“Under no circumstances whatsoever can an economic process, or interest, be above the reverence of life.”
Manfred A Max-Neef.

This assertion by Chilean ‘barefoot economist’ Manfred Max-Neef was offered as the conclusion to his address to a packed audience at the Gordon Institute of Business Science two years ago, as an overriding principle for what he terms a “trans-disciplinary economics of sustainability”.
The wholesale rejection of the Xolobeni Dune mining proposal by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, as detailed in its recently released evaluation of the EIA and Environmental Management Plan, loudly echoes this principle. To illustrate the above principle Max-Neef told the shocked audience this devastating story. It explains why the Wild Coast Dune Mining saga has become an all consuming focus of my professional and personal life ever since.
“I have never found anyone who disagrees with this principle” he said “but in practice the exact opposite seems to happen – again and again” He then told us that in his home city of Valdivia, the entire population of Black Necked Swans, along with most other birdlife, had just been decimated by the waste effluents from a newly commissioned pulp mill, which flowed into the Crucus River and the Carlos Andwanter Nature Sanctuary.
“The pulp mill, supposedly an economic investment of $1,5 billion to create employment in the area, has given menial work to perhaps ten unemployed locals. The other 170 employees are all from elsewhere, and sufficiently skilled to get jobs in other big investment projects” he told us, explaining that the not only had this devastated one of South America’s most biologically outstanding wetlands, decimating its famed population of black-necked swans along with most other birdlife, but the health of the human population has also been affected. What was probably the largest population of black necked swans in South America has been wiped out in less than a year, leaving the local tourism industry with virtually nothing left to offer.
“Some might argue that this is the inevitable cost of progress. But progress surely means that circumstances are better than before. How can any sane person call this progress?” he said.

Response
I wept upon hearing this, and tears well up whenever I recall my visit together with other development practitioners and social workers to Valdivia Chile twelve years ago, as Manfred’s guests. As the Rector (at the time) of the University of Valdivia he had proudly arranged for us to see the wonderful wetland system. The boat trip had taken us through coastal beauty rivalled only by the Wild Coast of South Africa (although Manfred is free to disagree with me on this assessment). He proudly pointed out groups of the Black-necked swans, en route to our mooring on an island restaurant where we happily caroused for the better part of the day.

I learned that in May 1960 Valdivia had suffered the worst earthquake of the 20th century (9.5 on the Richter Scale) which devastated the city. Chile suffered 8 straight days of earthquakes, the last one of which shook the earth for 3 minutes.

But a beneficial effect of the earthquake and accompanying tsunami triggered the sinking and flooding of extensive areas surrounding the Cruces River. These were progressively colonized by aquatic plants and riparian vegetation, creating different habitat types that were home to a diverse complement of water birds. At least 119 species had been registered for the site.

As Nature had destroyed, so had Nature healed, and the Cruces River system became home to a spectacular abundance of avifauna.

Fascinated by the story, I researched more, and discovered that no less an icon than Charles Darwin happened to find himself in Valdivia when an earlier earthquake had rocked the city two centuries before. His reflection in Voyage of the Beagle bears some meditation.

A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid; — one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced. In the forest, as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the earth tremble, but saw no other effect.

Max Neef’s account of the manmade environmental catastrophe in Valdivia two centuries later, and the absurd economic rationale that had allowed it to happen, made for an extraordinary parallel with the situation on the Pondoland Wild Coast. But for one important difference: the “progress” on offer to the Wild Coast residents – a open cast dune mining scheme to extract heavy minerals to feed and a high speed tolled highway – had yet to pass through EIA approval.

I found the Christmas card Manfred had sent me in December 1999. It pictured a pair of Black-necked swans swimming among the reeds of the Valdivia Nature Reserve, with four newly hatched signets. Manfreds message within the card optimistically said.
“Because we have reached a stage in our human evolution where we know a lot yet understand very little, we have brought into being the most destructive generations of humankind.
Let us, therefore, firmly hope for this year to become the transition from a century of knowledge to a century of understanding.
Very best wishes, happiness, creativity and, above all, understanding, to you and your loved ones.
Manfred”
To console both Manfred and myself, and to create some meaning from the tragedy of dying swans, I pledged there and then to make an absolute and irrevocable commitment to do whatever it required to ensure a similar tragedy did not repeat itself on the Wild Coast.

I was completely unsure how I would fulfil this pledge. As a person of wavering Christian faith it felt like a call to step out of a storm tossed boat and walk on water. But in the ensuing two years I have discovered that just below the surface there are in fact stepping stones – metaphorically speaking. Firmly courageous community members who in fact opposed the mining venture far more vehemently than the ‘greenies’, which pro-mining and pro-toll road propagandists aggressively caricatured as “caring for inconsequential butterflies and plants more than poor people”.

I initially bolstered my motivation by conjuring up Quixotic images of being on a heroic crusade, but soon discovered that the conviction and courage of local residents dwarfed mine by some considerable measure. I pay tribute to them all, for whereas they were vulnerable and isolated, I knew I could always return to the safety and security of my home in Johannesburg…. (perhaps I should rephrase that). I could always return to spend time in the comfort of my home, watching TV or reading with electric lights… (perhaps I should rephrase that again). I could at least hide myself in the anonymity of a northern suburban lifestyle knowing that my neighbours couldn’t disclose my whereabouts to pro-mining bullies intent on intimidating me. (I am ashamed to say my neighbours in Johannesburg hardly know who I am behind the high walls, barking dogs and electric fences that enclose in gated suburbs!)

Rural Reality
Working as a social worker with the community, I found an astonishing depth of conviction at the ‘grassroots’ – residents of the five affected rural communities of Sigidi, Mnyameni, Mntentu, Mphalana and Mtolwana whose lives would be irrevocably disrupted by the mining venture. In early September when over two thousand turned up to welcome the King and Queen of the AmaMpondo, the Executive Mayor of the OR Tambo District Zoleka Capa and a delegation from the Human Rights Commission to a special Imbizo to address community objections and complaints, I feared the worst. It seemed that large numbers of outsiders had been bussed in to swell the pro-mining numbers. Yet, when one speaker after another rose from the audience to state their views and voice their concerns to their King, it was clear that pro-mining voices were very much in the minority, notwithstanding the efforts by pro mining forces to garner popular support by – it must be said – highly questionable means.

Thanks to the combined effect of Her Majesty Queen Sigcau’s firm insistence to “let the people speak”, the neutral but intensely watchful presence of Human Rights Commissioners Zonke Majodina and Tom Mantata, and my suddenly renewed inclination to prayer, the highly tense meeting ended with soaring hope. The remark from veteran Sunday Tribune journalist Fred Kockott, who witnessed the event sitting on the ‘grassroots’ next to me (there were not enough chairs) explained why. “This meeting could be the rebirth of democratic Local Government in this country”.

Although not intended as such, Fred’s insight convinced me that “battle of the dunes” was a certain victory, because the developmental principle of “subsidiarity” was becoming tangible in a very powerful way.

Briefly subsidiarity means all decisions at a ‘higher’ level of governance must be ‘subsidiary’ to decision making processes at a lower level. Insofar as higher authority makes decisions these must aim to ‘subsidise’ local decision making. It is strongly implied in the National Environmental Management Act – hence the insistence on capacitated public participation in EIA processes. The UN espouses the principle and I was even consoled and encouraged to discover the Catholic Church to which I belong goes so far as to state that it is a “moral wrong” for governance decisions to be made in any other way.

The ANC led government also implicitly pays allegiance to ‘subsidiarity’ in its claim to be a “developmental state”. After 18 months of perplexed effort to engage DEAT, DME. The HRC, the SACC, the media, the mining company, their BEE partner Xolco and local residents, I was under no illusions that this was simply another localised community conflict between a cowboy like Aussie Mining exploration company and a defenceless vulnerable rural community.

Winning this battle had to be followed by effort to end the larger war.

DEAT and DME
I refer to the undeclared “war” between the Departments of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and the Department of Mineral and Energy, over their competing claim for final jurisdiction over EIA approvals for mining proposals. DME has asserted that the Mineral and Petroleum Development Resources Act entitles them to decide on EIA and EMP’s in issuing mining licences. DEAT, as custodian of the National Environmental Management Act clearly objected to this, but given the ‘historical disadvantages’ that DEAT Minister Martinus van Schalkwyk brought with him upon his dissolution of the New National Party within the ANC, we all knew he didn’t have much political clout to put Minister Sonjica in her place.

Although the respective ministers recently announced that they had finally agreed on terms that appear to settle the issue in favour of DEAT, there is still an abiding suspicion that it may yet unravel – notwithstanding assurances by Joanne Yawich, Deputy DG for Environmental Quality and Protection in DEAT, that public participation in EIA processes will in no way be weakened by the amendments that now have to be processed to the conflicting and contradictory pieces of legislation (NEMA and the MPRDA). Whatever devils may need to be exorcised in the legislative detail by parliament, I hope that in the squabbling we do not lose sight of Max-Neef’s principle.

Some years ago, when Joanne Yawich was still working for the Gauteng Department of Agriculture Development Environment and Land Affairs (DADEL) we happened to find ourselves in conversation at the birthday picnic of a mutual friend. The conversation turned to the vexing lack of symmetry between National and the nine Provincial Departments as to the partnering of the “environment” portfolio with other functional areas for governance – water, land, forestry, agriculture, economics, tourism, fisheries, etc, which find themselves in different permutations depending on which province one happens to live in.

I suggested why not simply merge them all into one single ministry and call it “The Ministry of Life”. Joanne thought I was joking and laughed it off as “impractical” – dismissing it perhaps as an idea cribbed and adapted from Harry Potter’s “Ministry of Magic”.

But, after two years of intense engagement with the very practical conundrums posed by the Wild Coast dune mining saga, I have another idea for Joanne to apply her keen administrative mind to: an interim step toward the utopian “Ministry of Life”. I believe it is also the necessary solution to the underlying structural problem that inevitably pits DEAT against DME, despite the best intentions of their respective ministers and officials to achieve co-operative governance.

In our era of Global Climate Change and increasingly inconvenient truths, no-one can deny that energy has become very much an ‘environmental affair’. So why not reconfigure the two inherently adversarial national ministries so that energy is handed over to the Minister of Environment. In exchange ‘tourism’ can be handed to the Minister of Minerals.

Conclusion
I hope Joanne laughs again, but takes me more seriously. Lets face it, a Department of Minerals, Mining and Tourism would of course never approve a mining license for a short-term economic activity that exploits non-renewable resources, leaving negative long-term consequences for another sustainable economic activity that has an unlimited life span – eco-tourism.

This insight is straight from DEAT’s report.

Many thanks to DEAT, for at last the HRC has incontrovertible evidence upon which to make a finding on the complaint we lodged alleging that the Xolobeni Dune Mining proposal would amount to a gross violation of the environmental rights of the local residents, defined in Section 24 of our Bill of Rights.

Posted on April 14th, 2008
Filed under: Articles