A biofuelled Aston Martin winning a major-league motorsport event in Britain? My Lord! Well, actually, there’s one of those involved as well, and he’s a politician to boot. Lord Paul Drayson is the United Kingdom’s Minister of Defence Procurement, responsible for spending billions of pounds each year on updating Britain’s armed forces.
It’s been a remarkable turn of the tables as Henry Jeffreys recently notched up one year as the first black editor of Die Burger. The paper historically was at the heart of Afrikaner nationalism. His position at the publication is a measure of the immensity of change in South Africa. So, how has it been working out?
How many of you have ever seen an eight-time world champion hustle a 500-horsepower motorcycle down the drag strip in anger? Now’s your chance, because Ricky Gadson’s here to break in Africa’s most powerful two-wheeler — the newly arrived Bear Ghost Rider Kawasaki ZX-12R Turbo.
When Gugu Mdlalose, a natural science teacher at Sizanani Primary School in Dube, Soweto, started a small food gardening project in her school in the late 1990s, she did not anticipate the effect this would have on her poverty-stricken community. Neither did she know it would bring her the 2004 Woolworths Trust Eduplant Programme award for the Gauteng province.
The panel of judges for 2007.
A vulture swooping down on a piece of meat cannot know that the juicy morsel might be its last meal. But, when farmers put poisoned meat around their farms to protect their herds from predators, it can result in the deaths of game and wild fowl in the area. Pesticides used to reduce vegetation and protect grazing land might harm wildlife also.
The beauty of nature can have a calming effect, allowing the observer to sit, reflect and soak up the wonders of the planet. This is why Lindela Mjenxane, founder of Beyond Expectations, says a trip up Table Mountain in Cape Town is just what the doctor ordered for township learners who have to come to grips with the social ills they face in their daily lives.
It is often easy to pack up and leave, without thinking about what happens afterwards. Pollution, water contamination and waste are unwelcome cousins many companies cannot get away from quickly enough. The community left behind has to deal with the fallout.
The Greening the Future Awards remind us of our responsibility to save tomorrow today — for generations to come. There is no doubt that the recipients of the awards remain a shining light in the communities many moons after the awards have been presented. It is important, though, to see the awards as a pointer, not an end in itself.
Delta Environmental Centre is at the forefront of shaping the environmental education and the attitudes of South Africa’s future generations to preserve our ecosystems and add practical weight to the catchphrase "sustainable development". Greening the Future judges awarded the environmental centre a merit award in the not-for-profit organisation category.