Press Release - Friday, November 23, 2001
Community groups from Southern Africa join
forces in South Durban for the launch of the Bucket Brigade
campaign to collectively challenge industrial pollution.
Community organisations from Mozambique, Swaziland, Highveld
East (Secunda), Sasolburg and Cape Town gather in South Durban
this weekend to pool their resources and expertise in the
first cross-border programme to tackle industrial air pollution
in the Southern African region.
Hosted by groundWork and the South Durban Community
Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), the air quality project, or
Bucket Brigade campaign, is the first joint effort by southern
African environmental groups to monitor government policy
and industrial practices to empower communities to negotiate
with polluting industries for a safer, healthier environment.
The SDCEA, made up of diverse groupings, has a strong and
internationally recognised history in challenging industry
and holding them to account for their pollution in South Durban.
SDCEA’s organised vigilance and reputation has forced
the South African Minister of Environment, Valli Moosa, to
intervene in the area. Moosa has on several occasions, both
nationally and internationally, conceded that the South African
government was acting in South Durban because the community
groupings have organised themselves.
One of the tools used in organising has been the air pollution
monitoring bucket that was introduced into South Africa by
groundWork in May 2000. (visit: www.igc.org/saepej/bucket)
The Bucket Brigade, are community groups which will use
this unique system to develop with groundWork monitoring
programmes to assess industrial pollution in their neighbourhoods.
“This exchange is part of a three year programme that commences
this month to start ensuring that there is accountability
by industry for their pollution and failure to ensure our
basic human rights of clean air due to their need for profit”,
said Ardiel Soeker, the groundWork Air Quality Project
Coordinator.
The success of this pilot programme in May 2000, has encouraged
groundWork to develop an Air Quality Project for the
southern African region, whose communities may be spread far
apart but are united in their common struggles against big
polluting industries from Sasol in the Free State to Mozal
in Mozambique.
Sasol, in Sasolburg, tested the scientific integrity of
the Bucket Brigade when Sasol invited Leeds University (UK)
into Sasol, as part of a broader USA National Aeronautics
Space Association (NASA) programme, to measure pollutants
in Sasolburg. The result was that the Leeds University sampling
process, which took air samples by plane and ground transport,
identified similar pollutants to the Bucket Brigade and at
even higher levels.
“The evidence is there that we are breathing in pollution
from industry,” said Sasolburg Environmental Committee spokesperson,
Nicholas Kasa, who lives in Zamdela, a black township placed
next to the Sasol industry by the apartheid government. “I
urge our Minister Moosa to now act in Sasolburg as well, and
not only focus on South Durban.”
Nicholas’ community colleague, Patrick Duma, from
Highveld East (Secunda), another town dominated by Sasol industries
speaks on behalf of the eMbalehnle Environmental Youth Club.
He cautions Sasol of putting health before profit. “Sasol
makes a staggering profit of R29 million a day. Surely being
a South African company, they should lead by example to other
multi-national corporations and start supporting our democracy
by reducing their pollution and give meaning to our new Bill
of Rights which guarantees us clean air.”
Table View resident and Chairperson of the Table View Resident
Association, Andy Birkenshaw has fought for cleaner air legislation
at all levels of government and pleads with the multi-national
Caltex refinery to clean up, and also questions the profits
of companies. "What we can't understand," said Birkinshaw,
"is that this international company has for the past
thirty five years been shipping their profits off-shore to
their share-holders and yet they won't make the investment
that will help protect the health of our communities, their
neighbours.”
It is clear that profits do come before people’s health
in places like Mozambique, too. Mozal the aluminium smelter
in Mozambique has run into problems a year after it opened.
The cooling tower in the treatment plant, that is an anti-pollution
scrubbing device, became corroded and “gave way”.
But despite this the company continues to operate, spewing
out fluoride pollution on the neighbourhood. “Development
is good for Mozambique, but our health is important so that
we share the wealth of this development” says Livaningo representative
Bruno Nhancale. “We want to learn from our fellow South Africans
as to how they are managing to get their government to talk
to them and listen to them in South Durban.” Livaningo is
the first civil society organisation linking environmental
justice to human rights in Mozambique.
The coming together of these Southern African groups will
also help to curtail the export of dirty technology from South
Africa to neighbouring areas. One group which has already
tackled this issue, has been Yonge Nawe, an environmental
organisation in Swaziland that is concerned about the import
of dirty technology into Swaziland from South Africa. The
challenge of waste incineration is high on the agenda of Yonge
Nawe. “We do not want polluting industrial technology, such
as incinerators to be imported into Swaziland” states, Samuel
Payne, Programme Office in Yonge Nawe.
This weekend’s gathering, said Desmond D’Sa
of SDCEA, was a welcome opportunity for the people of South
Durban to work with similar communities in the region.
“The struggle for healthier, safer environments should not
be restricted within the borders of individual communities,
but should cut across divides to unite suffering peoples and
become a regional, and eventually, a global campaign,” he
said.
For More Information:
- Ardiel Soeker 082 940 8669 (Air Quality Project Coordinator)
- Nicholas Kasa 082 960 4120
- Patrick Duma 083 498 0721
- Samuel Payne 09268 603 1243 / 082 940 8669
- Bruno Nhancale 09258 82 432050 / 09258 01 310 311 (Livaningo)
- Bobby Peek 082 464 1 383
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