As a whole we welcome the DFFE’s publishing of the NEMBA Draft National Biodiversity Economy Strategy. We believe it a significant and pragmatic step forward in addressing many of the challenges our natural heritage faces and ensuring the constitutional imperative that our children inherit a healthy ecosystem. As with any policy statement in a diverse country such as ours, it cannot please everyone, but we would encourage persons to consider the detail of what it proposes and whether it has the potential for significantly improving upon the current unsustainable status quo
Terrestrial and marine biodiversity best in the world
South Africa is blessed with terrestrial and marine biodiversity that is of the best in the world. Since humanity’s standing upright hundreds of thousands of years ago we have been dependent on natural resources and “ecosystem services” for our wellbeing. But that ecosystem is now threatened by human activity arising from the lifestyles and economies we have created off the backs of those resources. The science is clear, climate change and biodiversity loss represent an existential threat to human wellbeing. We have to urgently respond to the change by in turn transforming our behaviour and systems to both secure and restore those natural assets and their services that are integral to our survival.
But we are also challenged by the legacy impacts of colonialism and apartheid, and a global capitalist system that privileges the haves and supresses the have-nots through a consumerist orientation. Those systems have resulted in a prevalent conservation model in South Africa that fences off large tracts of lands and criminalises traditional hunting and gathering activities that were integral to many communities livelihoods and cultural practices.
Pragmatic reality
The pragmatic reality too is that South Africa already has a thriving biodiversity “economy”, but much of that happens in the shadows, supporting international criminal networks that have become expert at extracting and transporting high-value natural resources outside of South Africa. Rhino horn, abalone, pangolins, and succulents are amongst the more well-known examples that threaten those species and their habitats. Alongside those criminal activities we have commercial and “legal” exploitative practices of our wild spaces and species that have given rise to canned lion hunting, the lion bone trade, bush meat trade and the breeding of “fashionable” variants such as black impala and golden wildebeest.
None of those serve the integrity of our ecosystems. And of great concern is the unsustainable exploitation of fish stocks and the “gold rush” approach to offshore oil and gas reserves that fundamentally threaten our rich marine biodiversity. As things stand, we are likely to see the African penguin go functionally extinct in our lifetimes due to in the main over-fishing of their food stocks. African penguins are sentinel species, they are indicators of ecosystem health, and the need to conserve them is not because they are cute, but because we have to restore the ecosystems they depend on to do so, and in so doing help ourselves.
Something must be done. Urgently. The status quo is untenable.
Strides forward in public and private spheres
But while destructive practices abound, South Africa has made great strides in both the public and private spheres to secure and restore our biodiversity. There is no doubt that game ranching, private reserves, and conservancies have made a significant contribution to conserving wild spaces and species. There is no doubt that ecotourism generates significant benefits to the overall economy, and that its full potential has not been realised. And for those of us opposed to killing animals, the uncomfortable truth we must face is that trophy hunting and biltong/recreational hunts have made a positive difference to species wellbeing overall in the past. What the hunting fraternity in turn need to face is that consumptive preferences are changing, and South Africa’s wildlife “brand” is threatened by changing perceptions of what is socially acceptable. There may be money in trophy hunting now, but that’s changing rapidly, and we need to be looking at alternatives that have the same effect.
Support of sustainable development, natural justice, and collective stewardship
Guided by our principled support of sustainable development, natural justice, and collective stewardship, WESSA will be submitting extensive comments on the draft strategy. For instance we do not support trade in rhino horn because it leads to the domestication of such species and we lack the necessary governance and policing infrastructure to ensure such trade remains legitimate. We support wholeheartedly the dropping of fences and the creation of wild space corridors, but accept that in specific cases fences are required to keep human-animal conflict to a minimum. We would point to the Babanango Game Reserve and the Tsitsikamma National Park amongst many others as to how conservation and local community beneficiation can work.
We would however caution the drafters of the strategy that seek with good intent to make conservation “pay its way” and reduce the value of our biodiversity to a balance sheet entry. While it may be tempting to show biodiversity’s Rand value, it is in part that thinking that drives the notion that nature is there to solely serve our interests. The strategy may of necessity be focused on the “economy” of biodiversity, but it must form part of a raft of strategies that addresses the non-economic value and approach to our wild spaces and species.
Our ecosystem is a complexity. We are part of nature not separate from it. And it requires all of us, or at least a sufficient majority, to make sure we not only conserve what we have but rethink our relationship with the planet and the diversity of species we share it with. The strategy needs refining, but it is in our view a useful and necessary step forward.
Dr Gary Koekemoer (Chairperson WESSA EGC – Environmental Governance Committee)
Cindy-Lee Cloete (Acting CEO WESSA)
In response to The Sunday Times