of innovating tools that will enable land users and spatial planners to locate critical biodiversity using their phones so that land use zoning can accommodate these important assets. It also means that biodiversity becomes part of land use evaluations and therefore given an important economic profile at a municipal level in the future.
What are some of the biggest environmental challenges faced by South Africans today?
Probably the biggest is the consequences of not integrating environmental issues into development in South Africa. Also the disregard for the Strategic Water Sources Areas in South Africa as our crucial sources of scarce freshwater reserves will cost us dearly in the future unless they are respected. Retaining skilled practitioners in government is another major challenge that will take years to recover if we lose mentorship and continuity.
Our theme this year is Celebrating Environment Heroes. What do you believe could be the repercussions for millions of people in South Africa and the continent if we do not tackle problems exacerbated by climate change, encompassing issues like drought, floods, fires, extreme heat, biodiversity loss, and pollution of air and water?
Well, eventually people will find solutions to local-level problems … we are resourceful like that. But up until then, there is likely to be increased elitism, resource capture and consequently competition for scarce resources with concomitant conflict.