Deputy Chairperson, Minister Sonjica, members and colleagues, thank you. I am speaking on behalf of the Western Cape MEC for local government, environmental affairs and development planning, Anton Bredell. Let me also convey his best wishes to Minister Sonjica with the deployment of her budget in the coming year.
There needs to be a balance between the care and protection of the environment versus the need for socioeconomic planning. As we know, change is the only constant. How well we adapt to change in our environment will define our success.
The primary question we need to ask ourselves is: What are we doing now to ensure that our future generations enjoy the very same scenic beauty and resources of this province that we have been experiencing?
Our Constitution requires that we should administer reasonable legislation and enforce measures that will prevent pollution and ecological ruin. We also need to promote conservation. However, this must be accomplished by securing ecologically sustainable development, while using the natural resources to promote justifiable economic and social development.
Mark Twain once said that -
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
We are an administration tasked by the citizens of the Western Cape to deliver on high expectations. If we do not commit to realising those expectations, we will be committing a serious injustice and in years to come, speak more of disappointments than of effective service delivery.
The Minister's stance communicated through her initial budget speech was that most major threats to our natural systems were from human activities. That is still standing. Effectively maintaining the balance between caring for the environment and socioeconomic development becomes more challenging due to the rapid development of the Western Cape, and other resource-use inefficiencies evidently resulting in environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.
The Minister painted a picture for the House: any increase in the repetition and intensity of extreme weather conditions will definitely have a negative impact on our provincial economy; the province is currently experiencing climate change, meaning drier conditions on top of increasing economic challenges and an increase in population; and the fact that research indicated that the southwestern corners of the three continents in the southern hemisphere will be most influenced by climate change. The Western Cape is one of those corners.
Our destiny is coupled to biodiversity. We depend on this diversity to supply us with food, fuel, medicine and other services. However, our rich biodiversity is challenged and it is being lost at a very fast pace, due to human activities. The key question is twofold: What does this mean for the Western Cape citizen, and what are we planning to do as an administration to address the effects, which will impact on the lives of future citizens and communities?
Agricultural practices are dependent on the utilisation of the three major natural resources, namely land, water and climate. If any of those three resources were threatened, the negative impact would cause food insecurity, migration to towns, increased unemployment and a reduction in foreign earnings.
According to MEC Bredell, a major consideration is progressive population increase due to migration. That significantly impacted on waste management throughout the province, while consumption was linked to economic growth. Waste generation was growing at an alarming rate, estimated at 7% per annum while the population increased by between 3% and 4% per annum.
Inappropriate spatial planning, as well as a lack of suitable land and time- consuming applications for permits and increased waste generation are all strengthening this situation of pressure on our biodiversity. Unacceptable levels of air, land and water pollution further exacerbate this pressure.
Our vision drives our efforts, but it is a fact that the wide scope of environmental management, coupled with typically compartmentalised government organisational structures, policies and legislation will always pose challenges both at provincial and national levels. Translating this vision means that we should come face to face with fragmentation of environmental management and land-use control functions and legislation; unclear areas of jurisdiction; limited integration of functions between levels of government; and limited funding and some perverse incentives and systems that are not conducive to achieving solutions to strategic challenges.
The budget allocation for the Western Cape, Vote No 9, was nearly R305 million. That amount was divided between CapeNature, which received R160 million and the department of environmental affairs and developmental planning, which received R144 million.
I would like to talk about renewable energy. We are facing continuous electricity supply constraints and the threat of energy insecurity affects us all. The Western Cape is the first province to formulate a climate change strategy and action plan from which flowed the sustainable energy strategy and action plan. The provincial department has also developed a White Paper on Sustainable Energy. A submission to Cabinet on the White Paper has been drafted and will be gazetted after approval by the provincial cabinet.
The White Papers, together with the draft sustainable energy Bill for the province were all aligned with national policy. It was our aim to fight climate change by reducing our carbon footprint, fight poverty through access to energy and the creation of green jobs and ultimately have energy security. An immediate impact on the communities of the Western Cape has already been achieved by the deployment of 1 300 solar water geysers, which have been rolled out in various low-income communities.
That service also created many jobs and provided skills to most of our community members. They can use their skills in securing employment outside of the provincial government. We are also looking at the development of wind farms and spatial plans to indicate where the excellent platforms for wind generation of power are situated.
In terms of spatial planning, we are also looking at the densification of settlements rather than the lateral development, typical of private enterprise. We are of the opinion that the developmental needs of the present generation should be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In this regard, we will be looking at ecological integrity, social equity and economic welfare, and we will also nationalise the legal aspects attached to development.
The Land Use Planning Act, Lupa, process inclusive of extensive municipal and public participation, will proceed as a high priority throughout the year. In 2011 Lupa's aim will be to have an integrated planning law in the Western Cape which will supplant all other regulations. Currently, we are busy drafting the Act together with the municipalities to ensure that it will be constitutional. This Act aims for only one application, one public participation process, one decision and one appeal.
We are also facilitating the development of a spatial development framework and plans for municipalities in line with the provincial spatial developmental framework. One of the most important components of this is planning for public transport, which will have to play a much more significant role in structuring settlements in future. Key to the province's vision of an open opportunity society for all is the provision of an enabling environment for shared and integrated, sustainable development. In this regard, the municipalities of the Western Cape are playing a key role and the province will be supporting them as far as possible. We have an integrated unit in the department, which will support municipalities.
CapeNature is a very important component of the department. Ecotourism is one of the main thrusts of CapeNature. They are going to receive dedicated, earmarked funding of R20 million for the implementation of the organisation's strategic action plan to develop new products.
Despite an extremely difficult operational environment in the biodiversity area, CapeNature is the custodian of one of only six floral kingdoms in the world, and is responsible for the world's three biggest conservation hotspots.
CapeNature is also the custodian of the water catchment areas of the Western Cape. We saw its role in Working on Fire and Working for Water in the creation of jobs as extremely significant.
They are looking at a total of 262 500 days' work for the coming year and 2 626 job opportunities. They are also very involved in youth development, and this has been elevated to the status of one of their main strategic objective thrusts. In this respect they are very involved with the National Youth Service programme. I thank you. [Applause.]