| 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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