In a David and Goliath battle, Biowatch on Tuesday argued its case
in the Constitutional Court against the seed and chemical giant Monsanto.
The 9-year struggle has its origins in an initial application in the Pretoria High Court for information about the planting of genetically modified crops in South Africa. The High Court accepted Biowatch’s right to most of the information it requested, but declined to order the Registrar for Genetic Resources, the Executive Council for Genetically Modified Organisms and the Minister of Agriculture to pay Biowatch’s costs and ordered that Biowatch pay Monsanto’s costs in the case.
Biowatch took the costs orders on appeal to a full bench of the High Court and lost although a minority judgement supported Biowatch. The Supreme Court of Appeal refused to hear the appeal, and so Biowatch’s final step was to approach the Constitutional Court, the highest legal forum in the land.
The eleven Constitutional Court judges heard arguments from Biowatch and Monsanto. The Centre for Child Law and Lawyers for Human Rights, who acted as Friends of the Court, argued that the Biowatch judgment had a chilling effect on litigation by public interest organisations.
During the hearing, the Constitutional Court judges referred to the “path-breaking” nature of the case, stressing the need to apply Constitutional imperatives and to recognise the importance of civil society organisations such as Biowatch in translating environmental and social rights into practice.
Rose Williams, acting Director of Biowatch, said “It was a relief to
get to the Constitutional Court. We felt that our submissions were heard.It has been a long road to the Court and a challenging one for Biowatch.We thank the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) for their support in this case and are hopeful for a positive outcome for public interest
organisations in securing their rights.” For more information, please contact Biowatch acting Director, Rose Williams on rose@biowatch.org.za or 082 435 5812.
Posted on February 23rd, 2009 by Louis
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Dear Editor
The Wild Coast Mallet Award for Fiction
George Monbiot , the widely respected British environmental journalist and social commentator, recently announced that he was putting up a prize for the writer of ‘best climate change fiction’ of the year. This would be awarded to that person who “manages, in the course of 2009, to cram as many misrepresentations, distortions and falsehoods into a single article, statement, lecture, film or interview about climate change.”
Following on Monbiot’s footsteps, we suggest that SANRAL’s Mr. Fanie Van Aardt deserves a ‘Wild Coast Mallet Award for Fiction’ for his statements about the impacts of the N2 Wild Coast Toll road which recently appeared in The Herald article ‘Wild Coast does not need Toll road’.
Mr. van Aardt’s dismisses SWC’s concerns that negative environmental and social impacts of the road will lead to increased poverty, unless the road is accompanied by a regional development plan, as being unfounded and ‘speculative’. As these are the same concerns that are raised in detail in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) specialist reports about social development and environmental impacts, does this mean Mr. Van Aardt also considers the EIA findings to be purely ‘speculative’?
click here to read more
Posted on February 16th, 2009 by Louis
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Guy Rogers ENVIRONMENT & TOURISM EDITOR
RATHER than a profit- driven toll road mega- development, the Wild Coast needs its existing road system and local government capacity improved.
That‘so the view of Sustaining the Wild Coast (SWC), the public participation and conservation NGO spearheading opposition against the Wild Coast N2 toll road project, which has been proposed by the SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral).
The controversial project is aimed at building a high- speed link between Durban and East London, with an 80km section between Port St Johns and Port Edward to be routed through a world-acclaimed botanical mecca.
The project was initially approved in 2004 by Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk, but after considering appeals the minister judged that there were “inappropriate links” between environmental consultants Bohlweki and the consortium of construction companies who were bidding.
He did not quash the project completely, however, and a new EIA was launched in 2006.
It was finished in November last year and the public were given three months, much of it over the Christmas holidays, to comment.
These comments are now sitting with NMA, the public participation consultant, in Johannesburg.
The company could not be reached for comment this week, but correspondence from it reveals that “thousands” of comments have been received.
They are now being collated and will be passed on, with the EIA, to the department of environmental affairs and tourism.
SWC spokesman Val Payn said one of her group‘s concerns was that the issue of tolling had not been considered in the EIA.
This should have included how much the envisaged tariffs would be and how this would affect use of the road, the movement of local communities and the cost of goods, she said.
“It raises the question we have asked from the start, which is: ‘Who is this road for?‘
“The construction and tolling companies and the company that wants to mine the Xolobeni dunes are the only obvious beneficiaries at present.”
The fundamental flaw in the project was that it did not stem from a regional development plan which identified a need and then looked for the best way to meet that need, she said.
“The Wild Coast spatial development initiative published in the late 1990s refers to the need for improved road infrastructure, which no one disputes. But it also says the Pondoland centre of endemism (PCE) should not be damaged.
“Sanral‘s proposed route through the PCE is an unsolicited bid primarily motivated by profit.”
Payn said the context of a regional development plan was a prerequisite for any proper consideration of the project.
Such a plan would include the need to improve government capacity to cope with the increased management and planning pressures that the road would bring.
It was also necessary to explain how the multiplier effects of the road would be controlled and stimulated for maximum benefits, she said.
“Without it, the N2 is liable to result in increasing environmental pressures on sensitive environments, leading to increasing environmental degradation and a spiral of increasing poverty and inequality.
“What the Wild Coast needs is not a toll road, but improved local road infrastructure and much increased capacity-building at local government level.
“Lastly, we need an investment in the development of local human skills and local economies at grassroots level.”
Sanral spokesman Fanie van Aardt dismissed SWC‘s warning that the project would result in environmental degradation and worse poverty if it was not linked to a regional development plan as being “purely speculative”.
“The implementation of the N2 Wild Coast toll highway would indeed assist in the development of local road infrastructure during the construction period and into the operational period,” he said.
“For the Pondoland area, where poverty and unemployment affect countless people, it is the possible catalyst to the improvement of the community lifestyle.”
Van Aardt said tolling had not been considered in the EIA because this was “a separate process which will get under way once the EIA has been approved”.
He said he did not agree that this approach could result in a skewed presentation in the EIA of the costs and benefits of the project.
“The benefits on some parts of the road will be more than on others, but overall the benefits will outweigh the costs.”
The issue of increasing local government capacity and accountability “is beyond the scope of the EIA”, he said.
Environmental affairs and tourism deputy director-general Joanne Yawitch said the department did not comment on EIAs before they had been considered by the government, and a decision was issued.
Once this decision had been issued, there was an opportunity for appeals to be made and these were then considered by the minister, she noted.
Posted on February 10th, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: Articles, Current Issues, Newspaper and Media | No Comments »
Mercury reporter
THE KwaZulu-Natal toll road debate, which was due to take place at 2pm this Thursday, February 5, hosted by The Mercury, has been postponed.
This decision follows an announcement by the national roads agency that it will be unable to participate at this juncture owing, it says, to an impending decision by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
Invited government representatives were also unable to commit themselves to the date. The event will be rescheduled if possible. – Mercury Reporter
Posted on February 3rd, 2009 by Louis
Filed under: Newspaper and Media | No Comments »
