As a department, we are extremely concerned about the cases of health care risk waste, or medical waste. Medical waste treatment challenges require a multipronged approach which has short- to long-term deliverables. We are developing a health care risk waste policy which will include national standards for the operation of all health care risk waste treatment facilities, including both burning and nonburning technologies.
I am sure you have been following the case of the health care waste battle that was going on. We are working hard so that this should not occur again.
This policy will also identify a process and timeframes for the closure of all noncompliant technologies and the enforcement of these requirements. In order to stimulate health care risk treatment capacity in the country and to ensure that the national health care system is assured of the availability of compliant treatment capacity at all times, a public-private partnership process will be initiated with National Treasury, and we are working with the Department of Health.
On biodiversity, we are going to be hosting the fourth national dialogue on people and parks in August this year. We invite you, and we will still remind you about it and about the venue, because it is important that the management of these parks also benefits the communities that border them. It is, of course, in line with the World Parks Congress Durban Accord.
We also have projects on saving our wetlands, because we all know that wetlands are the lungs that clean our water. We get food and medicine- related products from those wetlands, and we also make a lot of things out of what comes from the wetlands. However, we also always go back to the issue of climate change, which affects not only us, but everyone, everywhere. Even the oceans are affected by the issue of climate change, and the Minister has alluded to that.
We will continue, because we know our poor are the most vulnerable, especially those in the rural areas. We see the extreme flooding that takes place there. We see the extreme drought that causes hunger, because when there is drought, of course, there will not be anything for them to harvest. So in all these problems and programmes that are there, we appeal to you to be part of them, and we will work together.
We are also working tirelessly. We worked tirelessly during 2009 to establish women and environment forums in the nine provinces. The 2010 Women and Environment Conference will serve as a platform to finalise provincial consultations. That will take place in August this year, when all the provinces will be reporting back. We will see how far we have gone in terms of the women and the environmental challenges that we, as women, face.
We will be focusing on enhancing the role of South African women in leveraging economic opportunities from the ecosystem services.
Hon members, this is our game plan for the financial year. I would like to thank all of you and the Minister, the director-general, and the staff in both departments, who work tirelessly in order to make it happen. We appeal to you to allow us to work together. Let us look at our surroundings, where we come from, at all the challenges that are there, and at these programmes to make it happen. All of us can make it happen. I thank you.