Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
I cannot help feeling a small surge of gratitude every time a human rights issue breaks the surface, including the spotlight on the environmental crisis engulfing our country as the recent floods and other inclement weathers rip lives apart once more.
It feels slightly miraculous that the state of South Africa’s overflowing rivers and waterways and rising sea levels are increasingly becoming an election issue after so many years in which human rights activists advocating for progressive climate change policies have swum against the political flow.
The neglect by the government is evident, especially in the municipalities that crucially hold the constitutional responsibility for managing ecosystems, including freshwater, coastal, forest and grassland ecosystems that underpin economic activity and human well-being.
The terrifying force of nature unleashed made headlines. It filled broadcasts with appalling images and alarming evidence that climate change-induced natural disasters, such as widespread flooding, impact us in tangible and intangible ways. Tangible impacts include damage quantifiable in monetary terms, such as damage to infrastructure and loss of livelihoods and income due to economic activity disruptions.
Conversely, intangible impacts cannot be readily quantified in monetary terms and include loss of life, adverse effects on human mental and emotional well-being, and environmental impacts such as loss of recreational environments and sensitive ecosystems, and contamination of drinking water.
Municipalities are often the first in the line of response and have the authority regarding disaster management to determine the spatial and economic configuration of areas under their jurisdiction.
However, the dysfunctional state of many municipalities has led to neglect in providing and maintaining services critical to preventing and mitigating floods.
Over the years, they have not kept up with their legislative mandate for a continuous and multisectoral, multidisciplinary process of planning and implementation measures for preventing and reducing the risk of disasters, mitigating the severity and consequences of disasters, enhancing emergency preparedness, providing for rapid and effective response, and post-disaster recovery and rehabilitation.
But the aftermath determines the physical, economic, social and psychological cost. Alarmingly, public health experts warn of another “second disaster” as waterborne diseases and other illnesses spread by the disruption soar.
The displaced face rising levels of dengue fever and diarrhoea. Beyond that immediate threat lie the challenges of rebuilding damaged infrastructure and piecing together fractured communities.
“There is some debate about whether the disaster is the initial ‘big bang’ or the years that follow,” the recovery expert UK’s Prof Lucy East hope writes in her recent book When the Dust Settles.
“Life after disaster is perpetual, chronic, with a pain that ebbs and flows like tides”, with initial events followed by a “new, long, chronic loss”.
The debate has intensified across the country, as people furious about the absence of disaster mitigation measures and emergency response plans seem prepared to critically engage politicians in the run-up to the 2024 national and provincial elections.
Hopefully, politicians will finally smell blood in the water and do more.
However, it is not enough to leave everything in the hands of politicians.
Communities must take responsibility for mass education in environmental protection best practices to stop the spread of degrading.
People must resist the government-sponsored commercial exploitation of natural resources under the guise of job-creation.
The assaults on the environment extend from source to sea. They start with the extreme mismanagement of our uplands.
As they are burnt, drained and overgrazed, their capacity for retaining water is reduced. Instead of acting as giant sponges that gradually release the water they contain, the degradation of the uplands leads to violent fluctuation of water levels: one day, a river might be in flood and, soon afterwards, its flow might be dangerously low.
As rivers descend from the hills, they come under further assault. Commercial interests are massively vandalising the environment. They exploit the rivers to dig out gravel, uproot trees and reprofile the banks, destroying the spawning beds of fish, trashing kilometres of the river and polluting many hectares of land.
Commercial interests are determined to mine offshore for fossil fuels and ruin marine life. Without community vigilance, we face the threat of frequent floods and losing healthy rivers. A healthy river can meander and braid; is connected to wetlands throughout its course, into which it can safely flood; and whose changing topography – pools, rapids, riffle runs, islands, backwaters – creates an endless variety of habitats, each of which supports a different assemblage of life.
The featureless drain installations designed to replace rivers are inimical to most of the life they should sustain.
While I am glad to see this flood of public concern, I warn against the danger of reducing the flood issue to a narrow political blame game that diverts attention away from the government’s malfeasance.
The truth is that even if all municipalities competently implemented their local disaster management plans to prepare and respond to floods and droughts, climate change would negatively affect our lives. We need decisive policy actions to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
We must push politicians to grow a spine and offer bold commitments on climate change ahead of the 2024 elections and implement them throughout their office term.
Our country urgently needs massive programmes to accelerate the transition commitments at all levels of government.
The government has pledged only a tiny proportion of the estimated billions of rand needed for the just transition in a country in dire economic straits to mitigate climate change impact. It must better fund renewable energy, tackle carbon emissions, and support vulnerable communities to prepare for future disasters.
Prof Easthope also notes the importance of preserving communities, so survivors can support one another and maintain their sense of identity when so much else has been lost.
This government may have calculated that fish, otters and fish eagles do not vote. In the 2024 elections, we have a chance to vote on their behalf simultaneously as we vote for our right to an environment that is not harmful to human health or well-being. We must not let it float by.
Nyembezi is a policy analyst, researcher and human rights activist
Cape Times