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dam-l Cape Town declaration on water issues/LS
The following was sent to us by NGOs in Cape Town planning a Day of Action
event on water issues.
10 March 2000
Att: Kent Morkel
Chairperson of the Executive Committee
Cape Metropolitan Council
Cape Town
MEMORANDUM: WATER ISSUES
The people of Cape Town speak out in Water Week and on the
International Day of Action against Dams for Rivers, Water and Life.
We the people of Cape Town and representative bodies of civil society
demand through co-operative governance and participatory decision-making
the following issues be acknowledged and addressed by the Cape Metropolitan
Council:
An Integrated Approach to Water Resource and Catchment Management
The current catchment management approach lacks integration and real
participation of civil society. We demand integration on a number of levels
from integration of land use (spatial) planning and environmental planning
to integration of water / sanitation / drainage provision and water
management, so that the integrity of water resources can be maintained
while providing for basic needs. In this way, wetlands would not have to
make way for roads, rivers do not have to be used as sanitation facilities,
and homes do not have to crack-up from being built in flood planes.
Public Participation in Water Resource Management
The technocratic approaches to water management used in the past have
failed. They have failed in that they have not taken into consideration the
needs and desires and experiences of the communities which they serve.
Community experience must be integrated into the management structures and
implementation plans. This means ensuring that the management structures
and plans accommodate community dynamics that is in antithesis to the
narrow technocracy of the engineers and bureaucrats that have traditionally
managed our water for us. We need officials and technical people to manage
with us, NOT for us. Community meetings after working hours, safe venues,
safe transport, time constraints etc should all be folded into the mix to
ensure that our water resources sustain us into the future.
Water Demand Management and Water Conservation
Current consumption patterns by municipalities, industry, agriculture and
wasteful households are unsustainable. Water conservation and demand
management (WC&DM) holds tremendous potential to help our region meet its
water needs. In South Africa, for example, it is estimated that nearly
half of urban water is wasted through water loss or inefficiency.
Similarly, irrigation in Southern Africa, which represents 69 percent of
total consumption, is estimated to be less than 50 percent efficient. If
irrigation practices could be made only 10 percent more efficient across
the region, 2.5 billion cubic meters would be saved each year. If urban
water use across the region could be made only 10 percent more efficient,
more than 600 million cubic meters would be saved each year. Together
these savings would provide enough water to supply every person in the
region who is currently unserved by water services with more than 100
litres per day. Clearly, effective implementation of water conservation
and demand management practices could go a long way toward solving the
region's water troubles. In the past WC&DM initiatives have been
considered only as strategies associated with environmental or drought
response which often led to inefficient water supply planning. We demand
more resources be set aside for water demand management and water
conservation as opposed to the millions set aside for the construction of
dams, that WC&DM become part of the water resource planning process and
that water wasters pay the real costs of water.
Continuous bias of government planners towards the building of large dams
Dams are not sustainable, are not economical and are not ethical: We
protest the continuous bias of government planners towards the building of
large dams which employ their engineers and costs many millions of
taxpayers money, and are needed to water the golf courses and gardens of
the Cape elite. In their wake, dams destroy river systems, reduce
biodiversity and environmental health, promote wasteful and inefficient
water use systems, increase the divide between rich and poor and exacerbate
the problem of third world debt. Instead, we call for socially just water
pricing strategies, removal of alien plants, fixing leaking taps,
restructuring the economic system to prioritise sustainable solutions and
an ethos of respect for the natural resource base as a legacy for our
children's children
Privatisation of Water
We believe that water, as a basic human right and contributor to all
aspects of human life, cannot be sold off to the highest bidder. Water is
and must remain a public good. It should, within the sustainable
development context, be needs and not profit driven.
Lifeline water tariffs to the poor and access to basic services and
infrastructure
Still there are many of our people who do not have access to clean water,
basic sanitation and storm-water drainage, leading to not only a current
lowering in our quality of life but unintended impacts on the environment
and its ability to sustain our future generations. We believe that water
is a basic right and therefore demand that a better tarrifing system be
implemented where the poor have free water and the luxury users pay for
their excessive use. We believe that it is within our constitutional and
environmental rights to have access to sanitation and sewerage removal so
that the water resources (underground and surface) near our homes can add
to our quality of life by acting as recreational assets rather than the
health hazards they now present.
Conservation of our disappearing Wetlands
It is estimated that more than 50% of our national wetlands have been
destroyed or radically altered. Cape Town has not been less guilty than
the rest of the country in contributing to this rate and has emphasised
wetland management over conservation. The result is a web of unsightly,
polluted and hydrologically dysfunctional canals. Small wetlands are seen
as expendable obstacles to roads, shopping malls and office blocks, their
seasonality is compromised and their complex benefits wilfully
misunderstood by the authorities. The CMC's policy of hard engineering
"solutions" needs to be seriously re-evaluated. We are absolutely opposed
to wetlands of any shape or size being sacrificed to the needs of industry
and development. Apart from their natural habitat aspect they are also
crucial in the mitigation of floods and droughts to which Southern Africa
is clearly prone.
Pollution of our water bodies such as rivers and wetlands
The reluctance of local government to allocate sufficient resources to stop
effluent discharge into our rivers and vleis has led to increased health
hazards, loss of livelihoods and dead rivers. We need proper implementation
of the new water and environmental legislation, better monitoring and
strict enforcement of regulations. Polluters must pay including the
municipalities who use our rivers as open sewers. Resources must be
allocated to support people in becoming river- and vlei keepers.
Signed
Children's Resources Centre (CRC), Durbanville Environment Forum, Earthlife
Africa-Cape Town, Ensure Viable Environment (EVE), Environmental Monitoring
Group (EMG), Eyethu Environmental Forum, Illitha Lomso, Khayelitsha Speech
and Drama (KSD), Masifundisane Cultural Group, Phillipi Youth Forum, South
African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), Thandabantu, Two Oceans Aquarium,
Tsoga Environmental Resources Centre and the Wildlife and Environment
Society : Western Cape (WESSA:WC).
Cc
Department of Water Affairs and Forestry
Att: Rasheed Khan
Fax: 021 946 366
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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