Contents
of October 2001
EDITORIAL
People are part of the environment
UPFRONT
News
LETTERS
BOOK
REVIEWS
TREE OF THE ISSUE
Megan Anderson chooses
the Coastal Silver Oak
WORDS ON WASTE
FEATURES
Adaptive reuse
Controlling alien weeds
New Century, New Focus
In support of a Water Wise society
-----
EDITORIAL
People
are part of the environment
People are
not extraneous to the environment, they are part of the environment and it is the
attitudes and actions of people that will lead the way to sustainable utilisation. Public
participation is a key factor in Environmental Impact Assessment – it is after all
largely people’s activities that impact either positively or negatively on the
environment and that create the need for Impact Assessment. Our front covers have not
always created a true reflection of the content of the journal, because they seldom
feature people. This issue’s striking front cover picture represents man’s
inextricable involvement with the environment – the natural resource base. The only
thing that will make the difference in the long run will be man’s awareness of the
value of water – and Rand Water’s Water Wise initiative recognises this. It is
primarily an information and educational campaign aimed at facilitating a sustainable
shift in the attitudes of all stakeholders in order to encourage and support a Water Wise
society. It encompasses innovative actions such as training school pupils to fix leaks. It
reveals subtleties such as the efficient use of water in the home not only saves money on
water but also on electricity and sewage bills. The founding philosophy of Rand Water’s
Water Wise Forums, which enable collaboration between water users and water suppliers, is
izandla ziyagezana – a Zulu concept which translates as ‘one hand washes the
other’.
As in most
of our issues, people feature in almost every article. There is the job creation aspect of
the various recycling initiatives in the Words on Waste article. Hlangane Recycling have
created employment for 12 individuals since commencing operations just short of a year
ago, while Albar, a newly formed plastics recycling venture, has created work for 73
people within 18 months and Mondi Recycling has created over 1 000 jobs with its
PaperBarrows. In the Magaliesberg it is members of the Mountain Club that are attempting
to free the Magaliesberg kloofs of a highly invasive weed, which originally escaped from
somebody’s garden. Dean Ferreira points out (in the Parks and Recreation Congress
Review) that people cannot be left out of the conservation equation, particularly in a
reserve like Rondevlei which is bounded by suburbia, and that the duties of the
conservator are not about protecting the fauna and flora from people but about teaching
people how to live with the fauna and flora.
Urban Green
File would like to congratulate architect Peter Rich for the fine work which he has done
with communities and which has been acknowledged in his winning of the award for the best
Public/Recreational and Cultural Building from the region Africa and the Middle East in
the World Architecture Awards. The award was given for the design of the Bopetikelo
cultural and community centre in the village of Moletedi in the North West Province of
South Africa (featured in the March/April issue of Urban Green File).
-----
UPFRONT
Attracting Urban
Wildlife Indigenous Plants for Durban
Durban Metro
has produced a useful poster for the eastern sub-tropical region of South Africa,
recommending the planting of indigenous species and providing plant choice suggestions
with reasons for the choice. The Durban Metropolitan Open Space System (D’MOSS) of
core areas and interlinking corridors aims to protect, develop and sustain the use of our
natural resource base. Indigenous plants on average provide more food, resting and nesting
sites for birds, mammals and other animals than do exotic plants. Through landscaping with
indigenous plants and creating wildlife-friendly habitats, private landowners, including
home owners, and other land managers can help to enhance the viability of D’MOSS.
Seven vegetation types and around 2 500 indigenous plant species occur naturally in
Durban.
The plants
on the poster have been selected using the following criteria:
•
they occur naturally
in the Durban area;
•
they are specially
attractive to birds, bats, insects and other fauna;
•
in combination with
other plants, they provide suitable habitats for urban wildlife;
•
they are attractive
garden subjects; and
•
they are available
from nurseries.
The Natal
Dune Vygie (Carpobrotus dimidiatus) is recommended as a sand stabiliser in dune areas; the
Ribbon Bush (Hypoestes aristata) is an attractive winter flowering nectar plant; Guinea
Grass (Panicum maximum) is a pioneer grass for disturbed areas which is attractive to seed
eaters; the White Arum Lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) is recommended for moist areas and
the hawk moth larvae feed on its leaves, while Arum frogs lie in wait for insects in the
flower spathes; the Bush Tick-berry (Chrysanthemoides monilifera) is fast growing and is a
hardy screening plant which tolerates salt spray; the Natal Laburnum (Calpurnia aurea) is
fast growing, tolerates dry conditions and attracts carpenter bees; while Iboza
(Tetradenia riparia)is a favoured breeding site for prinias - and there are many more.
The
production of the poster was a joint effort between the Botanical Society of SA, the
Durban Unicity Environmental Management branch, the Durban Parks Department, and WESSA.
Community wetland
management
Poor rural
people are dependent on the life-support functions of wetlands including clean water,
food, fibre and a buffer against drought. Despite this, South Africa’s wetlands in
communal rural (and urban) areas have received very little attention from conservation
organisations.
Mondi
Wetlands Project (MWP) has launched a community wetlands programme which will help manage
and rehabilitate South Africa’s ‘forgotten’ wetlands. “At least 20% of
KwaZulu-Natal’s wetlands occur on communal lands so it’s imperative that these
are conserved,” says MWP manager, David Lindley. “In fact, it was the work of
one of our colleagues, Dr Donovan Kotze, which initiated the launch of our community
programme. Donovan showed us how the people of Mbongolwane could get optimum benefits from
the sustainable use of their wetland.
“Community
wetland management is a new direction for MWP,” Lindley points out. “For ten
years we worked mainly with agricultural or conservation extension officers concentrating
on private landholdings including forestry plantations and sugar farms. It’s a lot
easier to work with single landowners who have the money to implement conservation
strategies, but we came to realise that so many wetlands lie in communal areas and that
people badly need the resources they can provide.
“Communities
would get far more out of their wetlands if they managed them more sustainably,”
Lindley asserts. “They are often degraded through overgrazing, yearly burning,
over-harvesting of plant materials or over-intensive subsistence agriculture (cultivating
more than a third of the wetland). Sadly, this is often simply due to lack of knowledge
and organisational capacity, which can be tackled through awareness and capacity-building
programmes.”
MWP has
appointed a dedicated community wetlands co-ordinator - Vhangani Silima, a BSc Honours
graduate from the University of Venda. Silima specialised in wetlands in his Honours year
when he studied under Prof Ben van der Waal and he then went on to obtain a one-year
education diploma.
“I am
excited by this opportunity to join MWP especially since the community programme will
harness people’s indigenous knowledge in managing wetlands,” says Silima who has
observed how traditional beliefs have protected Lake Fundudzi, South Africa’s only
true inland lake which is situated in the Venda area near Thohoyandou in the Northern
Province.
“If you
initiate any project in a communal area without involving the people adequately the
project will fail,” says Silima who is
currently receiving specialised training in community work through an organisation called
the Farmer Support Group which is linked to the University of Natal.
“We are
all on a steep learning curve,” Lindley comments. “With community work you have
to deal with complex social and political structures. You also need to understand the
economics of the situation and find out what the community values. Sometimes people see a
wetland as a fertile place for planting maize. Sometimes they see it as a liability that
harbours mosquitoes. You have to show people the many benefits of a wetland they may not
be aware of.”
Community-based
management of Mbongolwane wetland
Mbongolwane
wetland, situated 40 km west of Eshowe, at the headwaters of the Amatikulu catchment,
meanders for 12 km through the Ntuli Tribal Ward. The wetland provides a wealth of
life-sustaining resources to the Ntuli community, including water, plant material for
weaving crafts and thatching houses, grazing for cattle, medicinal plants and land for
cultivating crops. Added to these are the cultural value of the wetland and its
hydrological importance to the Amatikulu catchment.
All
households in the Ntuli Tribal Ward have access to resources in the wetland and the Tribal
Authority, consisting of the chief and his indunas, is responsible for allocating land and
controlling the use of natural resources in the wetland. Ikhwane (a sedge) is harvested
from December to June, providing an important source of fibre for making sleeping mats.
Reeds (Phragmites) are used for thatching houses. Traditionally, harvesting of reeds takes
place mainly after the end of April when the plants die back naturally, resulting in
minimal impact.
Harvesting
of natural plants, which is carried out sustainably and does not harm the wetland’s
functioning, promotes conservation of the ‘resource cow’. Thus, an initiative is
under way to increase income from wetland crafts. A local craft group will assist with
marketing and product development.
About 10% of
the wetland is currently used for cultivating madumbes, a traditional Zulu crop which can
tolerate seasonally waterlogged conditions. Non-mechanised traditional cultivation with no
artificial fertilisers, used in Mbongolwane wetland, is less harmful to the wetland than
commercial, mechanised cultivation.
A pilot
project addressing the overall management of the wetland was conducted from 1995 to 1998
as part of a national wetland management project funded by DEAT and implemented by the
Institute of Natural Resources and the University of Natal. The overall management goal is
that the people of Mbongolwane should obtain optimum benefits while securing biodiversity
within the catchment.
Some helpful
actions have been taken this far, including wetland awareness events and the drawing up of
mutually agreed upon management guidelines. Nevertheless, several problems have been
encountered, including weak local organisational structures through which to operate. This
will be helped by the launch of the ‘LandCare, South Africa’ project facilitated
by the Farmer Support Group which should foster the development of local organisations
(for example KwaNtuli Farmer’s Association and environmental clubs) to enhance
community resource management and provide access to services.
Mondi takes over
from Rennies
On 1 April
2001 the Rennies Wetlands Project changed its name to the Mondi Wetlands Project, with an
injection of R5,5 million for the next five year phase of the project from the new
sponsor. Mondi has worked with David Lindley for a number of years on wetland
rehabilitation and developing wetland standards for the planting of trees.
“We
have great respect for his work and are delighted to strengthen our ties with the project,”
says general manager of Mondi Forests Colin Harvett. “We recognise the importance of
wetlands to SA in terms of flood attenuation, water purification and biodiversity. Mondi
is a major landowner and thus has a large environmental responsibility. Of our 600 000 ha,
one third or 200 000 ha is unplanted or a conservation area. Wetland forms the backbone of
our corridor system which provides refuge for plants and wildlife, including many rare and
endangered species. A wetlands mapping initiative is underway and thus far 30 000 ha have
been entered onto our environmental conservation data base.”
Forward
planning for the next five years includes an increase in the number of staff on the Mondi
Wetlands Project who will cover wetland management, training, rehabilitation, community
wetland conservation and lobbying.
Certification of
Environmental Assessment Practitioners
In response
to a strong demand, Environmental Impact Assessment practitioners are now able to apply
for Certification, which is the formal way in which the education, training and experience
of individual practitioners is recognised. This is a voluntary process, managed by the
Interim Certification Board for Environmental Assessment Practitioners. The process is
endorsed by a number of professional bodies involved in Environmental Assessment, as well
by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
The
promulgation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations requires the use of
independent environmental consultants to carry out environmental assessments before
development may proceed. In response to these requirements, there has been a rapid
increase in the number of environmental practitioners entering the environmental
assessment field. As more and more practitioners enter the profession, the need to uphold
professional standards and provide some level of assurance about the quality of
environmental assessment work has been underlined and the imperative for certification has
grown.
The benefits
for both practitioners and their clients of a system of Certification include providing a
safeguard for clients and the recognition of the professionalism of members.
There has
been no certification available for environmental practitioners who have the core
competencies to carry out such an assessment. In contrast, there are many specialists in
fields such as ecology, hydrology and geology, sociology, archaeology, engineering, waste
management, landscape architecture, architecture and planning, who could be drawn into the
process to provide expertise in their specific fields.
In the
recent past, the Southern African Institute of Ecologists and Environmental Scientists
(SAIE&ES) and the International Association for Impact Assessment - South African
affiliate (IAIAsa) have engaged a number of interested parties in discussion on the matter
of Certification and an Interim Certification Board has been established under the
auspices of SAIE&ES. Board members represent a wide range of professional bodies,
including institutes and associations for engineers, architects, landscape architects,
waste management professionals, water professionals, ecologists, environmental scientists
and black professionals, as well as government representatives.
The Interim
Certification Board will evaluate applications based on the documentation received from
the applicant and referees’ reports. Successful applicants will be entitled to make
known their professional certification to peers and clients.
Prospective
Certified Environmental Assessment Practitioners can contact the ICB for more information
and application forms. Erica Searle. Tel/Fax: (012) 531 3932. Email
eacertify@intekom.co.za
Impacts of
climate change on plant diversity
Scientists
at the National Botanical Institute and the University of Cape Town have been studying the
possible impacts of global climate change on the survival and distribution of South Africa’s
indigenous plants and have published a report, and a very readable publication, on their
findings as part of the South African Country Study on Climate Change. The publication is
entitled ‘...the heat is on...’. The results are preliminary, but disturbing
enough to warrant broader exposure and discussion.
Boasting
more than 23 000 indigenous species, South Africa truly is a plant paradise and climate
has a lot to do with this rich variety. Across the country, variations in temperature and
rainfall patterns provide very different growing conditions for plants. What will happen
to these familiar patterns of vegetation if predictions about global climate change prove
to be correct? This study is one of the first research programmes in the world to link the
issues of climate change and biodiversity conservation, thereby servicing both the UN
Conventions on Biological Diversity and Climate Change.
Climate
change research is both complex and uncertain. This is because climate itself is the
result of complex interactions between the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land
surfaces that we do not fully understand. Over the last 500 000 years the Earth has warmed
and cooled at least 20 times - what is new is that this time people are causing the Earth’s
climate to change. Recent research shows that temperatures are rising higher and faster
than can be explained by natural phenomena. Rising temperatures mirror increases in the
concentration of so called ‘greenhouse gases’, like carbon dioxide and methane.
In the last 150 years fossil fuels have powered the industrial world, carbon dioxide
levels have increased by more than 35%, and the ‘greenhouse effect’ is out of
hand.
•
Temperature
reconstructions since AD 1000 indicate that the 20th Century was unusually warm - and the
1990s was the hottest decade on record.
•
Global sea levels rose
10-25 cm in the last century.
•
Glaciers in the
European Alps have lost half their volume since the 1850s.
•
The Arctic ice-cap has
thinned by 40% since the 1950s.
•
The ranges of 63% of
non-migratory European butterfly species have shifted northwards by 35-240 km since 1990.
The South
African Country Study investigated the effects of climate change on 44 indigenous plant
species in detail and on the biomes as a whole. One of the greatest challenges, from the
point of view of plant conservation, is how climate may effect plant diversity ‘hotspots’
- areas which are unusually rich in species but are highly threatened by human activities.
One such global hotspot is the Succulent Karroo Biome which has the richest succulent
flora in the world.
Of all the
predictions made in the report, the most worrying relate to the Succulent Karroo. Climate
change models predict that within 50-100 years, areas that support Succulent Karroo
vegetation today will become so arid that only the hardiest plants of that biome will
survive.
Another area
of concern is our grasslands: frost helps to maintain the Grassland Biome by killing the
seedlings of many trees and shrubs that would otherwise grow there. As the climate warms
up and frost becomes less frequent, woody plants may be able to invade grasslands,
transforming them into Savanna. Research done by the NBI and UCT suggests that, in
addition to affecting global warming, an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide may also
directly stimulate the growth of trees and shrubs in the following ways:
•
increasing CO2
levels affect the metabolism of grasses so that they need less water to grow. Water that
is not absorbed penetrates more deeply into the soil, where it is available to the roots
of shrubs and trees.
• Carbon
is the raw material that plants use to build their cells and tissues. Plants absorb carbon
in the form of carbon dioxide and convert it into building materials like cellulose and
wood. Woody plants need much more carbon than grasses, so higher levels of CO2
in the atmosphere will stimulate the growth of trees and shrubs.
Climate
change will seriously threaten the Fynbos Biome over the next 50-100 years. The northern
arm of this biome may disappear altogether and we will lose many of the more
drought-sensitive fynbos plants. Because the biome has a very high proportion of endemic
species, any loss of range will result in extinctions.
The
mountainous terrain of much of the Fynbos Biome does, however, provide some hope because
within these rugged habitats are many niches where plants can survive. As it gets hotter,
plants can also theoretically retreat to higher, cooler altitudes.
What can we do?
As with most environmental issues, ignoring global climate change won’t
make it go away. The South African Country Study report recommends a number of national
actions to limit the effect of climate change on the region’s plant diversity:
•
establish a
biodiversity monitoring network;
•
plan protected area
networks;
•
manage vegetation
appropriately;
•
plan for ex-situ
conservation;
•
undertake rescue
efforts;
•
tolerate losses; and
•
make sure there is an
international voice.
As a
signatory to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, South Africa has a voice in the
international policy arena and must insist that the international community reduces
greenhouse gas emissions, in order to conserve globally significant hotspots of plant
diversity such as the Succulent Karroo.
Website: National Botanical Institute: www.nbi.ac.za
Efficient
lighting initiative calls for national support
On World
Ozone Day (Sunday 16 September), South Africa’s Efficient Lighting Initiative (ELI)
called on South Africans to support energy efficiency and hence impact positively on our
environment. Simply by using compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) instead of inefficient
incandescent bulbs, South Africans can play a key role in reducing energy consumption and
the associated greenhouse gas emissions that damage the ozone layer.
By
supporting the initiative, the emission of nearly 4 million tonnes of CO2 into
the atmosphere, over the next decade, will be prevented. South Africa’s ELI will
yield benefits to society valued at ±R495 million with the penetration of 31, 5 million
compact fluorescent lights into the commercial, industrial and residential sectors.
Coal-fired
power stations are one of the main sources of greenhouse gases and 90% of South Africa’s
electricity is produced from coal. A coal-fired power station burns some 50kg of coal to
power a single 100W globe over its rated 1000 hour life - about one year of normal usage.
This translates to an additional 100 kg of CO2 being pumped into the
atmosphere. A CFL with the same output would require just 10kg of coal.
South Africa
will be under the spotlight in September next year, when Johannesburg hosts the World
Summit 2002, at which world leaders will review progress on the Rio and Kyoto agreements.
As host nation to the Summit, it is particularly appropriate that South Africa is part of
the international Efficient Lighting Initiative.
Contact ELI: SA Bonesa. Barry Bredenkamp. (012) 427 2619. Email: bbredenkamp@bonesa.co.za
City adopts vital
urban edge studies
The City of
Cape Town has adopted recommendations contained in three urban edge studies that define an
ideal future urban development perimeter for the city. The principal elements contained in
the Peninsula Urban Edge, Northern Metro Urban Edge (inclusive of Melkbosstrand Urban
Edge) and Helderberg Urban Edge studies are to be promulgated into municipal by-laws.
The primary
function of these studies is to create an effective strategy to counter urban sprawl and
protect the natural resources and unique character of different areas within the City of
Cape Town. The advent of Unicity and a merging of the previous municipal areas into one
management structure has highlighted an obvious need to finalise a consensual policy for
future urban development in consultation with all stakeholders and the public. It has been
agreed that the ideal is to create a more compact and efficient city that takes cognisance
of the needs of its people and rich natural heritage.
The Urban
Edge studies are a fundamental part of the city’s Metropolitan Spatial Development
Framework, a substantial and highly detailed policy study focussing on a wide range of
issues defining ideal existing land usage in the city, as well as a model for future
development within a defined urban edge.
Ceilings offer
large savings
The Midrand
EcoCity newsletter reports that an Ivory Park study, in which 20 homes with ceilings were
compared to 20 homes without ceilings, has shown a 15% reduction in the use of fuels to
heat the home. Nearly four million houses in SA do not have ceilings. Furthermore only 20%
of government housing subsidy homes are being built with ceilings.
The study
has shown that the intervention of a ceiling has important social and health benefits. Not
only does it improve the appearance of the home and thereby add value to it, it also
improves the living conditions within the home by decreasing the access of dust particles.
The study
monitored the use of coal, wood, paraffin, gas and electricity in the homes last winter.
“Provision of a ceiling appears to be the single most cost-effective means of
improving the thermal efficiency of houses,” said Goldius Baloyi, the Midrand SEED
advisor. He pointed out that if all formal low cost dwellings in Gauteng were to have
ceilings installed, the householders could save R60 million in electricity costs.
Green Trust
Awards
A record
number of 180 entries for the 10th annual Green Trust Awards is a positive affirmation of
the growing commitment to environmental and conservation concerns. The judging panel
comprised Saliem Fakir, IUCN representative in SA; Yolan Friedman, deputy director of the
Wildlife Breeding Resource Centre; environmental consultant Arend Hoogervorst; Greg Laws
manager of the WWF Sappi Wetlands Programme; David Lindley manager of the Mondi Wetlands
Programme; Lynette Masuku van Damme, director environmental education SANP; Khungheka
Njobe of the NBI; environmental journalist John Richards; and wildlife conservationist
Rozanne Savory.
The winners
were:
•
Water Awareness Award:
City of Cape Town’s Water Awareness Campaign
•
Schools Project Award:
Bathhurst Primary School
•
Urban Renewal Award:
Midrand EcoCity Project
•
Natural Resources
Award: South African Crane Working Group
•
Investing in the
environment - Individual Award: Mandla Mentoor of Amandla Waste creation and the
Environmental Justice Network Forum
•
Investing in the
environment - Corporate Award: Ocean Blue Adventures
•
Community Projects
Award: Oasis Association’s Recycling Project
•
Overall Winner -
Emerging: Klipkop Conservancy
•
Overall Winner -
Established: Treverton School and Wildlife Area
For further
information contact Therese Brinkcate of The Green Trust. Tel: (021) 888 2836. Email:
tbrinkca@wwfsa.org.za
Queen’s
Award for enterprise sustainable development category
A UK based
ecological building design group, whose projects include a solar powered and rainwater-fed
swimming pool, and a unique building capturing free heat from buried high voltage cabling,
has won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the new Sustainable Development category.
The company,
Leeds Environmental Design Associates (Leda) was established four years ago and has
expanded rapidly, providing architectural and engineering designs for buildings, ranging
from offices and workshops to theatres and community centres, and actively promoting
design that reduces energy consumption in buildings. Use is made of high levels of
insulation and energy efficient heating and lighting systems, and the company specialises
in other areas of sustainable construction such as water recycling, use of renewable
energy and selection of eco-friendly building materials.
The Award
panel’s attention was caught by the firm’s solar heated swimming pool designed
for a private house in Bradford, northern England, incorporating well-insulated and
efficient solar panels that are able to heat the pool for most of the year.
Another
sustainable element of their work is described by Leda’s energy consultant, Matthew
Hill, as using new technology and design methods to create buildings with minimal
environmental impacts. “The damaging effects of global warming are now becoming more
widely appreciated and it is vital that our buildings are designed to reduce greenhouse
gases, during their lifetime.”
Leda
architect Jonathan Lindh’s essential design ethos is to provide buildings that are
not only aesthetically pleasing but are also healthy and comfortable spaces suited to the
needs of the users, and that are inexpensive to run and maintain.
As approved
consultants for the government-sponsored Design Advice scheme, Leda gives advice on
sustainable design to other architects and developers.
Contact Leeds Environmental Design Associates. Tel: +44 113 2785341. Fax: +44 113 2785478.
National
Technical Excellence Award for wastewater reuse
The
Environmental Management Unit of Bohlweki Environmental (Pty) Ltd formed part of the
project team that was awarded the South African Association of Civil Engineering’s
National Technical Excellence Award for 2001. The award was given for the Durban Water
Recycling Works project at Durban Metro’s Southern Wastewater Treatment Works site.
The concept
of wastewater reuse involved the construction of a tertiary water treatment works to treat
raw sewage to an acceptable standard for industrial use and the selling of this water to
neighbouring industrial consumers. The development of this concept was considered ideal as
it provided an environmentally acceptable alternative to marine disposal. The water
reclamation project will augment the capacity of the city’s southern marine outfall
sewer pipeline. Industries and local residents have long been concerned about the
deteriorating local environment and potential threats to human health resulting from the
marine outfall sewer pipe - and the introduction of a further marine outfall sewer at this
site would have heightened social tensions.
Special
features of the project:
•
cutting edge water
treatment technology;
•
delayed capital
investment in future sewage and water supply infrastructure;
•
construction of
sophisticated works within a compact footprint;
•
employment creation;
•
support for the
project from local community organisations and environmental groups; and
•
management of risks
through an Environmental Management Plan.
For further information contact Jeremy Boswell of Bohlweki Environmental. Tel: (011) 805
0250.
-----
LETTERS
Biodegradable plastics
The
Plastics Federation of South Africa would like to comment on the article on Biodegradable
Plastics in the July/August issue of Urban Green File.
The fact
that plastics do not break down in the environment, for example when they are in contact
with water, etc, is one of the major advantages of these materials! It does, of course,
lead to problems when they are disposed of incorrectly. The technology to produce
biodegradable plastics is becoming available and being evaluated for specific product use
in various parts of the world today. The Plastics Federation of SA has highlighted certain
areas of concern regarding the indiscriminate use of these products. These concerns are
the following:
•
There needs to be
sufficient suitable scientific research to demonstrate the end products of the degradation
process. The conditions that are necessary to achieve those levels of degradation must be
determined. We believe that it would be an irresponsible act to distribute any form of
biodegradable plastic before it can be proven what the ultimate end product will be.
•
The effect of the
process on the long-term stability of the landfill also needs to be considered and
evaluated.
•
The impact of these
biodegradable plastics on and within the plastics recycling loop must also be carefully
evaluated. We would not want to see the very successful plastics recycling sector
adversely affected by polymers that are not suitable for recycling.
•
We are also concerned
that the existence and use of degradable plastics should not be used by the public at
large as an excuse to litter. Littering is a socially and environmentally unacceptable
habit that must be, and can only be, eliminated through awareness, education and,
ultimately, legislation.
If the
concerns listed are all suitably addressed, we believe the future use of biodegradable
plastics will undoubtedly further expand the market for plastics.
Bill Naude, executive
director, Plastics Federation of South Africa
Lessons learnt in
Cape Town
It is
customary that every year the group of fourth year students of Landscape Architecture from
the University of Pretoria tours the Mother City - Cape Town. The tour has many
objectives, ranging from gaining insight into the historical development of the city and
the resulting urban problems, to viewing contemporary designs that respond to the demands
of today’s society. One of the popular projects is the documentation of hard
landscaping details and materials designed to withstand the hostile climate of salty
atmospheric conditions and strong winds - totally unlike the climate of Gauteng.
The students
found this year’s trip particularly enlightening, as it clearly illustrated the realm
of work that landscape architects may be required to engage in upon entering the
profession. To some students, it was an exciting discovery of the profession’s range
of activity, while others saw it as a daunting task that awaited them - each needing to
find his or her own voice within the mesh of relationships that challenge a landscape
architect, in the process of delivering projects. It was clearly a test of what they
believed in and what they would tolerate as professionals. How does a landscape architect
respond in such situations? It would be false to say that we came back with answers to
these questions but we certainly gained an understanding of how things worked in practice.
When money is no issue
As we were conducted on our tour through the various sites, it became apparent
to all of us that the relationship between the landscape architect and the client may not
be as clearly defined, in practice, as it is taught in theory. In practice one learns some
things that cannot be experienced in the protective environment of the educational
institution. What is normally said in the lecture room is that the landscape architect
will work as part of a group of consultants whose views and manner of execution of the
project will be respected by the client. This however, as we learned, may not always be
the case.
A visit to
the Grand West Casino which was recently completed, following the trends set by casino
developments in Gauteng, gave us our first taste of a view contrary to most of our
beliefs. The client was in charge and dictated what was wanted based on what he believed
was the right thing to do. The landscape architect did exactly what the client asked. In
such circumstances, the main challenge for the landscape architect becomes the difficulty
of accommodating his/her own beliefs as a designer (presently dominated by ecological
thought) while meeting the client’s wishes. In the case of the Grand Casino, issues
of economy that receive high priority in most projects are relegated to the bottom of the
list - in short, money was not an issue. The maintenance costs of the numerous highly
elaborate garden designs at the Casino made this very clear. Beliefs in the need for
ecological and environmentally responsible design were seriously challenged. Does one
refuse such a commission? How does one proceed to encourage clients to follow one’s
beliefs - clients who think that what that they have seen in Western countries is
appropriate for South Africa?
The same can
be said about our visit to Canal Walk shopping complex. The design of which is also
Western in origin. Perhaps here an even more important issue is raised - that of its
location away from the city center. We should be strengthening the hub of the city and
instead we are pulling it apart. The landscape architect may not have had a say in the
choice of location for the complex - and did well, at least, in pointing out to the client
that indoor plants would not survive the air conditioning in the mall. Use has been made
of artificial plants and dried palms.
The above
schemes illustrate the kinds of frustrations and conflicting interests that the landscape
architect may find upon entering practice. They reflect the differences between theory and
practice. Perhaps with time these disparities will be narrowed. That the convictions of
the wealthy client and those of the landscape architect are often at the extreme opposite
ends of the continuum is an issue that will take time and effort to unravel.
When money is an issue
The high point of our stay was the visit to the Cape Town City Council offices.
The landscape office is producing excellent work in very real and challenging
circumstances - in Langa, Nyanga, Mitchell’s Plain, Guguletu and other areas of the
Cape Flats. These are tough areas to work in and they may even mean threats to the lives
of those trying to make a positive change. They are difficult areas because of the sheer
levels of poverty that one encounters. How does one as a landscape architect make a change
in areas where the majority of the people have no formal employment?
With a
skeleton landscape staff who are well integrated with the city’s urban designers,
they have taken on probably the biggest challenge of the city, on what one may term an
always ‘tight’ Council budget. Apart from the actual designs, our interests lay
in knowing what sort of relationships the landscape architects were engaged in, during the
process of developing these areas. What was apparent was that community involvement was a
key aspect of the process. Without it, everything would grind to a halt. Talking to the
political leaders and identifying people who could help implement the schemes were
important skills for the landscape architect to have. Furthermore, stepping back and
letting the people design is a quality that landscape architects will have to re-learn. It
is so easy to simply design prescriptively - much easier than doing it in conjunction with
the public. These are areas in which most students cannot see themselves working soon
after graduation, yet they offer the greatest opportunities for innovative minds. The
comfort of an air-conditioned design office and tackling the shopping complex/carpark
designs is more appealing to the majority of students.
Developing design skills
The designs in these Cape Flats areas were humble interventions at important
nodes like crossroads, bus or train stops or along a busy route to a major station. Most
of the work done was in the form of hard paving, tree planting and construction of simple
structures to facilitate informal trading, the means by which people earned a living. The
City Council in many cases commissioned consulting landscape architects to design the
individual projects. This ensures diversity in design solutions and quality designs - but
it was noted that there were only a few consulting firms engaged for the schemes. The
reason is probably that these are well-established practices, which would be likely to
deliver good designs - but my feeling is that for such ‘small’ schemes perhaps
relatively small, lesser known firms could be given the chance to exhibit and develop
their design capabilities thereby ensuring that an even higher quality and variety in
landscape design is attained.
This does
not detract in any way from the great strides made by the Cape Town City Council, from
which other local authorities could learn a great deal. Again, the Councils are probably
the last places from which the landscape graduates want to launch their careers. At
present, however, the Councils appear to be the best working environments in which to
develop those skills that one does not have an opportunity to at university. The strong
community participation opportunity would provide an invaluable experience.
Time and the landscape
A very interesting private sector project that we visited was the Capricorn
Business and Technology Park, which won an Institute of Landscape Architects (ILASA) Merit
Award, this year. The project is breaking new ground, in a way, with its environmentally
responsive development. I call it breaking new ground because it is one of the few
projects where there has been strong insistence - backed by environmental legislation (in
the form of ISO 14001) and a mission statement - that developers be responsible for their
outputs into the environment. It is also a project where the landscape has been
implemented prior to the erection of buildings. For the students there were a number of
lessons to be learnt there.
The success
of such projects depends on having clients who appreciate and understand the sustainable
principles on which their investment is based. The clients should accept that the return
on their investments is not going to be short term. Similarly, for the landscape architect
the design needs to take into account the pace of development on the site. For the student
of landscape architecture, this provides an ideal example where planting choices and plant
specifications can be made without trying to achieve the ‘instant’ landscape
that is commonly required on casino, hotel and shopping complex developments. The initial
expense can be relatively low with use being made of smaller plants. The landscape at
Capricorn is being allowed to mature with time.
Conclusion
The range of work for a landscape architect to engage in is generously wide.
For those that see the profession as a means of expressing their design ideals, rich
clients will always be there. The student group that makes this decision will require an
additional skill - the power to sell their ideas well - necessary for them to be hired by
wealthy clients. For others that see the landscape profession as a unifying tool for the
nation, for a good number of years to come there will be the problems of the poor needing
innovative solutions. It is this group of landscape designers that knowingly or
unknowingly embraces the concept of a rainbow nation. It affords them a chance to work
with less fortunate South Africans and to make a meaningful contribution. Seen in another
light, it is also a chance of making the profession of landscape architecture more visible
to the man in the street. Perhaps, more importantly, it is making landscape architecture
appreciable to the children in these so called ‘deprived’ areas - for it is they
that we look to to change the complexion of the profession to one that represents all of
society.
Finzi Saidi, lecturer in
the Department of Architecture, University of Pretoria
-----
BOOK REVIEWS
Rehabilitation
Recommendations after Alien Plant Control sold with the Grab-a-Grass Dial
Editor:
Peta Campbell, Weeds Research Division, PPRI
Publishers: Plant Protection Research Institute (PPRI), Agricultural Research Council
Sponsors of the Handbook: National Department of Agriculture, Water Research Commission
and the SA Wattle Growers’ Union
Sponsors of the Dial: Water Research Commission, SA Wattle Growers’ Union and Rand
Water
This
publication is Handbook No 11 put out by the PPRI - and the front cover bears the slogan:
Save our Soil. The control of alien plants needs to go hand in hand with the
rehabilitation of bare soil. This handbook is limited to the rehabilitation of land
degraded by dense alien plant infestations. It provides guidelines and recommendations for
the selection of suitable grass species and describes practical rehabilitation methods. It
also deals with integrated control strategies for invasive alien plants. Rehabilitation is
viewed as an essential component of the integrated control process. It will guard against
soil erosion and re-invasion by weeds.
The handbook
is suitable for any organisation or private land owner controlling alien invasive plants -
including community and environmental NGOs, Working for Water project managers,
conservation bodies, agricultural extension officers, roads departments, local councils,
environmental planners, forestry organisations, Spoornet, golf course managers, etc. The
handbook was workshopped by 19 organisations with years of experience in rehabilitation
research, including: the PPRI, DEAT, DWAF (Working for Water), KZN Wildlife, six
universities, provincial Departments of Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Land
Affairs and SA National Parks. It was published in 2000.
A
Grab-a-Grass Dial, which facilitates the selection of the appropriate grass for the area
under rehabilitation, is available for the following provinces: Northern Province,
Mpumalanga, KZN, the Eastern Cape, the Northern Cape, Free State, North West Province and
Gauteng.
The
introduction to the handbook points out that any control programme for alien vegetation
must include three phases: initial control which involves the drastic reduction of the
existing population; follow-up control - the control of seedlings, root suckers and
coppice regrowth; and maintenance control. The situation needs to be monitored two to
three times each year to avoid re-infestation and the resultant increased control costs.
The handbook provides recommended integrated control strategies and control methods.
Extensive tables of different control options (biological, mechanical and chemical) are
given for the various alien invasive plants, along with lists of registered herbicides.
Replanting with grass can be seen as a control method. Maps of vegetation types are
provided and a section on grass harvesting and planting is included.
The various
releases, over many years, of biological control agents against weeds in SA are listed and
the degree of control and damage to the weed is cited. It is interesting to note that in
some cases the degree of control is considered to be complete: that is, no other control
measures are needed to reduce the weed to acceptable levels, at least in those areas where
the biological control agent is established.
Pocket List of
Southern African Indigenous Trees
Compiled
by: Jutta von Breitenbach, Bernard de Winter, Richard Poynton, Erica van den
Berg, Braam van Wyk and Eben van Wyk
Line drawings by: Jutta von Breitenbach
Publishers: Briza Publications and the Dendrological Foundation
The book
comprises a taxonomically up-to-date inventory of all trees indigenous to the Flora of
Southern Africa - which covers the region including South Africa, Namibia, Botswana,
Lesotho and Swaziland. It is essentially a dictionary of scientific and popular tree names
and tree numbers - and is not intended primarily as a means of tree identification,
although names and line drawings will serve as an aid to memory. The tree distribution
maps used in the list are the most recent and are copyrighted to Meg Coates-Palgrave and
Piet van Wyk. Frequently encountered botanical synonyms are listed along with the
currently accepted scientific names.
Common names
form part of our cultural heritage and existing common names have been retained, even
though they could be considered illogical. The compilers have used as their guiding
principle the fact that common names, in the true sense of the word, should have
originated spontaneously in the community that conceived them. The standard names selected
for this list have been approved by the Tree Names Committee of the Dendrological
Foundation. Common names are given in six languages: Afrikaans, English, Northern Sotho,
Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu. Often the inclusion of a name as an alternative to the standard
common name is an acknowledgement that it is well established and likely to be encountered
by the reader. For example, the standard English name for Phoenix reclinata is the wild
date palm but it is also referred to in the list as the Cape date palm, the coffee palm
and the feather palm.
The list
includes selected shrubs and woody climbers (lianas) which, strictly speaking, do not
qualify as trees but are usually neglected in the popular botanical literature. Trees are
often shrubby when they are young and the distinction between shrub, climber and tree can
become problematic when identifying woody plants in the wild.
The book
consists of two indexes, printed on tinted matt paper for easier use in the field. The
first index is a numerical listing of trees according to South African tree numbers, while
the second is an alphabetical index of the scientific and common names.
Southern
Africa is characterised by an extraordinary diversity of trees and is a region in which
many languages are spoken, and much work remains to be done to update the electronic data
base of tree names on an on-going basis. Users are invited to contribute to this exercise
by pointing out omissions and errors detected in the list to the Dendrological Foundation.
For further information or comment contact Braam van Wyk. Tel: (012) 420 2545. Cell: 082
874 8968. Briza Publications. Tel: (012) 329 3896. Email: info@briza.co.za
List of Southern
African Succulent Plants
Edited
by: Gideon F Smit, Ernst van Jaarsveld, Trevor H Arnold, Francois E Steffens, Roger D
Dixon and Jacobus A Retief
Contributed and supported by: National Botanical Institute of SA in conjunction with the
Succulent Society of SA
Publishers: Umdaus Press
Cover illustration by: Gillian Condy
Southern
Africa has the richest succulent flora in the world. With more than 4 600 species and the
enormous sub-continental diversity of succulent plants accounts for approximately 46% of
the known succulents of the world.
The List of
Southern African Succulent Plants first published in 1997 covers the area south of but
excluding Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mocambique and contains the names of 4 674 taxa
from 350 genera and 58 plant families, along with distribution maps, striking line
drawings and eight colour plates. The illustrations are by well known botanical artists.
For more than 20 years the National Botanical Institute (NBI) has been maintaining PRECIS
(National Herbarium Pretoria (PRE) Computerised Information System), a data base in which
information on the plant wealth of southern Africa is stored. The list of southern African
succulent plants presented in this book was generated by PRECIS and represents the efforts
of a generation of NBI taxonomists who are or have been continuously updating the data
base.
This
technology, which allows information to be produced on all plants indigenous to (or
naturalised in) southern Africa, literally at the touch of a key, has positioned the NBI
to respond to the requirements of various national or international initiatives,
particularly the International Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity
which was ratified by South Africa on 2 November 1995.
The book is
more than just a list as it presents a brief introduction to every family, along with
references to the most important literature on the groups. The localities of both
succulent and non-succulent members of each family on the sub-continent are indicated on
the distribution maps, which were also extracted from the PRECIS data base. At least one
representative of every family is illustrated with a black and white line drawing.
The
publication defines a succulent as being a plant that stores water in its tissues as a
mechanism to survive periods of drought in the growing phase. Using this definition
succulence is divided into true succulence, cryptic succulence, caudiciforms and contrived
succulence. Plants included in the ‘cryptic’ category are not always evidently
succulent. This category applies to some trees in genera such as Adansonia (Baobab) and
Cussonia (Cabbage Trees) where the stems are often fibrous rather than succulent but stem
shrinkage occurs during dry spells and these plants will typically survive transplantation
as mature plants.
Readers are
invited to send their comments on the List to: Gideon Smith, Research Directorate, NBI,
PBag X101, Pretoria 0001 or Ernst van Jaarsveld, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden,
PBag X7, Claremont 7735. Umdaus Press. Tel: (011)884 5588. Email: umdaus@succulents.net
The Alien
Clearing Handbook for the Western Cape
Author:
Jeremy Croudace
Drawings by: Kane Croudace
Published by: Bo-Kloof Fynbos Conservation & Environment Information Trust
Foreword by: Andy Gubb of the Wildlife and Environment Society of SA (WESSA)
Gubb’s
foreword to this handbook, published in 1999, says: “Jeremy Croudace challenges
current extensive alien hacking practices, where alien clearing is regarded as an
unskilled job undertaken by large teams and will inevitably involve costly follow-up
procedures... Dealing with the plant requires an understanding of the survival tactics of
each species and the application of appropriate techniques to ensure that there is no
regrowth.... It is only through appropriate training that effective alien vegetation
control with minimal damage to the indigenous vegetation will be achieved.”
The book
which utlises very clear pictograms rather than extensive written explanations has been
compiled largely with the illiterate worker, who is employed to clear catchments and other
natural areas, in mind. Its purpose is to make the information needed for controlling
invading alien plants at first encounter (with minimal damage to indigenous vegetation)
available to the many unskilled workers that are often employed in alien clearing. The
handbook will serve as an excellent back-up resource to a training programme.
The handbook
is available from the Botanical Society bookshop at Kirstenbosch and the WESSA shop at The
Sanctuary in Tokai. Orders can be placed by email: croudace@adept.co.za
Alien Weeds and
Invasive Plants
Author:
Lesley Henderson
Publishers: Plant Protection Research Institute (PPRI), Agricultural Research Council
Sponsors: Department of Agriculture, Department of Water Affairs (Working for Water),
BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Ecoguard and Syngenta
This is a
complete guide to declared weeds and invader species in South Africa (198 alien species)
and includes another 36 species that are potentially invasive in this region but have not
yet been added to the so called weeds list in the amendments (2001) to the Conservation of
Agricultural Resources Act (Act no 43 of 1983). In terms of these amendments, landowners
are legally responsible for the control of invasive alien plants on their properties. (See
article on ‘New Weeds Legislation’ in Urban Green File Nov/Dec 2000 issue.)
Invasive
alien plants are a massive threat to the ecological functioning of natural systems and to
the productive use of land. The most aggressive invaders are capable of penetrating and
replacing indigenous vegetation. These plants have already invaded an area in South Africa
equivalent to the size of KwaZulu-Natal and are spreading at such a rate that, if left
alone, the area invaded will double within 15 years.
This
comprehensive guide backed by line drawings, colour photographs (of 100 declared invasive
species) and descriptions of the plants will boost the knowledge of alien invasive plants
and back the legislation concerning their control. The book also represents the
culmination of the first phase of a mapping project - the Southern African Plant Invaders
Atlas.
All the
plants described in the book have been introduced to South Africa, intentionally or
unintentionally, and have become naturalised - meaning that they are capable of
reproducing and spreading without the assistance of humans. The invasive status and the
legal status of each plant has been included and this will assist managers in deciding on
priorities for control. Extensive research has been conducted to determine the best
methods for control and these include mechanical, chemical and biological control
measures. Where a herbicide has been registered for the chemical control of a species and
where biological control is either effective or under investigation, this is mentioned at
the end of the species description.
The
inclusion of the 36 species that are not on the official weeds list will, hopefully, make
landowners more vigilant and nurserymen aware of species that they may not be able to sell
sometime in the near future. These are listed on Table X and require further
investigation. Plants contained in Table X include well-used landscaping subjects such as
the three exotic Celtis species (infrequently referred to by their common names: Nettle
trees and Hackberries - Celtis sinensis, C. australis and C. occidentalis), English Ivy
(Hedera helix), the Lombardy Poplar (Populus nigra var italica), the Simon Poplar (Populus
simonii), the Pepper Tree (Schinus molle) and the Australian Waterpear (Syzigium
paniculatum - previously Eugeniamyrtifolia). Kikuyu grass (Pennisetum clandestinum) is
included on this list because it invades roadsides and urban open spaces on rich, moist
soils in high rainfall areas. Its invasive status is that of a potential transformer and
it is proposed for declaration as an invader.
Orders for
the book which sells at R60, 00 (incl VAT) can be placed with: Hildegard Klein, Weeds
Research Division, PPRI. Tel: (012) 329 3269. Fax: (012) 329 3278. Email:
riethdb@plant2.agric.za
-----
TREE OF THE ISSUE
Megan Anderson chooses the Coastal
Silver Oak
Brachylaena
Discolor
Landscape
architect Megan Anderson has chosen Brachylaena discolor as the Tree of the Issue. A tree
that she says is often used very effectively in the Western Cape, although its natural
habitat is the coastal strip from the Eastern Cape northwards into Mocambique. It is a
small, evergreen tree that occurs in coastal bush and associated bushveld - on average
between about 4-6m in height but can grow much taller in coastal forest. Megan says that
the tree withstands severe conditions such as salt-laden winds and wind-blown sand and is
therefore ideal for coastal landscaping projects.
She comments
that it is similar in colour to Tarchonanthus camphoratus (Tree of the May/June 2001
Issue. Ed: apologies for the incorrect spelling of the genus name in that article.) and
blends well with the fynbos environment. The tree is useful for stabilising coastal dune
sand and if it is left alone, it will branch out from the bottom, forming a dense hedge
which serves as a good windbreak. It is a butterfly host plant but copes well with the
caterpillars and the latter attract birds.
Megan has
planted the Coastal Silver Oak in groupings comprising a mix of indigenous species on the
road verges along Prince George Drive in Grassy Park, with species such as Rhus pendulina,
Olea europaea subsp africana, Tarchonanthus camphoratus, Podocarpus latifolius and
Ekebergia capensis. The trees which were planted last year are positioned close together
in the groupings, giving them a natural appearance - and Megan comments that from day one
the Coastal Silver Oaks settled in and have grown at least half a metre in one season,
even though it is a very windy area and very sandy soil and they are subject to sand
blasting.
She says
that it was the Brachylaena that manifested the most noticeable growth of all the newly
planted species on the road verges and adds that the specimens were left to establish
themselves in their natural, multi-stemmed form. The Brachylaenas in Phase 1 of the
planting, which have been in for two years, have already been pruned into a single-stemmed
form, more suited to the groupings and to preclude dense growth.
The trees
around the Fish Hoek Civic Centre have, on the other hand, been left as multi-stemmed,
although they have been pruned up into a single crown. Megan estimates that these trees
have been there for at least ten years. She says they are looking at their best in this
park landscape, where they are 3-4m in height in groupings on the lawn, with their dense,
rounded crowns. Although their foliage is very dense, the lawn - which Megan seems to
remember is Buffalo Grass - is doing well underneath.
The leaves
of the Coastal Silver Oak are bi-coloured and very distinctive - dark green and shiny on
the upper surface and velvety-white on the lower. The flowerheads are creamy-white to
beige and prolific and the tree flowers for at least a month. The fruit is covered in
creamy yellow to brownish hairs, while the bark is dark and rough. Megan is particularly
partial to the silvery appearance of the trees when they are blowing in the wind.
She
recommends these trees for use in parking areas because they do not drop many leaves and
the flowers and fruit are not messy. They have been used in the parking areas of the Long
Beach Mall in Noordhoek. She was involved at the Hout Bay Yacht Club (a project she did
when employed by landscape architect Bernard Oberholzer) and used Brachylaena discolor in
dense groupings on the islands in the parking lot. Megan says the tree, like most
indigenous species, needs to be watered well for the first year until it has established.
Along Prince George Drive underground drippers provide irrigation.
-----
WORDS ON WASTE
Recycling
operation: Montecasino reduces volume of waste to landfill
In order to
contain the increasing cost of waste disposal at Montecasino, Alan Greenwood, Montcasino’s
facilities manager, appointed Hlangane Recycling to ensure that the least possible volume
of waste went to landfill and the greatest possible portion was recycled. “Not only
does this help to ensure that our landfill sites operate for a longer period, reducing the
impact of waste on the environment, but it assists with job creation,” says Cliff
Zikhali of Hlangane Recycling. Hlangane have created employment for 12 individuals since
commencing operations a year ago and have reduced the skip loads at Montecasino by one
skip a week or four skips a month - a saving of just over R 6 000 a month which is the
equivalent of R 78 000 annually. This is a significant saving for the development.
Carol Knoll
met Zikhali and his partner June Reynolds on site at Montecasino and discovered that
Hlangane Recycling had forged relationships with a number of innovative recyclers, as well
as established recycling companies, and were working in conjunction with Sue Bellinger of
Enviro Fringe Services, a waste reduction consultant, who was also at the meeting.
Reynolds is
employed by IT company Unihold Business Solutions and Hlangane arose out of Unihold’s
employment equity programme. Reynolds was on the steering committee for this programme and
she got together with Zikhali and Stanley Magobo, both unemployed at the time, and they
walked the streets, after hours, for two weeks approaching businesses about the recycling
of their paper and cardboard. In December 2000, they managed to secure the Montecasino
contract and Reynolds and Zikhali formed Hlangane Recycling. Their aim, initially, was to
recycle paper, cans, plastic, ink cartridges, glass, and fluorescent tubes but today they
provide a full waste management service, assessing a company’s needs, structuring
waste management programmes for clients and finding outlets for, literally, whatever they
need to get rid of - with the help of Bellinger (who was put in touch with Reynolds by
Peter Hunter of Mondi Recycling) on the waste minimisation side.
Today the
Montecasino recycling operation employs two shifts of six people each and it runs for 24
hours of the day. Hlangane personnel sort through all the waste from the large Montecasino
development for any items that can be recycled, before the remainder goes to the waste
compactor and is taken away by the company SA Waste. The team ensures that the sorting
site is maintained in a spotless condition and each sorted item is stored neatly for
regular collection by the respective recycler companies.
Hlangane has
been on site since the day Montecasino opened and Zikhale tells of their uneasy first two
weeks of business, when they collected all the cardboard and plastic packaging from the
shops that were still in the throes of opening and stashed this in the basement area -
this involved working between 2:00 and 4:00 in the morning - and they lost the full two
weeks’ work because the main contractor cleared away their waste along with his own.
This
unfortunate start was turned around very quickly and recognising the valuable role being
played by Hlangane, Greenwood has made sure that its employees are highly visible by
sponsoring the printing of corporate clothing and putting both the Hlangane and
Montecasino logos on the waste collection barrows. The barrows facilitate the transport of
recyclable material from the sorting room to the basement storage area.
Aside from
the paper and cardboard which go to Mondi Recycling and the many different plastic
products that are collected by Albar, Collect-a-Can fetches and pays, by weight, for all
the waste cans collected at Montecasino, while EcoWash collects certain brands of intact
beer and whisky bottles for reuse (as opposed to recycling) and supplies the crates for
these bottles to ensure that they remain unbroken. The bottles that EcoWash does not take,
along with any broken glass, are collected by EnviroGlass. The Hlangane team sorts these
bottles into different colours, prior to collection. Enviro Glass takes this glass to
Glass Recycling where it is melted down and remade into bottles. Used printer cartridges
are taken to Royce Imaging Industries to be refilled with ink.
Bellinger of
Enviro Fringe Services spoke about the need for companies to focus on waste minimisation
at source, prior to taking the recycling route. “In most companies there is no
attention paid to waste reduction and there are many innovative ways, which are
cost-effective and environmentally sensitive, in which this can be done. Waste
minimisation supports the government’s proposed National Waste Management Strategy.
Unfortunately, waste removal companies are threatened by this concept and by recycling
programmes because they make money out of volume. There is no need for this concern -
there will always be waste - we have such a long way to go.”
Bellinger
looks at aspects such as the utilisation of waste food products for composting; returning
polystyrene vegetable trays to suppliers - she maintains that such action could reduce the
price of vegetables in the long run; the use of energy-efficient light bulbs which not
only conserve energy but last much longer, thereby reducing waste. She says that
polystyrene packaging is a waste product that even the waste removal companies don’t
want because it is so light in weight and that innovative secondary uses need to be found
for the product. She has taken polystyrene sheets to a nursery school and she suggests
that a potential use for the product is in the making of ‘cookboxes’. A nest of
polystyrene chips can be used to generate the heat needed to slow cook stamp mealies. She
also suggests that companies look at their white paper purchasing policy and talk about
concepts such as ‘double-siding’.
Recycling of
cooking oil is another avenue being investigated by Bellinger. She tells of the company
Atlantic Recycling which collects drums of used cooking oil from restaurants and hotels
when the drums are full and finds other uses for this oil, which can serve, for example,
as a constituent in the making of tarmac.
The Hlangane
team at Montecasino is constantly seeking to improve recycling and waste minimisation
solutions and their slogan, the appropriate ‘Let’s Talk Rubbish’,
emphasises that they are looking for innovative answers to client’s waste issues.
Recycling
cardboard and paper
Hlangane
Recycling is a service provider to Mondi Recycling. The paper and cardboard that is
collected and sorted by Cliff Zikhali and his team at Montecasino is collected by a Mondi
Recycling
vehicle on a
regular basis. Mondi provides the team with training on how to sort paper into different
grades and there are different payment rates for each category. The categories comprise
HL1, which is white paper; HL2, which is a mixture of different coloured papers; FN, which
is newspaper; and SBM, which is magazines. Mondi is prepared to take confidential
material, if it is packed separately, and to shred it, providing a certificate to
guarantee that this has been done - but at Montecasino confidential material is put
through the in-house shredder. Mondi has provided Hlangane with an open top bin at
Montecasino for the collection of cardboard which is paid for at a different rate, based
on content and market value.
Peter Hunter
of Mondi Recycling said that his company had given Hlangane a guarantee to purchase all
the waste paper that they collected. He pointed out that Mondi Recycling was in the
business of creating job opportunities and that not only did they appoint service
providers or middlemen such at Hlangane but they dealt largely with independent operators
or hawkers who were provided with
PaperBarrows
and went around to offices and shops collecting paper, which they then sold to Mondi’s
Buy-Back Centres. Hunter said that over 1 000 such jobs had been created to date and that
Mondi paid out close to R 2 million a month to all its Buy-Back Centres.
Another of
Mondi Recycling’s projects is the Kerbside Paper Pick-up Collection of cardboard and
paper offered to 400 000 homes in the Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban areas. Each home
owner is given a ‘Ronnie Bag’ and a calendar designating the collection dates
(usually on a fortnightly basis). Kerbside vehicles do the collecting and the vehicle
owners are previous employees of Mondi Recycling who provide Mondi with this collection
service. Mondi sold the vehicles to these drivers at discounted prices and they now run
their own small businesses.
Hunter
commented that it was time that legislation was introduced obliging home owners to
separate their waste. He suggested that a good starting point might be paper separation,
which would give Mondi the opportunity to provide more jobs and reduce the waste stream.
He said that this legislation could be implemented at provincial or national level or in
the form of local government by-laws and he encouraged forward thinking Councils to
introduce the idea on a trial basis.
Plastic recycling
Alan and Barbara Green established the plastics recycling company, Albar, when
Barbara’s vision that work opportunities could be created out of waste started to
become a reality. She and Moses Mahlase started the work with a bakkie and trailer in
November 1999 and, initially, they literally went around retrieving plastic and cardboard
out of dustbins. Then they started getting clients but were still working from Barbara’s
home. Soon they found they needed another bakkie and trailer and employed more people to
sort the waste. Within 18 months, they had employed 73 people and opened a small plastics
recycling factory in Boksburg East.
The factory
takes in plastic of every kind and it is sorted into different types and made into pellets
or granulated, depending on the type of plastic. Plastic bags are made of a low density
plastic and these are sorted into colours and made into pellets ready for reuse. Black
plastic bags are made of a mix of different colours. Milk bottles and shampoo and
household cleaner bottles comprise high density plastic and these are granulated by Albar
and sold to manufacturers of water pipes such as SBI Plastics. Barbara says the quality is
guaranteed because Albar has SABS approval. Coca-Cola bottles are made out of polyester
and these are sent on to Polyester Recyclers where they are granulated ready for further
use. Ice-cream, yoghurt and margarine tubs and plastic buckets are granulated by Albar and
sold to G&R Plastics for the manufacture of, amongst other products, plastic dishes
and bowls.
Forty tonnes
of plastic comes into Albar on a monthly basis and only ±4% of that is lost in the
granulation process and the conversion to pellet form.
-----
FEATURES
Adaptive reuse
Sustainability
in the built environment
The
recycling of buildings is one factor that can contribute to sustainability in the urban
environment. By modifying existing buildings and adapting them to new uses, costs of
construction, not only in monetary terms but also in terms of embodied energy in
construction materials and the design and construction process, can be considerably lower
than those incurred in the development of new buildings. In addition, land as a resource
is conserved and building services can be altered to reduce consumption of energy and
other resources.
Leigh
Darroll spoke to architect Henry Paine about the redesign of the former AECI Pavilion, on
what used to be the Johannesburg showgrounds, to serve the needs of Wits Plus, the
University of the Witwatersrand’s new centre for part-time studies.
The original building
The AECI Pavilion was originally built in the 1960s. It was designed by the
practice Nurcombe Summerley Ringrose & Todd to be used by African Explosives &
Chemical Industries (AECI) as a corporate showroom and entertainment centre during the
annual Rand Easter Show. The building stands at the north-eastern corner of the former
arena at the showgrounds, now a sports and athletics stadium used by Wits, and offered
AECI and its guests a ringside view of arena events.
In the early
1980s, when the University took over the Rand Show site to establish its West Campus, the
AECI building was occupied by the Sports Administration Division which used these premises
into the 1990s. The building was adapted during that period it seems (although plans of
the modifications could not be traced) and new timber floors were inserted into the former
double volume exhibition and entertainment galleries, creating additional floor space.
When it was vacated by Sports Administration, the building was neglected and left to
deteriorate until it was identified as a potential home for the newly created part-time
studies unit, Wits Plus.
Wits Plus is
a four-faculty (Arts, Commerce, Law & Education) inter-disciplinary part-time studies
facility which was recently established to serve the needs of adult students who would
attend evening lectures on campus. An administration and support centre was required to
accommodate staff offices, seminar rooms and provide an interface for the part-time
students. It was decided to locate the centre in the former Sports Administration building
(originally the AECI Pavilion) in view of its availability and its location on an axis
between the Commerce building - which offered a suitable cluster of lecture theatres and
the Educom Library - and a well-lit parking area with nearby refreshment facilities.
Recycling to new use
Paine comments that the building was in a dilapidated state having been
unoccupied for four or five years. It was uncomfortable as an office building because
extensive areas of unprotected glazing, which had suited its original purpose, made it
virtually transparent to external temperature changes and thus extremely cold in winter
and excessively hot in summer. A number of other factors had to be addressed in its
recycling and adaptation, among them: the installation of adequate cabling for power, data
and telephones; a reconfiguration of the planning layout to suit its new function; and the
replacement of the main spiral stairway which had dangerously narrow treads tapering to a
width of a few centimetres.
“Despite
the problems it presented,” says Paine, “the building is an interesting example
of late 1960s architecture. Although it had outlived its original purpose, it was clearly
adaptable to reuse, and at a fraction of the replacement costs.”
A number of
different structural systems had been used: a conventional concrete frame with a
cantilevered portico on the east façade balanced by massive internal beams; the top floor
slab suspended on slender steel box columns; suspended timber floors which had been
introduced after the original building had been constructed; and at the north-east corner,
at ground and first floor levels, load-bearing brickwork which had replaced original
glazing.
“Our
approach was to address the problems in the building in an integrated way and to make the
necessary changes to meet the new accommodation requirements without destroying or
obscuring the original idea of the building,” says Paine.
The first
decision was to strip out the deteriorated finishes and replace them only where necessary.
Suspended ceilings, for example, were not replaced; the off-shutter concrete ceilings were
painted and sprayed with acoustic vermiculite to reduce sound reverberations. Eliminating
the suspended ceilings also increases the internal fresh air volume and aids ventilation.
Suspended timber floors and beams, as well as steel members, were treated with intumescent
paint to comply with fire regulations. Worn carpeting has been replaced with hard wearing
quarry tiles, coir matting or, in corridors and other heavy traffic areas, with a
sound-reducing cork and vinyl covering.
At ground
floor level the building has been opened up by removing the enclosing brickwork at the
north-east corner and introducing structural steel columns and, recessed within the shade
of the floor above, a new glass frontage which presents a recognisable, transparent
entrance. A ramp up to the newly established entrance level provides easier access for the
disabled, from the paved thoroughfare that links Wits Plus to the commerce block and from
the steeply sloping roadway that runs past the eastern face of the building. An entrance
hall and reception are accommodated at this level.
A lift and
the newly designed steel spiral stairway provide access to the upper floors. The
installation of the stairway proved challenging as the stairs are fixed to a central
column which is a single piece of steel tube reaching from the basement to the height of
the building. A larger open square than that existing previously had to be cut out of the
concrete slabs to create sufficient space for the new wider stairway. A memory of the
former floor slabs remains in place, around the periphery of the newly cut stairwell. The
stairs, with treads of cement cast into steel pans, are bolted to receiving flanges that
are welded to the central column. Instead of the conventional closing edge plate, a round
beam provides support at the outer edge of the stairs so that the stairway appears quite
transparent and the building remains open to the sunlight filtering through the glazed
east façade.
The first
floor or mezzanine level houses the administrative offices of Wits Plus. At this level
existing fenestration in the north façade was replaced with narrower windows which reduce
the summer heat gain but, because they are sufficiently tall, allow the winter sun to
penetrate for longer periods of the day.
On the
second and third floors, the almost fully glazed north and west façades have been
screened with aluminium grid panels on a steel framework which is bolted to the original
concrete structure. The horizontal louvres of the aluminium grille are angled at 15° to
maximise sun protection, but the grid is designed not to obscure the outlook from the
interior. Rusty steel fixed windows have been replaced with opening louvres to improve
ventilation.
The former
reception and entertainment venues in the south-west corner of the building, overlooking
the athletics arena, have been converted to accommodate a multi-purpose conference space
on the second floor and, on the third floor, a computer laboratory. For this latter
function, even the south facing windows presented excessive glare and have been tinted
with an adhesive film.
In addition
to the conference room, the second floor houses the staff common room and a series of
study carrels. On the third floor three seminar rooms are accommodated along the north
wing of the building.
New services
Paine points out that all air conditioning has been removed from the building.
With improved ventilation and the installation of effective sunscreens, it now functions
comfortably without mechanical climatic controls. All electrical services, data and
telecommunications cabling are carried in exposed galvanised steel cable trays, suspended
from the concrete ceilings. These trays also house low energy fluorescent light fittings
and alarm systems, with provision for closed circuit television cameras to be installed in
future. All wiring is carried in the trays or in surface mounted steel conduits and power
skirtings. Consequently, the need to chase service conduits into the concrete structure or
walls was avoided and maintenance is simplified by easy access.
New
furniture was purpose-designed for some of the spaces, such as reception, the study
carrels and the computer laboratory, using simple, durable materials. The building was
repainted and colours are used to assist with orientation inside the building where the
core is defined in red on all floors.
Wits Plus
took occupation of the recycled building in April last year and director of the unit,
Professor Kathy Munro, comments that as users of the redesigned building they have found
it fits its new purpose admirably. “It is compact, totally functional and has given
new life and use to an old building.” Wits Plus currently serves over 200 part-time
students, with capacity to increase this number to about 700, providing flexible study
courses, which in some instances serve as bridging courses, to enable adult students to
progress in the world of work.
Professional Team
Architect: Henry Paine
Structural engineers: Rigby Cronje
Quantity surveyors: Bham Tayob Khan & Matunda
Main contractor: Ian Bolton Construction
-----
Controlling alien weeds
The Mexican Devil Weed, Lantana and Satansbos
The Mexican Devil Weed
It is
alarming to think that this relatively unattractive, scraggly weed escaped from somebody’s
garden - its ornamental value can surely not be highly rated. But the fact that Ageratina
adenophora, the Mexican Devil Weed or Crofton Weed, is a so called ‘garden escape’
is highly relevant. Many of our seriously invasive alien species have the same origin -
arising from ornamental plant material that has been brought into the country in the past
without the necessary investigative work being done on its invasive potential.
Stefan Neser
of the Plant Protection Research Institute (PPRI) of the Agricultural Research Council
told Carol Knoll, who visited him at his laboratory in Pretoria, that every stream in the
Magaliesberg was at risk and that the plant had the potential to spread to wet areas even
in the coldest parts of the country. He said that it was found in every kloof in the
Magaliesberg that the Mountain Club has access to. Community involvement in the control of
this noxious weed has been started by the Magaliesberg Section of the Mountain Club of
South Africa and the Club has published a leaflet on the weed entitled: ‘Stop the
Mexican Devil Weed from taking over the Magaliesberg Kloofs’ which features
photographs of the weed so that it can be recognised and provides recommended measures for
its manual removal. In August this year the Mountain Club in conjunction with the
Johannesburg Hiking Club organised a ‘clearing weekend’ in three of the kloofs
where the plant was thought to still be manually controllable.
Ageratina
adenophora is listed as a declared weed under Category 1 of the newly amended weeds list
in the Conservation of Agricultural Resources Act (Act No. 43 of 1983) which means that it
“… may not occur on any land or inland water surface other than in biological
control reserves.” Land users are therefore obliged by law to rid their properties of
this plant. Lesley Henderson’s book ‘Alien Weeds and Invasive Plants’ (See
Book Reviews, page 21 of this issue) calls the Mexican Devil Weed a ‘special effect
weed’, because it competes as a monospecies and can “significantly degrade the
value or purpose for which a natural or semi-natural ecosystem is valued without
necessarily dominating it” - meaning that it is a serious environmental weed.
Ageratina adenophora is also poisonous and horses that eat the weed invariably die as a
result.
It is a
perennial herb or soft shrub from Central America which grows up to 2m in height and bears
white flowers in clusters from August to December. It is very similar in appearance to the
notorious declared weed of the warmer coastal regions of South Africa - Chromolaena
odorata, the Triffid Weed. A noteworthy difference is that the Mexican Devil Weed does not
have the strong paraffin smell of its coastal counterpart - both were previously in the
same genus, Eupatorium. It produces large quantities of viable seed which is dispersed by
both wind and water and it sticks to animals and to footwear and clothing. Additionally,
bent or broken stems will take root in the soil and increase the density of the colony.
The Mexican
Devil Weed’s ornamental history stems from the English country garden where it was
introduced in the 19th Century (or earlier) and grown as a ‘stove ornamental’ -
near a source of heat which was often the outside wall adjacent to the kitchen stove. It
flowers over Christmas in the northern hemisphere and is associated with that season.
Prior to its relatively recent invasion of small areas of South Africa, it has been
recorded as a serious weed in north-eastern India, Nigeria, southeast Asia, the Pacific
Islands, Nepal - where it formed large thickets in the foothills of the Himalayas - New
Zealand and Australia. In the latter country it was named after Councillor Crofton who
bore the blame for its spread across his property and beyond when it had in fact escaped
from cultivation in one of his neighbour’s gardens. The neighbour had brought it in
from Sydney. It is reported that the aggressive spread of the weed in Australia in the
decade between 1940 and 1950 resulted in its covering large expanses of dairy pasture and
agricultural land in areas of New South Wales and Queensland, to the extent that in some
areas dairy farmers and banana growers abandoned their land.
Some
countries have biological control measures in place. Host-specific gall flies and a
leaf-spot fungus from Mexico are being released in the Tzaneen area of the Northern
Province and in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, but these are not expected to be able
to control the weed in the Magaliesberg because the young galls are heavily parasitised in
this area. These biocontrol agents are suppressing the weed in Australia. Funding is
needed in South Africa to research more destructive and effective natural enemies but this
is, at present, not a national priority.
The Mexican
Devil Weed has, over the past five years, invaded areas of tussock grass in damp regions
of the Magaliesberg kloofs and next to streams and waterfalls, with a major infestation
occurring in Easter Kloof. In some areas the infestation is so dense that it is difficult
to get through. The Mountain Club’s ‘clearing weekend’ involved a concerted
effort in three kloofs where it was believed that manual clearance would be successful.
Neser reported that the entire plant community that could be reached by the climbers was
cleared out of the Dome Pools area; whereas in Mhlabatini Kloof plants were removed from
vertical cliffs where they were lodged in cracks and on moss but that not all the plants
had been reached; and in Castle Gorge teams had removed plants by the recommended method
of pulling them out by the roots to preclude sprouting from the stem - but again it was
not possible to get to all the plants.
The clearing
teams did, however, make an effort to cut off all the flowering heads to stop the seeds
being shed in early summer. Every piece of stem and flower head was collected in plastic
bags. Neser said that the plants that were left would be tackled later in the year and he
predicted that follow-ups would have to be done for a period of 8-10 years to guard
against reinfestation from extensive seed banks. The Australian experience is that the
seeds are long-lived but that they will germinate only in damp areas. Neser commented that
areas where there were hundreds of tiny plants were left alone because they are easier to
pull out when they are bigger and they only set seed when they are at least a year old.
Large
impenetrable infestations, where the plants cannot be removed manually, can be tackled
with spot spraying of formulations of glyphosate or glyphosate trimesium - these are sold
under various trade names for use against broadleafed weeds and noxious plants. Oversowing
with the seeds of pioneer grasses indigenous to the area will possibly be an essential
part of rehabilitating any areas cleared of dense infestations.
Neser was
optimistic about being able to contain the weed in the Magaliesberg and said that the
Magaliesberg Protection Association was getting involved and that the Mountain Club would
continue to report new finds. He said that Working for Water would come in and spray dense
infestations if approached by land owners in the Magaliesberg.
-----
New Century, New Focus
Some
highlights of the International Parks and Recreation Congress
The keynote
address at the 19th World Congress of the International Federation of Parks and Recreation
Administration (IFPRA), held in Somerset West this September and hosted by Cape Town City
Council and the Institute of Environment and Recreation Africa (IERM), was given by Prof
Brian Huntley of the National Botanical Institute and he commented that the Kirstenbosch
experience had shown that public parks are potentially financially sustainable in their
own right. He said that over the last ten years visitor numbers had increased to 700 000
annually and that the Garden had become almost entirely self-sustaining. Kirstenbosch has
been voted one of the top seven botanical gardens in the world and one of the top ten most
desirable tourist destinations in South Africa. Huntley ascribed Kirstenbosch’s
popularity to the fact that people want “a place of natural beauty and peace that is
safe”.
Ed: One of
the conference tours that I opted for was to Kirstenbosch, as I never miss an opportunity
of going there, and the general ambience is always exactly as Prof Huntley has described
it, while the spring flowers were a sight to behold. The other tour that I chose was to
Helderberg Nature Reserve in Somerset West which has come a long way since my last visit
some seven years back. According to conservator Gerald Wright, this is largely because of
community support in the form of a very strong Friends of Helderberg group - Urban Green
File will be taking an in depth look at this reserve in the near future. I have called
this conference review ‘some highlights...’ because I could not attend all the
lectures owing to the system of three parallel sessions - and can only comment on
interesting aspects of the talks and tours that I did get to. Papers given at the Congress
can be accessed on the IERM website: www.ierm.org.za The photographs in this article
(largely of an amazing range of spring flowers - illustrating the extraordinary
biodiversity of the Cape Floral Kingdom) were all taken on the tours or on trips around
the peninsula and up the West Coast, after the heavy rains that the Cape has experienced
this past winter season.
Dr Anne
Binkley of Victoria University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, who has had over 30
years of experience in the field of recreation, spoke about ‘inclusiveness’ in
parks and recreation, referring to case studies from Parks Victoria that exemplify
leading-edge inclusive practices for individuals with disabilities. She advocated the use
of ‘accessibility audits’ such as those used by Parks Victoria over the past
three years to assess 286 sites on the basis of degree of accessibility, environmental
impact to upgrade and cost to upgrade. The use of this simple, yet systematic, 15 point
checklist approach that looks broadly at the range of settings and the range of activities
available has greatly enhanced the possibility of providing a real diversity of
opportunities for people with disabilities. Binkley cited two other case studies: the
accessibility of a remote camping site at Mount Stapylton in the Grampians National Park,
which allowed people with disabilities to have a wilderness experience, and the ‘Sailability’
programme at Albert Park Lake which included everyone, regardless of age or disability, in
the sailing experience. Website:
www.sailability.org.au
She said
that it was no longer enough to make a location physically accessible, it was now
mandatory in Australia to ensure ‘programme inclusiveness’, which is a much more
difficult concept to master due to its abstract nature. The primary component of programme
inclusiveness is the attitude of the staff - sensitivity in the workplace that can be
translated into a welcoming and open environment for people with disabilities. It is
important to look at whether the facilities are well used and if they are not, to find out
why not. This could be related either to staff attitude or to lack of appropriate
marketing and promotion. Binkley warned that it is necessary to ensure that all citizens
in the community are fully cognisant of the opportunities available to them.
She pointed
out that even if an organisation provided physical accessibility, committed staff and
inclusive promotion, the programme would continue to be inaccessible if there were no
interpretive strategies in place to ensure that individuals, regardless of their
abilities, were able to enjoy the facility to the fullest extent. A variety of
interpretive strategies need to be provided such as braille signs, hearing modifications
and, for those who have intellectual disabilities, concrete explanations such as
demonstrations and role playing. It is also vital that a whole spectrum of
activities/experiences be available people, regardless of their abilities. Lastly, in this
area of programme accessibility, Binkley pointed out that emphasis should be on the
provision of equipment that could be utilised by the entire community and was not
restricted to people with disabilities. For example, picnic tables and toilets should all
be accessible and this ‘best design for everyone’ should bring the costs down.
Lastly, she
pointed out the need to work with, rather than for, disabled people when designing and
evaluating accessible facilities and programmes. (EcoAccess in South Africa provides a
consultancy which brings people with disabilities into the design process and it
concentrates largely on making the wilderness experience accessible.) Best practice is not
about reaction but about being proactive and utilising creative and innovative approaches.
Planner
Frances Horsley of Parks Victoria in her talk which looked at Melbourne’s vision for
an Open Space Network entitled ‘Linking People and Spaces’ told of the extensive
community consultation process, environmental actions focussed on protection of remnant
vegetation, habitat corridors and enhancement of degraded vegetation communities and,
amongst other aspects, the collection of a Parks Charge levy, from every householder,
which was dedicated to the extension and improvement of parks and other open spaces. This
levy, she explained, was collected with the water tariff!
Bill O’Conner
on the corporate strategy side of Parks Victoria told about market research used to
measure visitor satisfaction. Parks Victoria manages public land and waterways totalling
16% of the land area of the state of Victoria and to support and evaluate its role in
providing park management services, it has developed a comprehensive social and
environmental research programme. Its social research programme consists of three main
areas: visitor estimation, community perception monitoring and visitor satisfaction
monitoring. The latter aspect has evolved over a number of years and there is a
substantial store of data on a wide range of visitors to protected areas and metropolitan
parks. Monitoring is done through telephone surveys and in-park surveys involving
interviews where visitors are asked to indicate and discuss which attributes have been
important to their visit.
Paul K
Cheung of the Leisure and Cultural Services of the Hong Kong Government gave a whole new
perspective to the value of ‘open space’ in a country where there is virtually
no open space, except in the form of quality beaches, and he certainly made the South
African contingent view its position in a different light, in a country where open space
is plentiful. He spoke about the on-going need for the provision of sports facilities and
particularly swimming pool complexes - a large number of which are indoors. The popularity
of swimming in Hong Kong is indicated through remarkable visitor numbers: 11 million
people visited beaches in the year 2 000 while nine million visited swimming pool
complexes.
Senior Town
and Regional Planner of the City of Cape Town Kier Hennessy spoke about the development of
a Metropolitan Open Space System (MOSS) for the City of Cape Town - an interconnected and
managed network of open space. He pointed out the ecological and environmental benefits of
urban open space as well as the recreational benefits, touching on engineering benefits
such as flood control and economic benefits such as food production. He emphasised the
intense pressure on the globally important Cape fynbos and on the metropolitan area’s
water systems. He commented that small areas of open space were important in terms of
linkages. The control of the ‘urban edge’ to discourage urban sprawl (see page
12) is a key directive of MOSS and it is important that MOSS link up with areas outside of
the metropolitan area - there should be no cut off point between local and regional open
space. Access to open space is also important and the ideal is that it should be within a
three minute walking distance.
He pointed
out that this was the first time that all open space across the entire metropolitan area
was being identified and mapped in a co-ordinated and consistent manner. An area for a
pilot project was identified to test and define the methodology of the MOSS study and this
was a large area in the south-eastern portion of the city. One of the preliminary outcomes
of the pilot study shows that ± 32% of the area can be identified as MOSS (for the cities
of Curitiba and Durban, the figures are 27% and 33%, respectively). Seventy percent of
this area has been identified as ‘high priority’ and this includes principally
river corridors and core nature areas, whereas 16% of the 32% was considered medium
priority open space. The study showed that 4 000 ha remained available for development
within the pilot area. Hennessy emphasised that there was still plenty of land for
development within the urban edge.
It is
envisioned that the outcome of the MOSS study, as a whole, will provide the city with a
clear idea of the nature and extent of its open space system and provide a consistent and
comprehensive approach and mechanism towards securing, conserving and developing the
benefits of a metropolitan open space system for Cape Town. It will also provide the
opportunity for decision-makers to review the manner in which open space in the city is
identified, maintained and managed. It will assist with the development control, costing
and maintenance, future planning and implementation, and disposal or acquisition of land.
It may also present the opportunity for restructuring of local government resources where
necessary.
Hennessy
concluded by saying that a great deal of public debate was necessary about aspects such as
the danger of open space and whether areas that were identified as MOSS could be managed
appropriately - and if they could not should they be dispensed with? He was determined
that there was a need to secure MOSS as a policy to prevent the continuous chipping away
at valuable areas of open space.
Landscape
architect Graham Young, a lecturer at the University of Pretoria, gave a talk on the
significance and relevance of urban parks in South Africa and he expressed a concern that
parks were undervalued in this country and that they were low on the list of politician’s
priorities, because many saw them as liabilities. Communities perceived them as areas
associated with crime, areas in which to squat and to dump rubbish. In a recent study
carried out for the Klipspruit River in Soweto, people were asked what they liked most
about the Klipspruit and 62, 4% of the respondents stated outright that there was nothing
they liked about the Klipspruit or its adjacent open space - they associated it with reeds
in which rapists could hide.
It has long
been Young’s contention that the ‘traditional’ South African understanding
of and approach to park design is misdirected and must be radically revised to address the
unique township conditions and urban poverty. His talk focussed on compatibility rather
than conformity of design, the devolution of control to the community and the creation of
user-friendly planning documentation.
He said that
parks were hopelessly underprovided in the regions where they were really needed and that
people had to spend too much time and money getting to large parks such as Zoo Lake,
Gilloolys Farm, Fountains and Germiston Lake. He suggested that perhaps neighbourhood
parks were not that relevant in wealthy areas, where people had large properties
He
emphasised that the community needed to be intimately involved from planning stage and
that this would result in places that people wanted to and could take ownership of - safer
places as a result. The designer’s role is to listen to the community and to help the
community develop and implement its vision. He illustrated his talk with a number of
experiences that he had had with community parks in townships, such as the Peace Park in
Atteridgeville which the women of the community had built with their own sweat and which
was maintained by the local people. He said that several neighbourhood parks in this area
had been developed by his landscape architectural students in close conjunction with the
communities and that the people were possessive about their parks.
Young is, at
present, involved in the planning of five parks in Soweto which will be developed with the
communities using money from DANCED and maintained by Johannesburg Parks. (Urban Green
File will be looking at the planning and design exercises for these parks in a detailed
article in the future.)
Landscape
architect Professor Leon Hugo of Pretoria University discussed a pragmatic approach to the
ecological rating of urban open space. He emphasised the need for a re-assessment of the
value of urban open space. What is left of nature in our cities needs to be appropriately
managed and conserved, in accordance with Agenda 21. We need to be able to convince
developers that there are areas which are not negotiable and we can do this by quantifying
the ecological value of a specific open space. If we can apply values, we can argue
effectively when a valuable area is under threat from development. He suggested the use of
an Ecological Status Index - a pragmatic system whereby open space can be graded from
non-negotiable through valuable to indispensable.
The
Ecological Status Index also gives direction as to the possible type of land use that can
be ascribed to each open space that is evaluated. A wetland which has a high ecological
value should not, for example, be used as a soccer field. Hugo suggests a series of steps:
that the ecological status be measured and the open space be classified accordingly; the
alternative land uses can then be determined and an appropriate management strategy
designed.
Considering
the threat to the Cape Floral Kingdom, one of the most valuable talks was that given by Dr
John Manning of the National Botanical Institute who called his talk: ‘Wild Flowers
of the Fairest Cape’ and by means of a set of superb slides and simple explanations
told delegates what the Cape Floral Kingdom was, where it was and why it existed.
Renosterveld,
much of which has been lost under wheatlands, occurs on shale, while Fynbos is found on
sandstone - they both give way to Succulent Karroo under lower rainfall conditions.
Forests are restricted to deep gullies.
He said that
the Cape Flora was one of the world’s most diverse floras, richer than any other
temperate flora and most of the tropical floras. There are five endemic families in the
Cape Floral Kingdom (there are only twelve in SA as a whole) and it comprises many species
but few genera. It covers a small area of only 90 000 km2 and contains 9 000 species -
68,8% of which are endemic (found nowhere else in the world). The endemic families are
ancient remnants of earlier flora. The ten largest families in the Cape Flora carry over
50% of the species and the twenty largest, over 77% of the species, while the ten largest
genera carry 20% of the species. The Flora comprises few tree and is rich in shrubs and
bulbs - it has 4-5 times more bulb species than any other area of Mediterranean
vegetation, worldwide. The Cape is the bulb capital of the world!
Manning
ascribes the diversity of the Cape Floral Kingdom to: the variety of soil types and of
topography and to rainfall patterns, which encourage local divergency of species; the
nutrient poor soils; bulb communities isolated through burns, that preclude the
development of monospecies; a relatively reliable climate - rainfall occurs every winter -
and stable topography; very low seed dispersal distances and the resulting fragmentation
of genetic pools; rises and falls in sea level and the emergence of different coastal
habitats; and the climatic and ecological isolation from the rest of South Africa.
Dr Christo
Marais, research manager of Working for Water, spoke on invading alien plants in the
Fairest Cape and discussed aspects of the WfW programme. He asked Parks and Conservation
managers to examine their fields of expertise and decide how they could have a positive
impact in the area of invading aliens.
Aside from
talking about the excessive water consumption of woody alien invaders and the relationship
of this factor to the need for premature capital expenditure on water schemes, he
demonstrated by means of a chart, the impacts of invading alien plants on catchment
stability after fires. The higher the plant biomass, the hotter the fire and the higher
the cost of fire protection or control. Hot fires cause rocks to split open and there is
much more soil movement. He pointed to the peninsula fires of January 2000 when soil slid
into kitchens in Glencairn and said that hot fires resulting from alien invasion on
Chapman’s Peak Drive had been a contributory factor in the closure of that road. He
spoke about other problem areas such as the invasion of alien plants into wetlands.
He asked
delegates to be sensitive about the species of plants that they used in their parks - and
to use exotics carefully making sure that they were not invasive species. He reinforced
the idea of using local species as they utilised less water and there was less
environmental risk involved. He said that WfW needed to work in partnership with land
managers and that local authorities and nurseries were the biggest distributors of plants
in the field of urban horticulture and were of vital importance to the programme. He
advocated better communication between WfW and local authority Parks Departments.
Conservator
Dean Ferreira’s enthusiastic talk and slide presentation on the progress that has
been made at Rondevlei Nature Reserve, which is an area of great environmental value and
part of the proposed False Bay Coastal Park, made a strong impression (and will be the
subject of a future article in Urban Green File). The large vlei in the reserve, which was
established as far back as 1952, is amongst the most important wetlands for birds in the
Western Cape, serving as the largest water bird breeding colony in the metropolitan area -
and it hosts the only hippo colony in the Western Cape. In his presentation, Ferreira
called the reserve, which falls under the South Peninsula Administration of the City of
Cape Town, a ‘new-look municipal ecotourism facility’.
Rondevlei is
a nature reserve bounded by suburbia and a quote from Ferreira’s paper puts urban
conservation into perspective: “Conservation in a city is not about protecting the
fauna and flora from the people but about teaching people how to live with the fauna and
flora. The days of putting up fences to keep people out and spending our time in the veld
ensuring that natural processes are kept intact are gone. Your neighbours influence every
aspect of day-to-day management - including pollution and illegal activities. Fences
manage symptoms, education manages the problem.” Ferreira goes on to say that if we
can change the attitude of people towards our conservation areas, then we can spend less
time managing people and more time concentrating on the flora and fauna.
There is
already evidence of increased visitor numbers at the new-look Rondevlei with its new
conference centre, boma area, viewing platform, island bush-camp, indoor aquarium and
reptile display in the environmental education centre (EEC) and the hippo-theme restaurant
(which is under construction). Birdwatching, fishing for record size exotic carp and
mountain biking are recreational activities encouraged in the reserve. Ferreira says the
EEC is fully booked with school groups until the end of the year, as are the guided boat
trips and the hippo boma which is utilised for barbeques.
(Website: www.rondevlei.co.za )
-----
In support of a Water Wise society
Rand
Water raises awareness about the value of water
It has been
calculated that in the Greater Gauteng area, where Rand Water is the sole bulk supplier of
water, 27% of the water supply is lost annually in leaks and a further 25% is squandered
through inefficient usage. Thus, in a water scarce region with an average rainfall of
470mm per year – which is about half the world average of 857mm per year – more
than 50% of the bulk water supply is lost.
Leigh
Darroll spoke to Sarah de Villiers Leach, Forums Manager at Rand Water, about the utility’s
joint Water Wise communications programme which is aimed at raising awareness of the value
of water and the vital issues of water quality and wise water usage.
Rand Water,
together with other key players in the water supply chain, is taking a strategic approach
to focus on eliminating water losses by promoting the wise use of water, before spending
money on expensive supply augmentation schemes. According to De Villiers, this is by far
the less costly approach, as well as being more environmentally appropriate in that it
addresses the long-term sustainability of water supply.
The value of water
The catchment area that serves Gauteng is generally loosely termed the Vaal
River system, yet it extends over some 56 000km² to the supply dams constructed in the
Lesotho Highlands and the Tugela-Vaal transfer scheme in the Drakensberg. Thus, some of
the 3 000 megalitres delivered by Rand Water to Gauteng daily has been carried through
thousands of kilometres of pipelines, before it is pumped up over the Witwatersrand Reef
and purified to meet the highest international standards for drinking water.
Most of the
more than 10 million water users in Gauteng are unaware of the costs of the supply
infrastructure – from the construction of dams, pipelines and purification plants, to
reticulation networks, reservoirs and wastewater treatment facilities. “It is
important that this investment is acknowledged,” says De Villiers, “so that
South Africans begin to recognise the value of water and understand that on-tap supply is
not a simple by-product of rainfall.” The Water Wise campaign is designed to promote
a fresh public perspective on the value of water and the importance of clean water, to
encourage efficient usage and reduce water losses.
Augmentation schemes
versus Water Cycle Management
The costs of infrastructural development for water supply escalate into
billions of Rand. The Katse Dam in the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme cost about R9.5
billion and it is estimated that the Mohale Dam, currently under construction, will cost
between R4 billion and R6 billion – before transportation, purification and
reticulation are taken into account. Obviously these costs translate into significant
tariff increases, impacting sharply on the consumer price of water when affordability is
already a critical concern.
Further
augmentation plans include construction in the Thukela network (at about R10 billion) or
Phase 2 of the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme (about R19 billion). Wise water management,
through the entire water cycle, can contribute to deferring these augmentation schemes and
the concomitant tariff increases. It is, however, the responsibility of users, as much as
it is that of the supply and wastewater treatment authorities. De Villiers emphasises that
there is more than enough water in current supply sources, “if, as a region, we fix
the leaks and commit ourselves to using water wisely”.
Water losses and wasted
water
The amount of distributed water that is unaccounted for in Gauteng is untenably
high. Market analyses by Rand Water indicate that the primary problem area is amongst high
users who are not paying for the service delivered.
Recent
figures have shown that up to 70% of the water supply in Soweto is lost through household
leaks. This figure is established by taking a measure of the “minimum night flow”
through the bulk meter for this defined distribution area. De Villiers explains: “At
two o’clock in the morning, for example, when water consumption is typically at its
lowest, in Soweto the water flow through the bulk meter is at 70% of the peak demand
levels which are encountered at 7am or 5pm. So we know that water is leaking but it is
difficult to establish where the leaks are.
“Individual
households in most townships are, generally, unmetered; consumption is measured at the
bulk meter. In addition, until fairly recently, most township properties were rented from
the former councils (by law) and residents live with a legacy of promised maintenance from
those councils which was never undertaken. Plumbing systems and fittings have deteriorated
over time and it will take time to identify and repair leaking pipes, taps, geysers, in
individual households. This is being addressed by the new water distribution authorities
in these areas and other members of the Water Services Forum.”
The amount
of water lost in Soweto alone is the equivalent of half the proposed ‘free basic
water’ provision for the entire Rand Water supply area. The problem is exacerbated by
illegal connections to the supply network and a culture of non-payment for services.
Profligate
consumption in other sectors of the market and inefficient usage in institutional,
commercial and industrial facilities are also areas of concern, but the current Water Wise
communications campaign is directed at the primary problem area.
The Water Wise
partnership
The challenge of implementing water cycle management measures across this broad
market sector is immense. It is further complicated by factors such as: the need to
establish infrastructure to extend delivery to the very poor; the policy initiative from
government to provide a minimum level of free basic water; inadequate customer management
systems at municipal and metropolitan levels; major legislative and institutional changes;
and many recent revisions in the demarcation of municipal boundaries.
As a public
utility company Rand Water is approaching this challenge in partnership with the Gauteng
Provincial Government, the national Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, and the
Gauteng Association of Local Government, involving every local authority in its supply
area. The Water Wise communication campaign, launched by the partnership in June this
year, is an initiative of the Rand Water sponsored Communications Forum, which is an
industry representative body, and it is supported by a host of other community-based and
non-governmental organisations that are members of this Forum.
Rand Water forums
Rand Water first established a network of communications forums in 1995 when
the province faced severe water shortages after a period of prolonged drought. At that
time the Vaal Dam reportedly held just two weeks worth of water supply for Gauteng, when
the first rains fell to replenish supplies. The Water Services Forum, the Communications
Forum, the Plumbing Forum, the Horticulture Forum, were just some of the structures set up
to enable collaboration amongst water users and water services providers and suppliers.
The Water Wise brand was then created as a platform for a range of water conservation
activities. It encompasses water saving and water quality related programmes as well as
wetland rehabilitation projects, the clearing of alien invasives, and other similar
initiatives. The founding philosophy of the Water Wise forums: izandla ziyagezana – a
Zulu concept which translates as ‘one hand washes the other’ – has been
developed in all the Water Wise programmes that have followed since the initial launch.
The Water Wise
programme
The current Water Wise initiative is primarily an information and educational
campaign aimed at facilitating a sustainable shift in the attitudes of all stakeholders in
order to encourage and support a Water Wise society. It encompasses the entire water
cycle, from supply, through usage, to wastewater treatment, and focuses on six key
subjects.
*
The value of water
promotes respect for water as a precious resource.
*
Free Basic Water
explains the proposed policy to supply 6 000l of water, free of charge, to poor
households, and the implications for individual households in different municipal areas.
*
Reducing water wastage
promotes ways to use water wisely and to limit wasteful consumption.
*
Water Quality and
Pollution Prevention tackles issues such as litter, illegal dumping and the release of
wastewater or sewage into clean water systems, also presenting the health risks associated
with these problems.
*
Sanitation and Hygiene
for Health also looks at water-borne diseases such as cholera and the relationship between
clean water and good health.
*
Payment for services
further promotes the recognition of water as a valuable resource that needs to be paid for
if it is to be supplied on an equitable and sustainable basis.
“We are
looking at long-term horizons,” says De Villiers. “We recognise that this will
not be a quick-fix solution. We cannot enforce a mindshift overnight. The programme is
aimed at educating individuals, school children and adults, everyone from the meter reader
to the mayor.
“We
have chosen to pursue this educational route, in a social marketing campaign, for a number
of reasons. One is that it has been shown that South Africa does not have a strongly
law-abiding society – so legislation would probably not be able to make the
difference that we are seeking to make.
“Furthermore,
people are more inclined to observe the law if they understand and appreciate the reasons
for it. There is a great need for information, resources, guidance and motivation in what
is an under-capacitated water industry, as well as amongst the communities.
“This
approach also promises greater social sustainability. Adults learning about water now will
teach their children and their communities, school children will teach their parents and,
in time, will teach their own children the same important lessons.”
The Water
Wise campaign will begin to provide a common base of resource materials for communicating
the Water Wise message, “We need to build community awareness of the value of clean
water as a foundation for all water and sanitation related concerns. This will begin the
process of cultural change.”
The Water
Wise communications materials have been developed in a number of different formats so that
they can be used on various communications platforms, such as in direct mail distribution,
in public presentations, community workshops or school lessons.
One of the
key messages is that by being Water Wise in the home, you save money not only on water but
also on electricity and sewage bills, and assist in protecting the environment. Numerous
suggestions are given on how to save water. Methods of metre reading and leak fixing are
prominent. In addition, Rand Water has set up a programme to train a number of school
pupils, in different communities, on how to fix leaks. The campaign presents a range of
simple and low cost means of reducing consumption, as well as opportunities for reusing
water in the home and in the garden.
By providing
information and ideas and promoting water efficient products and practices, the campaign
encourages a shift towards Water Wise behaviour. The aim is to establish a Water Wise
society in Gauteng.
Water supply to the
greater Gauteng area
Rand Water has been the sole bulk water supplier to Gauteng since 1903 when it
was formed – then as the Rand Water Board – to transfer water some 70km from the
Vaal River to serve the mines and associated industrial and social development on the
Reef. Over time, the utility has grown and adapted to meet the needs of a growing
population and expanding economy.
The Water
Services Act of 1997 has enabled Rand Water to expand its activities into other water
related services markets so that it now can compete in undertaking water and sanitation
contracts at municipal level. It remains a public utility, not for profit, and is run on
business principles. It does not receive government funding but finances its capital
infrastructure by issuing long-term loan stock and taking up institutional loans, while
daily operational expenditure is financed by the sale of water.
Rand Water’s
supply area, which it defines as Greater Gauteng, extends beyond the borders of the
province and encompasses three metropolitan areas and 13 municipalities.
Metropolitan areas
Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni (an amalgamation of nine former East Rand
councils) Municipalities, Mogale (formerly Krugersdorp), Randfontein, Westonaria,
Merafong, Emfuleni, Metsimaholo (Free State), Ngwathe (Free State), Mid-Vaal, Lesedi,
Highveld East (Mpumalanga), Delmas (Mpumalanga), Nokeng Tsa Taemane (on the border of
Gauteng and Mpumalanga), Rustenburg (North West Province)
In addition,
Rand Water has established public-public retail management contracts in the Odi region
near Pretoria, encompassing the Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa, Winterveld and Eastern District
Councils, as well as in Maluti a Phofung (the former Harrismith Transitional Local
Council) in the Free State. |
