Chairperson, I have to say to the Minister that I have been highly impressed, and I hope he has too, by the high standard of speeches that we have heard here today. It really encourages one for the future. I want to say to the Minister that we too wish to be responsible and wise custodians of our God-given environment. We wish to promote policy that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet those needs, that is, the principle of sustainability.
We need not only a vision that is shared and pursued by all inhabitants of all the provinces, but also a vision which is understood and supported at every level of society. How do we achieve these lofty goals? Unless ordinary people buy into the lofty intentions we have, there is not going to be sustainable environmental protection. We feel the shortcoming on the development agenda is that we are dealing with functional and physical considerations only, and that we are ignoring too much in a real sense the norms, values and ethics which should underpin and uphold our environment.
Having identified and agreed on these norms, values and ethical standards where possible, we need to link them to the Constitution. Two of these values are democratic representivity and the inclusion of the individual, the community and the local area in the planning process and sustainability. Through effective communication and education, we need to disseminate those shared norms and values to the whole nation so that everybody can identify with them, because if they do not seek to do that and feel that these things have no meaning, value or relevance to them, they will become alienated and the environment will become an object of envy. Finally, the public benefit of good environmental management needs to be understood by everybody, the public and the Government alike. Tourism is a wonderful thing, but if it is to be promoted and encouraged - and I congratulate the Minister on what he is doing in outsourcing and privatising as these are wonderful things - we cannot have a new apartheid between hard-currency visitors, who come to wonder at our pristine and natural areas, and those of us in our own country who are left out because they cannot afford access to that environment. I am echoing what several of our colleagues, such as Ms Metcalf and others, have said.
We, all of us, must not become commercially excluded in our own country. A balance has to be struck and access ensured for all South Africans. Access is absolutely vital. We also need to find together those norms, values and ethics that should underlie our wish to preserve and conserve our environment for all our people. So we need to identify with what we find - the norms and values that we find together - to communicate, to educate, and finally, to experience our environment, and understand and feel the benefits of the wild stewardship that the God-given environment brings.
Finally, may I say to the Minister - and I do not want to be flippant about this - that if he and his colleagues can halve the crime rate, they will double the tourism intake in this country. [Applause.]