THE N2 TOLL –KILLING THE GOLDEN GOOSE?

Val Payn

Communications

Save the Wild Coast campaign

Those who follow the debate revolving around the N2 Wild Coast Toll road and dune mining proposed for the Wild Coast will have realized that the key issue is not whether ‘development’ should take place or not, but about how ‘development’ should take place. The crux of the debate is how scarce natural resources can be used to bring benefits to human populations, without endangering the future of those limited natural resources.

In a broader context it is a debate that is taking place in various ways throughout the world, fuelled by the realisation that natural resources are becoming crucially scarce. There can be no doubt that human quality of life is intimately bound to the quality of the environment. To think otherwise is delusional. Humans are not separate from the natural systems of the Earth, but very much a part of them. The degradation and irreversible destruction of natural resources invariably leads to a poorer quality of human life.

Unfortunately, in a world where money equates with influence, and influence with political power, so called ‘Greenies’ have often been given a bad press. Those who want no constraints over what they term ‘development’ have derided ‘Greenies’ as being ‘radical’, ‘out of touch with modern reality’, ‘alarmist about the future’, ‘living in the past’, ‘insensitive to the needs of local people’, ‘opposed to job creation’, ‘opposed to wealth creation’, ‘wealthy fat cats who put animals above people’, and even ‘lunatic fringe’. Obvious contradictions aside, labels do nothing to engender understanding. They are a convenient form of simplistic propaganda punted by those who want no constraints over what they term ‘development’.

Reality is, that when natural systems are destroyed or threatened, it is the poor who are first in the firing line. When offshore fishing stocks are depleted, it is the subsistence fishermen who are worst affected. If rivers run dry through misuse of water resources, it is the poor subsistence farmer whose family will be the first to starve when his fields can no longer be irrigated. If streams are fouled with pollution, it is the poor who draw their water straight from the source who are the first to fall sick to typhoid, cholera, dysentery and other water borne diseases. If forests are denuded, those subsistence communities that rely on forest resources for natural medicines, supplementary food, wood and building materials are worst affected. If factories spill poison gases into the air and toxic waste into the ground, it is poor communities who face the consequences, those who through economic necessity have to live in the poorer suburbs which are invariably near the ‘industrialized zones’.

Along the Wild Coast, many subsistence communities rely heavily on natural resources, and any degradation of those resources will adversely affect those communities.

Yet when ‘Greenies’ cry about the need to preserve the environment, they are often accused of not being concerned with the human condition!

Modern ‘green’ movements recognise that successful conservation of natural resources depends on developing a symbiotic relationship between people and nature, where both benefit from maintaining a healthy eco –system. This road is often a longer road than the one to instant profit and gratification. It involves an initial investment in building up communities abilities, skills and understanding about how natural systems work. It involves restraint to avoid doing irreversible damage to the environment. It means educating (and sometimes legislating) people to work within a framework that does minimal harm to the environment. It requires acknowledging that some things cannot be valued in monetary terms, but for the benefit of all humanity must to be conserved at all costs.

It is not a road liked by those whose main gaols are short term gains and profits.

But it is a road that can lead to a better quality of life, and one that does not jeopardize the ability of future generations being able to enjoy the benefits of a healthy environment.

Since the 19C ‘Industrial Age’, industrialization has been mooted as essential for progress and the panacea for poverty, and industrial development in the Eastern Cape seems to be the logic driving the N2 and the proposed dune mining. Yet industrial societies are invariably urbanised societies. Rural societies do not necessarily benefit from industrialization. Rural communities only benefit if attention is given to meeting specific rural needs, and rural needs are closely bound to the quality of the environment to the extent that rural societies fail if the natural environment supporting them decays.

Exploitative types of industrialization have lead to a world where the gulf between the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich increases yearly. In a new type of feudalism, wealthy mega corporations gain ever increasing influence over world affairs and policy, while the lot of the poor has scarcely changed since Dickens day. Heavy industrialisation also has its own price. Industrialization can make it difficult for small enterprises and craftsmen to compete in the market. Some jobs are created, but increased machination often means many jobs are also lost. Unless rural needs are met, industrialization can also mean a migration of poverty, where rural people simply move to cities in the hopes of finding work. In the Third World, governments desperate for revenue and under pressure from wealthy sponsors are often reluctant to place constraints on ecologically unsustainable and environmentally destructive development practices. Where environmental legislation is on place, Third World countries often do not have the resources for adequately policing to ensure compliance with legislation.

Is it ‘development’ when communities, sold promises about wealth, are cajoled off life- sustaining lands to make way for mining concessions where they see but a pittance of the wealth but have their lives and livelihoods forever altered? And where most of the profits generated are shipped to foreign shores? What sort of ‘progress’ is being made if it means children will be at increased risk of asthma and cancer from polluted air from metals smelters?

Where is the logic in building a new road through delicate wilderness to serve cities when existing roads to rural villages and towns are in bad need of repair?

The debate is further complicated by those who insist that a monetary value has to be placed upon everything. And while this measure of ‘value’ might be of some use to economists, most people will agree that some things cannot be valued. How can one put a value on clean air, clean water, wilderness, the value of an ant, a butterfly? A painting is simply a splodge of various pigments onto paper. But some paintings sell for millions of dollars because people recognise that the value of a great work of art does not lie in the materials out of which it is created, but in the way it portrays life. A great work of art can change the way we view and experience the world.

So the value of a pristine environment cannot be abstracted into the value of its separate components, because its value to the human condition is so much more, that it is immeasurable. If this is not so, why do city dwellers flock to ‘green belts’, parks and beaches come weekends? Why do flat dwellers grow window boxes and pots full of plants? Why is the most valuable real estate always that which lies just outside built up city limits?

As the natural resources of the world shrink, unspoilt natural areas like the Wild Coast become increasingly valuable (in all meanings of the word) as a draw card for visitors. If properly managed, they become capable of generating vast revenue and many jobs for generations. In the Western Cape, where the Cape Floral Region was last year declared a World Heritage site, revenues from nature based tourism average R6 billion per year. Figures released by the World Bank show eco –tourism in North Eastern Zululand provides in the region of 7 000 jobs and accounts for R415 million of GGP.

In regions like the Wild Coast where one has both poverty and a unique and pristine environment, environmentally sustainable and wise use of natural resources can be the pathway to facilitate community up-liftment. Many fledgling community based eco –tourism ventures are leading the way. But to ensure conservation of that precious environment the path will have to be carefully monitored. Carelessness can all too easily irreparably destroy fragile environments.

Environmentally destructive developments such as dune mining and routing the N2 Toll through the Pondoland centre of Plant endemism might kill the goose that can lay the golden egg while it is still a gosling.