Economic growth, ecological modernization or environmental justice? Conflicting discourses in post-apartheid South Africa

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 33-61

  Bond, Patrick ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ECONOMIC GROWTH; ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE; ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY;

SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 0034007540     PISSN: 10455752     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10455750009358896     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (56)

1. For a sample of recent books that document the transition from a critical perspective, see P. Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2000a); H. Marais, South Africa: The Political Economy of Transformation (London: Zed, 1998); M. Mayekiso, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa (New York: Monthly Review, 1996); and M. Murray, Revolution Deferred (London: Verso, 1994).
2. For a sample of recent books that document the transition from a critical perspective, see P. Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2000a); H. Marais, South Africa: The Political Economy of Transformation (London: Zed, 1998); M. Mayekiso, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa (New York: Monthly Review, 1996); and M. Murray, Revolution Deferred (London: Verso, 1994).
3. For a sample of recent books that document the transition from a critical perspective, see P. Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2000a); H. Marais, South Africa: The Political Economy of Transformation (London: Zed, 1998); M. Mayekiso, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa (New York: Monthly Review, 1996); and M. Murray, Revolution Deferred (London: Verso, 1994).
4. For a sample of recent books that document the transition from a critical perspective, see P. Bond, Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa (London: Pluto Press, 2000a); H. Marais, South Africa: The Political Economy of Transformation (London: Zed, 1998); M. Mayekiso, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa (New York: Monthly Review, 1996); and M. Murray, Revolution Deferred (London: Verso, 1994).
5. Such "discourses" are explained in D. Harvey, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996), Chapter 13; and in relation to South African environmental legislation, in P. Bond and R. Stein, "Competing Discourses of Environmental and Water Management in Post-Apartheid South Africa," in W. Wehrmeyer and Y. Mulugetta, eds., Growing Pains: Environmental Management in Developing Countries (London: Greenleaf Publications, 1999)
6. Such "discourses" are explained in D. Harvey, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1996), Chapter 13; and in relation to South African environmental legislation, in P. Bond and R. Stein, "Competing Discourses of Environmental and Water Management in Post-Apartheid South Africa," in W. Wehrmeyer and Y. Mulugetta, eds., Growing Pains: Environmental Management in Developing Countries (London: Greenleaf Publications, 1999)
7. Cited in the Economist, February 8, 1992.
8. Republic of South Africa, The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, Cape Town, sections 24.a, 27.1, 24.b, 25.1, 1996.
9. For more details on content, see P. Bond, "Basic Infrastructure for Socio-Economic Development, Ecological Sustainability and Geographical Desegregation: South Africa's Unmet Challenge," Geoforum, 30, 1, 1999a; P. Bond, Cities of Gold, Townships of Coal: Essays on South Africa's New Urban Crisis (Trenton: Africa World Press, Part Two, 2000b) ; and P. Bond, G. Dor and G. Ruiters, "Transformation in Infrastructure Policy, from Apartheid to Democracy: Mandates for Change, Continuities in Ideology, Frictions in Delivery," in M. Khosa and Y. Muthien, eds., infrastructure for Reconstruction in South Africa (Pretoria, Human Sciences Research Council and London: Ashgate Press, 1999).
10. For more details on content, see P. Bond, "Basic Infrastructure for Socio-Economic Development, Ecological Sustainability and Geographical Desegregation: South Africa's Unmet Challenge," Geoforum, 30, 1, 1999a; P. Bond, Cities of Gold, Townships of Coal: Essays on South Africa's New Urban Crisis (Trenton: Africa World Press, Part Two, 2000b) ; and P. Bond, G. Dor and G. Ruiters, "Transformation in Infrastructure Policy, from Apartheid to Democracy: Mandates for Change, Continuities in Ideology, Frictions in Delivery," in M. Khosa and Y. Muthien, eds., infrastructure for Reconstruction in South Africa (Pretoria, Human Sciences Research Council and London: Ashgate Press, 1999).
11. For more details on content, see P. Bond, "Basic Infrastructure for Socio-Economic Development, Ecological Sustainability and Geographical Desegregation: South Africa's Unmet Challenge," Geoforum, 30, 1, 1999a; P. Bond, Cities of Gold, Townships of Coal: Essays on South Africa's New Urban Crisis (Trenton: Africa World Press, Part Two, 2000b) ; and P. Bond, G. Dor and G. Ruiters, "Transformation in Infrastructure Policy, from Apartheid to Democracy: Mandates for Change, Continuities in Ideology, Frictions in Delivery," in M. Khosa and Y. Muthien, eds., infrastructure for Reconstruction in South Africa (Pretoria, Human Sciences Research Council and London: Ashgate Press, 1999).
12. Department of Constitutional Development, Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework, Pretoria, 1997, p. 2.
13. Ministry of Reconstruction and Development, Urban Development Strategy, Pretoria, 1995, pp. 24-25.
14. Ministry of Reconstruction and Development, Urban Infrastructure Investment Framework, Pretoria, 1995, p. 54.
15. African National Congress, The Reconstruction and Development Programme (Johannesburg: Umanyano Publications, 1994), sections 2, 6, 7, 8. and 10.
16. J. Roome, "Water Pricing and Management," World Bank Presentation to the SA Water Conservation Conference, Johannesburg, October 2, 1995, pp. 50-51.
17. World Bank, South Africa: Country Assistance Strategy (Washington, DC: Annex C, 1999), p. 5. In addition to telling Asmal to drop proposals for a free lifeline tariff and rising block tariffs, Roome's power-point presentation included the following advice: Asmal must ensure both urban and rural municipalities establish a "credible threat of cutting service" to non-paying residents; he should be "very careful about irrigation for 'previously disadvantaged' South Africans;" and instead the "key lies in voluntary solutions -trading water rights," assuming that emergent black farmers could compete financially with the larger (and historically-subsidized) white commercial enterprises.
18. For details see P. Bond, 1999a, op. cit. Aspects that have been researched in South Africa and elsewhere include pit latrine-related pollution of surface and ground water, and public health improvements that come from higher-level sanitation. In the case of surface water, point and non-point source pollution from dense urban settlement mean that many urban streams and rivers do not meet effluent standards established by the government. Surface water contains large concentrations of bacterial contaminants, organic silt, and nutrients, along with toxins and oil, which in turn kill off aquatic life in urban streams and pollute the major raw water supply reservoirs. Typical water-treatment plants are ill-equipped to adequately purify the increasingly polluted water. In addition, while groundwater remains three to five times cheaper to develop than surface water sources, pollution to aquifers is difficult to clean up. Amongst key pollutants are solid waste dumps, leaking underground storage tanks, fertilizers and pesticides, but in addition the lack of sanitation in informal settlements has had a major adverse impact on groundwater in many parts of South Africa. In addition, lack of water access is associated with higher rates of cholera, malaria, dengue, filariasis, yellow fever, and tuberculosis. In particular, diarrheal disease (which is responsible for almost a quarter of deaths amongst black and colored South African children between 1 and 4 years of age) has been attributed to primary risk factors including the absences of an inside tap, a flush toilet in the home, a refuse receptacle, and electricity, as well as low household income and lower than Standard Five maternal education. The difference between a flush toilet and pit latrine is estimated to account for a 20 percent difference in diarrhea prevalence. Costs associated with pollution and public health have been estimated, and outweigh the slight additional capital costs of installing indoor plumbing and adding sewage treatment capacity, in comparison to ventilated-improved pit latrine construction. However, it must also be said that the case for more general conversion of sanitation systems from water-borne to solid-waste/composting is increasingly compelling, given sanitary technological advances in Scandinavia, the U.S. and elsewhere. The immediate issue in South Africa, however, is whether neoliberal (not "natural resource") constraints lower the quality of life of the black majority, or whether a level of equality can be achieved in terms of at least a common universal lifeline supply of water and electricity to meet daily needs (entailing a tiny fraction -less than 5 percent if achieved -of total water and electricity usage). 13 Although a minor amount more environmentally-destructive generating capacity would be needed in the long-term (because during the 1990s there was typically 30 percent excess capacity due to 1980s overbidding), the benefits of a universal supply of basic household electricity far outweigh environmental and economic costs. Increased household electricity would result in diminished air pollution from coal and wood fires, diminished fuelwood collection, and a variety of public health improvements. Some of these costs (such as indoor air pollution) are limited to households, while others (deforestation, pollution caused by burning coal in urban neighborhoods) are externalities that society as a whole pays for. Electricity also protects biodiversity, aesthetics, and visibility. In the field of public health, South African studies suggest that a universal supply of electricity would curtail more than 3,000 deaths each year due to acute respiratory infection (caused by wood/coal burning), burns, and paraffin poisoning. (See ibid.)
19. WorId Bank, World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 20
20. In late 1996, government's main infrastructure bureaucrat was challenged in the press about his failure to adopt the RDP provision that services such as electricity and water should be cross-subsidized. Alusaf, the big aluminum plant in Richard's Bay, for instance, received electricity at roughly $0.003 per kilowatt hour while rural consumers often paid as high as $0.08. The bureaucrat's response, to the Mail and Guardian (November 22, 1996) was simply, "If we increase the price of electricity to users like Alusaf, their products will become uncompetitive and that will affect our balance of payments."
21. This section represents a summary of S. Hosking and P. Bond, "Infrastructure for Spatial Development Initiatives or for Basic Needs? Port Elizabeth's Prioritization of the Coega Port/IDZ over Municipal Services," in M. Khosa and Y. Muthien, eds., 1999, op. cit..
22. For a history see J. Robinson, The Power of Apartheid: State Power and Space in South African Cities (Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996).
23. Institute for Development Planning and Research, "The Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage Socio-Economic Development Monitor 1997," Port Elizabeth, 1997, pp. 8, 11-13.
24. Bay Public Relations, "Coega Construction Expected to Start Soon," Press release, Port Elizabeth, April 5, 1998.
25. R. Fuggle, "Review of Documentation Pertaining to Coega IDZ Initiative," for Eastern Cape Citrus Forum, Port Elizabeth, July 14, 1997.
26. CEN, Integrated Environmental Management, Environmental Impact Report on a Proposed Harbour in the Vicinity of Coega, Port Elizabeth, June 11, 1997, p. 253.
27. B. Geach, "The Addo Elephant National Park as a Model of Sustainable Land Use through Ecotourism," M Se. Dissertation, University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth, 1997.
28. M. McGrath and C. Horner, "An Economic Valuation of the South African Linefishery," Paper presented to the EBM Research Conference, University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth, November, 27-28, 1996.
29. T.H. Wooldridgc, N.T. Klages and M.J. Smale, "Proposed Harbour Development at Coega (Feasibility Phase): Specialist Report on the Near-Shore Environment," Report commissioned by the Coega IDZ Section 21 Company, Port Elizabeth, 1997.
30. African Environmental Solutions, Proposed Eastern Cape Zinc Refinery and Associated Phosphoric Acid Plant: Final Environmental Impact Report, Report for the Coega Authority, Cape Town, May, 1997, pp. 178, 180.
31. Ibid., pp. 175, 178, 180.
32. T.H. Tietenberg, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Third Edition (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), p. 512.
33. N.F. Tennille and T.P.G. Le Quesne, "Proposed IDZ and Harbour at Coega: The Issues," Unpublished paper circulated by Southern Africa Environment Project, Port Elizabeth, 1997.
34. K. Katsouyanni, G. Touloumi, C. Spix, J. Schwartz, F. Balducci, S. Medina, G. Rossi, B. Wojtyniak, J. Sunyer, L. Bacharova, J.P. Schouten, A. Ponka, and H.R. Anderson, "Short Term Effects of Ambient Sulphur Dioxide and Particulate Matter on Mortality in 12 European Cities: Results from Time Series Data from the APHEA Project," British Medical Journal, 314, 1997, pp. 1658-1663.
35. Here, contamination occurs through much lower levels, because toxicity levels in plants and soil can accumulate over a period of time. Assuming an estimated 100,000 work days per year are lost due to increased pollutant levels in the environment (valuing each work day at US$11), and adding the transfers of income required to care for the sick (which could easily triple this cost), the total cost of decreased human health per annum could be on the order of US$3.5 million.
36. S. McGillivray and Port Elizabeth Municipality, "Coega Industrial Development Zone Bulk Water Supply Infrastructure Requirements," Report commissioned by the Coega IDZ Section 21 Company, Port Elizabeth, 1997, p. 32.
37. Port Elizabeth already cross-subsidizes other activities from its electricity accounts (in 1997, this amounted to US$12 million in transfers on a budget of $163 million). But given municipal power relations, instead of promoting cross-subsidization from high-use commercial, industrial and residential consumers to low-income consumers, a municipal "Indigence Policy" was adopted in 1997 for households with less than US$80 per month (the level of state pension payouts). The means-tested subsidy applies only to effectively 6kl of water per month, for which, by mid-1998, 19,000 households received full (free) or half subsidy, even though some 55,000 households are estimated to qualify for subsidies. Administrative costs are high, entailing wages of 80 full-time workers who must monitor the policy, and disconnections have risen significantly in the wake of its application (as the Council apparently believes there is increased legitimacy to disconnect those not accommodated for). Not only subsidized water, but unsubsidized electricity accounts are affected by this policy, and during the last three months of 1997 (a representative period), there were 12,698 electricity disconnections (followed by 9,931 reconnections) and 534 water disconnections (with 218 reconnections) (Department of Constitutional Development, "Project Viability Questionnaire #14," Port Elizabeth, 1998, p. 4.)
38. For details, see D. Letsie, and P. Bond, "The Impact of Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects on Basic Needs: The Case of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project," in M. Khosa and Y. Muthien, eds., 1999, op. cit.; and P. Bond, "The Political Economy of Dam Building and Water Supply in South Africa: Contesting the Impact of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project on Johannesburg," forthcoming in D. McDonald, ed., Environmental Justice in South Africa (London: James Currey Press, 2000)
39. For details, see D. Letsie, and P. Bond, "The Impact of Large-Scale Infrastructure Projects on Basic Needs: The Case of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project," in M. Khosa and Y. Muthien, eds., 1999, op. cit.; and P. Bond, "The Political Economy of Dam Building and Water Supply in South Africa: Contesting the Impact of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project on Johannesburg," forthcoming in D. McDonald, ed., Environmental Justice in South Africa (London: James Currey Press, 2000)
40. J. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: "Development, " Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).
41. Business Day, August 5, 1999; Washington Post, September 13, 1999.
42. Business Day, August 5, 1999; Washington Post, September 13, 1999.
43. See K. Horter, "The Mountain Kingdom's White Oil: The Lesotho Highlands Water Project," The Ecologist, 25, 6, 1995 and "Making the Earth Rumble: The Lesotho-South Africa Water Connection," Multinational Monitor, May, 1996
44. See K. Horter, "The Mountain Kingdom's White Oil: The Lesotho Highlands Water Project," The Ecologist, 25, 6, 1995 and "Making the Earth Rumble: The Lesotho-South Africa Water Connection," Multinational Monitor, May, 1996
45. . 37 C.D. Snaddon, et al., "Some Implications of Inter-Basin Water Transfers for River Functioning and Water Resources Management in South Africa," in Group for Environmental Monitoring, ed., Record of Proceedings: Lesotho Highlands Water Workshop, Johannesburg, August 29-30, 1996.
46. Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, The Orange River Project Replanning Study, Pretoria, 1996, p. 4.
47. G. Addison, "Dam It, Let's Pour Concrete," Saturday Star, November 3, 1998.
48. K. Asmal, "Speech to GEM Workshop on Lesotho Highlands Water Project," in Group for Environmental Monitoring, ed., 1996, op. cit., p. 2.
49. R. Archer, Trust in Construction? The Lesotho Highlands Water Project (London: Christian Aid and Maseru, Christian Council of Lesotho, 1996), pp. 58-59.
50. World Bank Inspection Panel, "Lesotho/South Africa: Phase IB of Lesotho Highlands Water Project: Panel Report and Recommendation," Washington, DC, August 19, 1998, p. 81.
51. Roome, "Water Pricing and Management," 1995, op. cit., p. 51.
52. World Bank Inspection Panel, "Panel Report and Recommendation," 1998, op. cit., p. 80.
53. World Bank, "Lesotho: Lesotho Highlands Water Project -Phase IB: Project Appraisal Document," (17727-LSO), R98-106(PAD), Water and Urban 1, Africa Region, Washington, DC, April 30, 1998, p. 18.
54. Ibid., p. 1.
55. World Bank, World Development Report, 1994, op. cit., p. 81.
56. D. Harvey, 1996, op. cit., pp. 400-401.