Environmental Justice Action in Southern Africa

GROUNDWORK's QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER
Vol 5 No. 1
MARCH 2003  

IN THIS ISSUE:

From the smoke stack
From the Editor
Air Quality Project – Sasol in Mozambique 
Corporate Accountability Project  - Whether in Davos or Durban, civil society is not wanted
Waste Projects – Dealing with Obsolete Pesticides in Africa
International News – The World Bank and USA pushing pollution in Africa
Community News  - Richards Bay
Cynics’ Corner
Focus On… Patrick Kulati
In brief
Publications

From the smoke stack
By groundWork Director, Bobby Peek

ACCESS DENIED!  Contrary to our constitutional rights, big industries and the South African government have taken steps to prevent civil society from having full access to information on pollution and other environmental matters that affect our daily lives.

This edition of “From the smokestack” is longer than usual because it deals with an urgent issue – ensuring that ordinary South Africans are able to defend their environments.  We can only defend our environments if we know what pollution, where, when, how and why, is affecting us.  There has recently been a concerted effort by industry and government to deny civil society access to information and to also “gag” civil society from publicising information that should be in the public domain.

Since the early nineties, when various prominent civil society people - many now in government - undertook the “Environmental Policy Mission” for the Alliance (ANC, SACP and Cosatu), it is has always been recognised that access to information was one of the corner stones of democracy, and indeed also a corner stone for ensuring a safe and healthy environment for the peoples of South Africa. 

Now a decade later, we find ourselves as civil society in a very defensive situation, where we have industry and government working hand in hand to ensure that environmental information is kept away from the very people that are living on the fence line of polluting industrial development.

Polluting industries recognises that, if civil society has access to information on potential and real pollution emitted by industries, then they could be held accountable.  Thus there has been an age-old gagging strategy that is presently being applied by industry against civil society in South Africa. 

Last year, during the legal challenge by community people against the South African steel giant Iscor, Iscor sought a gagging order against community members in the affected area.   In 2003 a subsidiary of Anglo American, Mondi, sought to restrain the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) from going to the media with information on worker injury and death at the plant.  However, more alarmingly, is the fact that the managing director of Mondi, John Barton, had the gall to admit that, due to his “personal acquaintances with certain key figures in the media,” he could intervene and “stall” the publication of negative information about his company in the independent media.  The link between the legal system and the undue influence by big business on the media puts civil society at serious risk of not fulfilling its role as watchdog for the environment and people’s health.

Taking this process one step further, the Ministry of Defence in late 2002 decided to unilaterally extend the area of the National Key Point Act around the Engen Refinery, resulting in encroachment upon people’s houses and the local mosque.  What this means is that community people attempting to take air samples on the fence line of the Engen Refinery could be arrested and charged.  Furthermore the Ministry of Defence, in a letter to a local industry, stated that environmental information must be regarded as “extremely sensitive”.  To whom I ask?  Has there been pressure from industry on government to take such extraordinary measures? The National Key Point Act, which is a relic of the apartheid era, was enacted in 1980.  Other industries are following suite and denying civil society access to environmental health risk assessment information.

In addition to gagging orders and refused access to information, we also have to deal with authorities who are in denial. For example, in October 2002, following two serious incidents at the Engen and Sapref refineries in Durban, the local eThekwini Health Department and Shell/BP made unsubstantiated statements that people’s health was not affected by either incident.  However, groundWork and the SDCEA took air samples during these incidents which contained toxic chemicals at levels that are dangerous to human health.  We submitted the sampling results and our concerns to the eThekwini Municipality who welcomed the information.

Finally, and of greatest concern, is government’s proposal to do away with Section 31 of the National Environmental Management Act.  S 31 supports community access to environmental information.  For now various civil society organisations have made a submission via the Legal Resources Centre in an attempt to stop government from scrapping section 31.  For how long can we stop them is the question.

The picture is grim.  We are faced with a government that has no credible environmental information and does not know how to collect environmental information, communities that are seeking environmental information, and when they actually it, we have a government and industry sector attempting to gag community people from using this information.

Where is our constitution?  The critical issue is that we can never hold corporates accountable for their detrimental impacts on environment and human health if we do not have credible environmental information.  And this is something that government is preventing civil society from attaining.  What happened to the promises on accountability made during WSSD?  Has our government already forgotten about those promises?

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From the Editor

Dear Friends

As usual, groundWork started the year with an explosion of activity.  groundWork has made contact with several new communities this year – the Richards Bay community on the KZN North Coast (see page 15) and rural communities in Mozambique who have been affected by Sasol’s new gas pipeline project between Mozambique and Secunda (see page 4).  We also have just co-produced and launched our first-ever groundWork video entitled “Dying to Breathe – The Struggle for Environmental Justice in South Africa”  (see our publications page 20).   Also on our publications page is an overview of a historic new report comparing operating and environmental standards of oil refineries in south Durban and Denmark.  This is the first time that such a study has been done to compare refineries in the South with those in the North (see page 20).

Enclosed in this newsletter you will also find a booklet entitled “The Household Toxic Tour”.  We invite you to read it and take a toxic tour of your own home!  Making our homes toxic free is one thing that we can all do to contribute towards a safer, healthier planet for present and future generations!

Regards, Linda  

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Air Quality Project 
WHAT IS SASOL UP TO IN MOZAMBIQUE?
Is NEPAD colonialism of Africa by Africans?
By Ardiel Soeker

South African petrochemical giant, SASOL, has the rights to exploit the Pande and Temane natural gas fields in Mozambique.  The natural gas is to be piped to Secunda in the Mpumalanga province. The construction of the pipeline is well underway, and groundWork’s Ardiel Soeker decided to travel to Mozambique to see how the project is affecting the ordinary rural Mozambican families living next to the gas fields or in rural villages along the pipeline route. 

I travelled to Mozambique in January this year to ascertain for myself the impact of the project on ordinary Mozambicans. Asume Osuoka, an environmental activist from Nigeria and coordinator of Oilwatch Africa and Mauricio Sulila from Livaningo, a Mozambican environmental NGO, accompanied me. 

We started our 900 km journey from Maputo to Vilankulos, the nearest town to the Pande and Temane gas fields, on 19^th Janaury 2003, on a bright, 30 degrees Celsius morning.  Our brief was simple: interview villagers living near the gas fields and along the pipeline route. Our questions centred on consultation, personal and community benefits and compensation, negative and positive impacts, job creation, education and training and safety or accident plans.

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Reminders of the civil war, which ravaged the country for years, are to be found everywhere. More recently, severe floods claimed the lives of many Mozambicans and destroyed crops and livestock. This disaster had a crippling effect on the economy.

Besides international NGO’s, which have projects in Mozambique, civil society organisations remain few, are under resourced and are mainly urban based. Livaningo is the only environmental justice NGO in Mozambique.  Rural Mozambicans have very little NGO support.  Most of the pipeline and gas field development affects rural Mozambique.

The Pande and Temane gas fields are about 150 km north of Vilankulos.  Signboards all along the road to Vilankulos reminded us of the gas pipeline project.  Vilankulos is a small tourist town. The increase in demand for accommodation by Sasol employees has been one positive spin-off of the project.  Sasol also rents office space in Vilankulos.  Sasol’s name is well known in the town and the project is viewed as a boost for the local economy.

We spoke with Mr Fernando Jugue whose hut is located approximately 100 metres from a gas wellhead. Mr. Jugue is a hunter and the sole breadwinner of his household. He claims that he was not consulted about the project or informed about the possible dangers associated with gas extraction. He recalled an explosion that occurred 20 years ago when Americans were working on the gas fields.  The field and bush around his hut is covered with red poles indicating where landmines lie buried.

We also spoke with a group of small traders living about 200 km from Sasol’s gas transfer and storage facility.  Mr Armando Wainda said that people are unhappy about unfulfilled promises made by Sasol.  “Sasol promised jobs” he said. “ None of us has been offered jobs.” Sasol also allegedly promised to build water pumps for the villagers.  This, he said, was all promised at a public meeting that took place before the project started. Since then there has been no contact, he claimed.

Other villagers related similar experiences. Negotiations for compensation took place with villages that had to be relocated.  Mr Wainda emphasised that the project was good for Mozambique, but that, at a personal level, his lifestyle had not improved.

We traced the pipeline route south and visited a village called Kandisa. The pipeline has dissected the village.  Here we spoke with a group of young people, women, the chief and elders. They said that Sasol called a meeting with the villagers to explain the project and offered to pay compensation. Youths complained about the lack of jobs since Sasol brought their own labourers along with them. The Chief also claimed that Sasol had promised to build a school and erect water pumps for the village. The pipeline has now passed through the village and they have not heard anything more from Sasol. The women felt the project was positive and that benefits would flow from the development.

In Sasolburg and Secunda in South Africa, where Sasol’s two biggest operations are located, communities have been demanding that they benefit directly from the gas being pumped to Sasol plants (it is currently intended for industry use only). They have been calling for the gas to be made available to local residents for indoor heating, cooking and other domestic use.

A key feature of colonialism was the cheap extraction of raw materials from poor countries.  These were then transported to rich Northern countries.  Are South African multi-national companies like Sasol perpetuating this poverty in the guise of NEPAD and the African Renaissance, exploiting our poorer African neighbours at their expense? Certainly villagers and residents from the gas fields in Mozambique to the towns of Sasolburg and Secunda are experiencing very little real benefits of having their land and lifestyles disrupted and natural resources removed.  

In our next newsletter we will carry Sasol's response to these allegations.

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Corporate Accountability Project
Davos or Durban – Civil society is not wanted!
By Bobby Peek

Being denied access to processes and information is not only something that occurs at a local level where community people face fence-line pollution, but also in the international arena.   Only four months after the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), world leaders and big business met at Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum (WEF).  Civil society was excluded from the gathering, save for a few meetings that were part of the WEF open forum.  The theme for the WEF for 2003 was “Building Trust”.  However, we came to realise that, for big business, building trust means corporate abuse and secret meetings.

Parallel to this gathering, more than 100 000 people met at Porte Allegre, Brazil, calling for a new world order.  Here the world social movements inclusively worked at strengthening the World Social Forum (WSF) in order that civil society can start impacting on the future development of the globe.  Working in unity with the WSF, the Bern Declaration organised another parallel gathering in Davos called the Public Eye on Davos (PED) in order to highlight the hypocrisy of the WEF.  groundWork joined other chapters of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) at the Public Eye in Davos in highlighting to the world this hypocrisy.

groundWork exposed Shell’s rhetoric of sustainable development during a panel discussion focussing on case studies of corporate crime.  groundWork exposed the fact that in south Durban, Shell continues to pollute and misrepresent information to the public about their pollution.  This panel also highlighted abuses of textile companies in Malaysia, the tragedy of industrial abuse in Bhopal India, by Union Carbide now owned by Dow Chemicals and the role Foreign Direct Investment has in undermining environment and social justice.  It was clear from these practical examples from around the world, that the present system of globalisation is not in the interests of civil society, but rather capital institutions. 

To add a cherry on top, it came to the knowledge of Friends of the Earth, that a “secret oil meeting” was being held at the WEF to discuss the “carving” up of Iraq.  When we enquired about the meeting the WEF did not deny that such a meeting was taking place.    A Deutsche Bank report “Baghdad Bazaar - Big Oil in Iraq” published in October 2002, which only came to light in the week prior to the WEF, indicated a potential conflict of interest amongst the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council over the commercial implications of war in Iraq. It indicates that a regime change in Iraq would benefit US and UK oil companies while a peaceful resolution would benefit oil companies based in Russia, France and China.  The Deutsche Bank report stated:

"On the one hand, Saddam might yield on weapons inspectors issues, and therefore retain power. Having conceded on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), the UN would then be under pressure to ease sanctions and, in that scenario, Iraq would no doubt award contracts to its current supporters: Russia, France and China. With Saddam still in power, the US and the UK would probably continue to employ delaying tactics on implementation of deals that enhanced Baghdad's revenue flows.

On the other hand, if Saddam's government is replaced - as seems to be the priority for the Bush administration - and sanctions eased, then the corporate line up in Iraq may well feature US and UK companies, particularly if there has been a US driven war in the country."  - p. 14, Baghdad Bazaar, Deutsche Bank, 21/10/03. 

Friends of the Earth International held a protest outside the WEF against the "secret oil meeting". Protestors displayed a meeting "agenda" which included two items; 1) "Meet Powell" and 2) “Iraq - who gets what?". They were gagged and carrying placards saying "Not invited: Human Rights, Environment, Trust, The Public and Oil War victims".

The relevance of the Davos proceedings for civil society is that governments and big business are going to work at keeping meaningful participation and information sharing out of the reach of civil society. Thus we are going to have to think of mechanisms of holding governments to account for their inaction to protect the world’s citizenry from the abuse of industry. 

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Waste Projects
Obsolete Stockpiles in South Africa – Disposal with a cure
By Llewellyn Leonard

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.                                               Helen Keller (1880-1968)

In January this year the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) held a workshop for the development of a National Implementation Plan (NIP) for the management of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and strategies to clean up and prevent future accumulation of unwanted stocks of pesticides under the Africa Stockpiles Program (ASP). The ASP was initiated by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) to clean up stockpiled pesticides and pesticide-contaminated waste (e.g. containers and equipment) in Africa in an environmentally sound manner; catalyse development of prevention measures; and provide capacity building and institutional strengthening on important chemicals-related issues.

South Africa was selected as one of the recipient countries to receive grants from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to develop strategies for the management of POPs.  The January workshop was called in order to present the project to stakeholders.  Feedback received from the participants would be fed into a funding proposal to be submitted to the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) for funding of phase one, which was the inventory phase.  Information was also needed for the developmental phase, preparatory phase, disposal phase, prevention phase, capacity building and grant agreement negotiations.

The week-long workshop was held at the Holiday Inn Garden Court, Pretoria. The workshop focused on the existence of stockpiles of obsolete pesticides in South Africa, the urgent need to cleanup these pesticides and associated waste and the need to prevent further accumulation. 

I was disappointed to see that not many stakeholders had been invited to the workshop, and that, of those who had been invited, few decided to attended.  This was a great downfall of the workshop, as the project can only succeed if it takes a multi-stakeholder approach.  Of the stakeholders present, only four were from civil society. Surprisingly, none of the agricultural unions representing farmers and/or farm workers were present since it is these individuals would best be able to contribute to the stockpile inventory needed for the development of a comprehensive system of disposal. 

The Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, gave the opening address.  I was glad to hear the minister state that the ASP process does not seek to apportion blame or punish those who declare their stocks, but that all multi-stakeholders should focus on prevention of future accumulation, which is as important as disposal of existing stockpiles.

I was disappointed to see in the agenda for the workshop, under the section “Disposal Phase”, that non-burn technologies were not included as an option. I was also amazed to see incinerator vendors present at the meeting and that they were given a slot to market their combustion treatment.  I shook my head in dismay and considered this unacceptable because from the very beginning, civil society groups had voiced their concerns about the burning of these wastes in incinerators, since incinerators contribute substantially to global pollution by producing deadly poisons such as dioxins and furans.  It was iniquitous that private companies were present at the meeting promoting combustion technologies before the inventory had been completed and before we know what types of waste we are dealing with.

It would be tragic if Africa was left standing with a new legacy of polluting incinerators set up to destroy an earlier legacy caused by pesticides dumped on Africa by aid and trade organizations. Also, since our South African government has ratified the UN Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, it is imperative that dirty technology be phased out.

At the workshop, NGO’s voiced their concerns about the “flaw” of the agenda with regard to the deliberate omission of non-combustion technologies. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) was unimpressed and viewed some NGO’s as disruptive. The FAO stated that workshop participants had been given a month to comment on the draft agenda.  However, no agenda was sent out to groundWork, and one cannot make comments on an agenda that one has not seen.  Whether this act was deliberate seemed questionable.  Whatever the reason, it must be agreed that incineration is not an option for disposal of these obsolete pesticides.  Because incinerators are by nature polluting, there has been a move away from incineration internationally. This is true for countries such as USA, India, Greece, Germany, France, Turkey, Japan, The Netherlands, Costa Rica, Mexico and the Phillipines. 

Personally, I found the meeting attended to be rushed and conducted simply as a window-dressing exercise needed to meet a submission deadline within a week from the meeting. If in future deliberations, this is indeed to be the case, then civil society organizations would have serious reservations about an apparent ‘steam-rolling’ process. I am sure that civil society would rather be actively involved in and support the process than feel that they are there to simply rubberstamp a process which they have no opportunity to influence or change.

However, despite some of the disagreements during the meeting, some positive positions seemed to emerge. What came through clear was that delegates saw the ASP process as an opportunity to develop a model for other countries in the region and an opportunity for South Africa suppliers to supply materials and services to other African countries. There was a clear drive from all delegates to, wherever possible, make use of South African expertise and capacity with a minimum amount of input from external suppliers / consultants. Finally, it was felt that these new clean-up projects should provide an opportunity for South Africans to demonstrate their commitment to fulfill their obligations as stated under the international conventions.  

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International/Africa News

My problem, but not in my back yard
Pushing polluting technologies to the South

by Llewellyn Leonard

I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted.                   Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining why toxic wastes should be exported to Third World countries 

For years polluting technologies such as incinerators, which have been rejected in the North, have been pushed to developing countries. Due to serious health effects and public pressure, since the mid 1990s, dirty technologies such as incinerators have increasingly been replaced with cleaner technologies in countries such as the USA.  Due to this rejection in their home country, USA incinerator vendors are pushing their deadly wares into developing countries such as Africa, where health and environmental regulations are lax.

The United States has been the powerhouse in the globalisation era.  In fact, in no other period in human history has one country had as much direct and indirect global influence as the United States does today, reaching even into the most remote areas on our own African continent. The U.S. government has even facilitated exports of incinerators under the guise of "technology transfers" and "environmental exchanges."  A number of new proposals for incinerators, which are being pushed and funded by the United States, are currently on the table in Africa.

US links with incinerators in SA

Last month I was invited to attend a meeting by Rainbow Millennium Power Company in Richards Bay. The meeting was called to introduce stakeholders to a proposal to develop a 210 Megawatt power plant in Richards Bay.  The power plant will feed off waste coal originating from Northern Natal.  The United States Trade and Development Agency (US TDA) has apparently provided a grant of $534,000 to Rainbow Millennium to conduct a feasibility study.  Another US body, Black and Veatch Corporation of Overland Park, Kansas, are also contributing funds.

At the meeting, I was not surprised to see Rainbow Millennium try to cover up the fact that the technology being proposed was an incinerator by hiding it behind the label “circulation fluidised bed technology”.  However, I was glad to see local civil society representatives state that the proposal was for an incinerator. This shows that civil society is beginning to understand the environmental and health effects that incinerators pose and that industry and domineering countries such as the US should not dictate to developing nations.

I was quite impressed to hear members of civil society questioning the applicants on the health effects of the proposed power plant. Mercury seemed to be one of the concerns.  This was important considering that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has recently stated that 70% of mercury emissions of human origin come from coal-fired power stations. Yet cleaner fuels and technology already exist.

Other United States links with proposed new incinerators in South Africa include that of Peacock Bay Environmental Services (PBES) in Sasolburg and their proposal to build a hazardous waste incinerator, Mondi Paper in south Durban for the construction of a fluidised bed incinerator and the proposed Kwikpower incinerator at Solid Waste Technologies, in Cape Town.

World Bank and incineration promotion

During the course of last year, I was shocked by the results of a survey conducted by Essential Action on the World Bank Group (WBG) and its promotion of incineration. What was striking was that, despite the known health hazards and extreme economic burdens of incineration, the WBG continues to promote this dirty technology. It was shocking to see at least 156 incineration projects in 68 countries since 1993 and 26 incineration projects since 2001.  groundWork has sent a letter to our regional WBG to highlight our concerns over the WBG promotion of incinerators in South Africa.  Projects in South Africa funded by the WBG for incineration include those of Lesidi Hospital Proprietary Limited, AEF Florarcadia Private Limited, AEF Dialysis Centre, HIS Technologies (PTY) Limited and Foxtrot Meat Processors CC.

The mere fact that the WBG promotes incineration undermines the objectives of the UN Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).  If the WBG wants to dispel its many critics who say that it only promotes the interests of multinational corporations, then it must institute operational policies that will prohibit projects that include waste incineration as well as prohibit projects that do not comply with UN Conventions.

Finally, as the anti-globalisation movement gathers steam worldwide, and continues to incorporate environmentalism into its general philosophy, it is hoped that through continued awareness and pressure from civil society that the corporate takeover of the world will be halted.

Developing countries cannot afford to sit back and accept the agendas of developed countries or else, our biggest environmental problems will come from our own actions and the choices we make.

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Community News
Richards Bay
By Ardiel Soeker

Richards Bay, located 200km north of Durban on KwaZulu-Natal coast, is fast becoming one of the leading industrial towns in South Africa.  Recently there have been a number of serious industrial accidents in the area and groundWork was requested by local stakeholders to meet with them to see if we could be of assistance to affected communities and workers.

Richards Bay started out as a tourist town. Its location with respect to both local and international industrial regions, availability of raw materials and harbour soon contributed to the development of big industry in the area.   Richards Bay is now essentially an industrial area within a rural setting. A number of villages are located within a 30km radius of the town.

Large timber plantations nearby led to the establishment of the paper mill industry spearheaded by Mondi. The Richards Bay Coal Terminal is a coal exporting company. India Ocean Fertilizers manufactures and exports fertilizers and a growing heavy equipment industry sector has ensured the rapid growth of the region. However, the leading industry in Richards Bay is the aluminium smelting industry, which is one of the leading producers of aluminium in the world.  Recently, Alec Erwin, Minister of Trade and Industry, attended a roof wetting ceremony of the expansion of the Hillside Aluminium smelter. This expansion has made this smelter the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

Llewellyn Leonard, groundWork’s Waste Projects Coordinator, accompanied me on my first visit to Richards Bay. Llewellyn initiated a “green hospital” pilot project at the Ngwelezane Hospital, near Richards Bay, in late 2001.  This pilot project has brought about significant environmental, health and safety improvements and cost savings at the hospital. This visit was one of his regular visits to Richards Bay to monitor improvements at the hospital and to update staff.

Growth and expansion is the name of the game for industry in Richards Bay. I met Jim Phelps, Mark Jury and Digby Cyrus all of the Zululand Environmental Alliance.  One of their key roles is responding to local EIA processes. Proposals for new developments and expansion of existing plants are being made at an alarming rate. One got the impression that the alliance needs to be in response mode all the time.

Similarly, Sandy Camminga, Chairperson of the Richards Bay Residents Association, has a run-around trying to cover all fronts all the time to ensure a community presence and response to industrial proposals. An initiative between government, communities and industries is the Richards Bay Clean Air Association. This section 21 company monitors air quality in Richards Bay.  However, it has no authority to force industries to make environmental improvements.  A similar process set up in Durban in the 1990’s was severely criticised by civil society.

Speaking to shop steward Edmund Skhosana from the Azanian Workers Union about the rapid growth of industry in Richards Bay he shared some of his concerns. “New plants are okay, but three years down the line workers start complaining and suffering from health impacts.”

Many of the health impacts on workers do not manifest immediately. This is even truer of the ordinary community person. Speaking to a Community Health Worker, Victor Mncube, he explained that residents bear the burden of many injustices. Poor nutrition, insufficient health services, inadequate housing, poor waste management, pollution and other environmental threats further burden the body’s ability to fight diseases.

It is difficult for communities to effectively monitor industry and development processes.  There are just too few volunteers to cover all bases. Collaboration between community groups and NGO’s is vital to ensure protection of our environmental rights. groundWork has pledged it’s support and assistance to like minded individuals and organisations in Richards Bay. We hope that this will strengthen the resolve to continue the fight for a clean and healthy environment.

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Cynics’ Corner
Big Business Solves World’s Problems – Activists Can All Retire[1]

The world’s problems are well on their way to being solved, thanks to business and industry. We learned this at The Legotla – the swanky Gathering of Business Leaders held during WSSD, and it was re-affirmed during a visit to the hyper-elitist World Economic Forum in Davos in January. In fact, as one business leader after another assured us, the world’s largest companies – the ones largely responsible for most environmental crises – are also the leaders in protecting the planet. Their commitment to respecting human rights is profound. Their role in alleviating poverty in developing countries is unsurpassed. And, in sharp contrast to spoiled northern imperialist obstructionist protectionist environmental groups, big business are the world’s experts in sustainable development.

During about our seventh trip to the punch bowl during these moving speeches, we realized how happy this situation is for all of us, since these highly ethical companies are also, collectively, the most powerful institutions on earth. What luck!

In fact, say the business leaders, the rest of us can just go home, put our feet up and watch the tube. No need to scrutinize, monitor, legislate or protest. It’s all being taken care of, thanks to voluntary self-regulation.

How was this remarkable achievement accomplished?

Very simple: By redefining a few key words and phrases.

Co-opting and distorting the language of sustainable development and human rights is a veritable industry in itself. And a sustainable one, as it alleviates poverty (of PR firms and their clients). Best of all, it is 100% non-polluting. (Unless you include pollution of the mind.)

As a public service, groundWork is proud to publish the following Corporate Spokesman’s Glossary – a guide to the remarkable process of linguistic detoxification that has allowed business to solve the world’s environment and development crises without changing their behaviour.

Corporate Spokesman’s Glossary – A Guide to Corporate Social Responsibility

Sustainable – Something that goes on and on.

Development – Profit.

Sustainable Development 1) Profits that go on and on; 2) Industrial activity that is not quite as polluting as it used to be.

Business Case for Sustainable Development – 1) Instances in which doing the right thing saves money; 2) Ignoring the cases where it just doesn’t work that way.

Stakeholder – Workers and neighbours that whine when industry poisons them. (NOTE: Sounds similar to shareholders, which enables us to pretend we are accountable to them, when in fact we are accountable only to our largest stockholders.)

Dialogue – Friendly discussions with any groups that will make deals with us, even when the rest of the community is out demonstrating.

Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue -- Days and days of discussions and meetings, while business as usual continues.

Case Studies – Carefully selected anecdotes that do not represent overall practices.

Best Practices – Technologies that are not quite as bad as the rest of the firm’s technologies.

Best Practice Case Studies – Carefully selected anecdotes of unrepresentative practices that are not independently evaluated.

Engagement – Working closely with dictatorships to ensure military security for business operations.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights – A beautiful document to post on the corporate webpage.

Poverty Alleviation – Any commercial activity, especially if government subsidized. (NOTE: Excellent phrase for distracting from environmental degradation.)

Governance – Code word for passing the buck and blaming governments, especially southern governments.

Continuous Improvement – We never did anything wrong and we’ll never do it again.

Partnership – A relationship to hide behind when criticized.

Trust us– Please don’t bother scrutinizing our behaviour.

Corporate Social Responsibility - Corporate Self-Regulation.

Accountability – No definition available.

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Focus On…
                 Patrick Kulati

By Linda Ambler

Patrick Kulati is a man of conscience - one of those few, truly good people we have the privilege to meet in this often violent and corrupt world. He has a most suitable name. “Patrick” means “righteous”, and this is perhaps his most defining characteristic. Next comes, husband, proud father, environmentalist, and groundWork trustee.

Patrick grew up in the Eastern Cape and much of his family still live there. He schooled in Port Alfred and Port Elizabeth and then went on to Vista University where he graduated with a BA. His first job was for the P.E. based NGO, the Community Environmental Network (CEN). He then moved to KwaZulu-Natal to take up a position at the Bridge Foundation - a developmental NGO working mainly around water and sanitation. From their he moved to the Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF) where he was employed as EJNF's Provincial Coordinator for KwaZulu-Natal. This is where I first met Patrick in 1998.

One of my first memories of Patrick is of him standing up to address a multi-stakeholder gathering in Pretoria attended by a mix of very influential businessmen, highly educated scientists, politicians and community organisations. Although young in years and experience, he spoke with such confidence, authority and conviction that you could have heard a pin drop.

Patrick subsequently moved to the University of Cape Town to work on a 2-year USAID-funded project training government officials and politicians on the implementation of Local Agenda 21. The City of Cape Town then invited Patrick to assist the City in its preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Sandton last year."

This month he moved back into the NGO environment as he has started working for the Surplus People’s Project, an NGO working for land reform in the Western and Northern Cape. The SPP seeks to assist and empower landless, dispossessed and homeless communities to take forward their struggles for land rights, housing and democratic forms of local and regional government. They provide support to marginalised rural people seeking access to land, land management skills, and natural resources. The SPP also is gender aware, and seeks to facilitate women’s participation in land reform processes in order to secure equal control of, and benefits from land and development resources. One of their success stories is the emergence of women in the ecotourism industry in Namaqualand. (For more on the Surplus People’s Project see www.spp.org.

Patrick is perhaps our most outspoken trustee. He asks questions, and will not rest until he is satisfied with the answer. We know that he will keep us on the straight and narrow!

Patrick is married to Nomonde and their first child, Likhwezi, was born on the 11th of this month.

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In brief 

The Climate IS changing!

The World Meterological Organisation announced that 2002 was the second hottest year on record. The warmest year since 1860 for land and sea temperatures was 1998.  The ten warmest years have occurred since 1988, and the nine warmest years since 1990.  Below-average rainfall was also recorded on all continents and in most regions. e (www.wmo.ch )

French study links incinerators to birth deformities

A French based organisation, the National Center for Independent Information on Waste (CNIID) revealed the existence of an official epidemiological study showing that waste incinerators provoke the birth of deformed babies. It takes into account 70 incinerators. CNIID said in a press statement, "Starting from today, Roselyne Bachelot, [French] environment minister, takes judicial responsibility for every incinerator that is built in France. Waste incineration will be the asbestos of the 21st century, and she has the choice: either to declare a moratorium on the building of new incinerators, effective immediately, or face in a few years' time a judgement for poisoning". (www.cniid.org)

Mexico moves to protect the environment

Mexico City recently approved a new law that includes an article banning the emission of dioxins and furans into the atmosphere in the Mexico city territory. Dioxins and Furans are created and emitted by several industrial processes, the most common being waste incinerators. These two classes of chemicals have been linked to cancers, birth defects, hormonal disruptions and skin diseases. (Greenpeace Mexico)

Norwegian City sues polluters for 7 million Euro

The City of Oslo has directed a claim of 7 million Euro to three multinational chemical companies responsible for contaminating the Oslo coastline with Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) in the Oslo fjord.

About half of the PCBs in Oslo harbour have been traced back to German chemical giant Bayer AG. The rest originates from Solutia (a chemical division of multinational Monsanto) and the Japanese Kaneka Corporation.

Wide parts of the Norwegian coast are heavily contaminated with PCBs. In several areas the use of seafood is restricted or forbidden. The massive clean-up operations necessary are estimated to cost a total of 3.5 billion Euro. The main sources of PCBs to Oslo harbour have been ship painting and sandblasting at the shipyards.(FoE Norway)

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Publications/Videos

Dying to Breathe – The Struggle for Environmental Justice in South Africa  
Video, 40 minutes, produced by groundWork and Hands on Production, with funding from the Foundation for Human Rights, South Africa, March 2003

Dying to Breathe was launched this month at a historic gathering in south Durban. This video is a documentary that exposes the untenable environmental conditions which communities in south Durban and Sasolburg are forced to endure.  It also presents arguments from the civil society sector, government and industry.   The focus is on environmental racism, corporate accountability and policy decisions made within the context of globalisation.

This video discusses the impact of policy decisions on the poorest of the poor from a human rights perspective, and the differing roles of the state, civil society and industries in sorting out environmental problems.

It provides a voice & international exposure to community residents who daily struggle with untenable environments caused by industrial pollution. The video also lobbies for corporate accountability & stringent pollution policy. It is both an advocacy tool to lobby government and industry to clean-up, as well as to train and educate community groups human rights issues/environmental justice.

Copies of this video can be obtained from the groundWork office.

A 2002 Snapshot – Comparison of Refineries in Denmark & South Durban in an environmental & Societal context, by Danmarks Naturfredningsforening (DN) and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), with funding from DANIDA, February 2003, A4, 85 pages

This very well-researched book compares the societal context and operating conditions of oil refineries in south Durban and Denmark.  The Statoil and Shell refineries in Denmark and the Engen and Sapref refineries in Durban are compared with respect to environmental standards, norms and practices.  Pollution emission levels and other environmental impacts from each refinery are compared, and then the differing internal operations of each refinery are examined to see how these result in different levels of impact. The broader socio-political context of both countries is then examined to understand how different governmental regulations, stakeholder relations and community action may shape environmental practices at the refineries. Encouraging conclusions are drawn, specifically about the current improvement plans at the two Durban refineries which should bring them into line with emissions from the Danish refineries.  On the downside, is the SA government’s unwillingness to develop the expertise, laws and capacity to regulate polluting industries.  Practical recommendations are made for South Africa to bring itself in line with Danish environmental and ethical standards for industries.

This book is just one of the outcomes of a 3-year partnership between the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) and the Copenhagen-based, Danish environmental organisation, Danmarks Naturfredningsforening (DN). For more information see www.dn.dk or http://scnc.udw.ac.za/~ub/cbos/sdcea .

Copies of this book can be obtained from Avena Bhika on Tel 031-4611991 or abhika@mweb.co.za