ADDRESS BY THE HONOURABLE
MINISTER OF WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS,
MS BUYELWA SONJICA, MP, AT THE BIODIVERSITY
PROGRAMMES’ LAUNCH AND WORKSHOP
04 December 2009 – Speech
- Department of Environmental Affairs
Programme Director
Director-General: Department of Environmental
Affairs, Ms NN Ngcaba
Chairman of the SANBI Board, Mr Thami Sokutu
CEO of SANBI, Ms T Abrahams
Representatives of the United Nations
Honoured guests
Ladies and Gentleman
Good morning.
It gives me great pleasure
to deliver the opening address at this celebration
entitled: “Biodiversity for Development”.
We are gathered here to publicly launch
three exciting processes that form part
of our preparations for the International
Year of Biodiversity in 2010. Today’s launch
follows the national Biodiversity Information
Management Forum held in Cape Town in June
2009, consulting with stakeholders.
This report recommends
that partners in the environmental sector
investigate the possibilities of ‘green
jobs’ related to climate change action,
as well as other environmental management
and conservation priorities. We must also
work to renew and strengthen the role of
SETAs, to ensure the provision of high-quality
and relevant training and education to meet
sectoral employment and development needs,
whilst unlocking the resources in and intentions
of the system. It is suggested that the
Department of Environmental Affairs should
lead a civil society partnership linked
to the Human Capital Development Strategies
to engage the relevant SAQA partners. I
am pleased that we have started to forge
a closer link with SETA’s and in so doing
work with the Department of Education. I
trust that this will culminate in us influencing
the curriculum to allow environment and
its partner water, to take up their rightful
places in the school and further education
curricula.
Programme Director,
I am encouraged that we have started to
tackle environmental career guidance and
its importance. Finally, we can deal with
the misconception that the environmental
sector is not very attractive to school
leavers and graduates, particularly among
particular groups. One reason could be that
environmental career opportunities are largely
‘hidden’ from view in comparison to occupations
such as law and medicine, and that a few
know about the study and career possibilities
in the field. It is clearly important to
promote the opportunities in the environmental
sector, to encourage adequate numbers of
school leavers to enroll for relevant studies,
and for us as government to create an enabling
environment for all these to happen.
Further, we will need
to ensure that sufficient numbers also qualify
in these fields. Only through our actions
and deeds will we be able to convince all
and sundry that we all need to work for
the good of our planet earth and to do so
we need to invest in human capital in biodiversity
too.
South Africa has ground-breaking
environmental policies, but implementation
is hampered by limited human resources.
We have too few people with the right skills,
or even a mismatch. We need greater capacity
for compliance, but also for innovation
and adaptation, as we chart a new development
course that responds to sustainability issues,
environmental risks and opportunities. Even
more critical is the need for transformation
in the human resources’ base, particularly
to fill research and management positions.
Today is National AIDS
Day and thus it gives us an opportunity
to discuss the global public health, the
role of biodiversity and traditional knowledge.
Medicines derive from nature’s bounty, developed
over time by traditional and indigenous
communities. Again, we have a role to play
in supporting government priority areas
of health. In so doing we shall be addressing
poverty, disease and ensuring improvements
in the quality of life of all the people
in the country. The adoption of a legally
binding international regime on access and
benefit sharing under the Convention on
Biological Diversity is central on this
matter.
As we observe the 16
DAYS of Activism on No Violence against
Women and Children, we are reminded that
hunger and poverty are enemies of human
dignity and women are the primary victims
of hunger and poverty. Action against gender
based discrimination enhances poverty eradication.
We must continue to devise sustainable ways
of looking after women through planning
and greening fields. In the history of indigenous
people, special consideration for the environment
has been the cornerstone of the equilibrium
among men, women, God and nature. This equilibrium
can and must contribute towards providing
a safe place for women and children in our
country.
Ladies and gentlemen,
today we are here to also launch and further
develop two ground-breaking Strategies,
and to announce the development of a significant
publication in the South African biodiversity
sector. These three initiatives collectively
provide the building blocks for placing
biodiversity as an integral part on the
sustainable development agenda.
They include:
•Firstly, the Human
Capital Development Strategy: the development
of which is led by SANBI in partnership
with the Lewis Foundation. It mandates SANBI
to work with various organisations in the
biodiversity sector to establish and implement
a human capital development strategy for
the biodiversity sector to address transformation
and scarce skills.
•Secondly the National Biodiversity Research
Strategy and Framework which is being developed
though a partnership between the Department
and SANBI, working with many other stakeholders
in the biodiversity, research and education
fields. The significance of this process
is to bridge the gap between science and
policy.
•Thirdly, Biodiversity Management Innovations
for Development, which have been implemented
in South Africa over the past ten years.
These innovations spearhead our country’s
efforts to balance biodiversity conservation
with social equity and sustainable development
goals, and strengthen our resilience to
the effects of climate change. This will
contribute towards demystifying climate
change and environment in general.
DG and CEO, I believe
these are noble intentions, but if they
do not speak to and ensure the transformation
of the sector then they will not be in line
with the ideals of this government. That
cannot be the case.
Allow me Programme Director,
to focus a bit more on why government has
decided to take this ground breaking decision
in placing more emphasis on education as
part of one of the five focus areas in South
Africa. What are our challenges in this
regard? In an era of rapid change that is
enforced by technological innovations, globalization,
market expansion and mass production, the
focus on the most important asset of an
organization, human capital is often forgotten.
The change should be
focused on people – their intellectual abilities,
their fear, their cultural background and
their ability to add value to the changing
societal needs, thereby working together
for the common goal of the country. The
Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in
South Africa reported that 12 million children
live in poverty. More than 50% live in households
where nobody is employed. Approximately
24% are in the wrong grade for their age
and 6% are not in school. 24% live in households
without both parents (Cohen, 2008).
Our efforts here today
must compliment the public discourse on
overcoming the dual economy, skills shortages
and usher in a society that benefits all.
Programme Director,
biodiversity is crucial to the reduction
of poverty through the basic goods and ecosystem
services it provides. They include the provision
of food, fibre and medicine, soil formation,
air quality and climate regulation, the
regulation of water supply and quality and
the cultural and aesthetic value of certain
plants and species.
The aims of development
do not stop at poverty reduction. Environmental
sustainability is also a fundamental development
objective. Biodiversity and development
are closely linked: biodiversity sustains
development, and development has an impact
on biodiversity, either positive or negative.
Although biodiversity does not contribute
directly to all sectors of development,
sustainable development cannot be achieved
if biodiversity is compromised by developmental
efforts. Indeed, it frequently provides
the ‘welfare system of last resort’ for
poor people and communities.
The challenge is to
improve the quality of education across
the entire value chain. It is important
to remember that quality stems from the
quality of life experienced by individuals,
whereby society instills morals, value,
ethical conduct, honesty, integrity, to
name but a few positive characteristics.
South Africa has made
some valuable contributions in our quest
to take care of our biodiversity, e.g. Working
for Water, wildlife utilisation and fostering
bio-diversity, biodiversity conservation
in plantation forestry to mention but a
few. This is why the slogan for the International
Year of Biodiversity states: “Biodiversity
is Life. Biodiversity is our life”.
It is a matter of great
concern to us, therefore, that our biodiversity
resources are being eroded by unsustainable
land-use practices, habitat loss, alien
infestation, pollution and environmental
changes attributable to climate change.
We need to find a development path that
leads to social upliftment and economic
development, while reducing biodiversity
loss and environmental degradation, and
maintaining healthy ecosystems. Development
and biodiversity conservation are often
thought to be in opposition to each other
– that the one has to be traded off at the
expense of the other.
To ensure that we sustain
the gains we have made so far, we need to
pay attention to six basic things:
•Government commitment
across sectors;
•Good science and broad-based educational
programmes which ensure that the entire
nation is involved;
•Ongoing development of institutional capacity;
•Co-operative governance and maintaining
effective partnerships; a
•Ongoing innovation in creating opportunities
for integrating biodiversity and socio-economic
development goals.
•Involve our people at every level.
We need to constantly increase our understanding
of our natural systems, and how they may
respond to different drivers and pressures.
In the face of climate change, we need to
know how resilient our ecosystems are and
how we can manage landscapes to strengthen
this resilience. This is why we need strong
and focussed scientific research – our researchers
need to be asking the right questions and
generating clever solutions that can feed
into our biodiversity management actions.
Our researchers must be interpreters for
our society.
For our programmes of
action to be implemented successfully, we
need appropriately skilled human capacity.
We currently have too few scientists with
the necessary skills to comprehensively
study our biodiversity, the role it plays
in development and the impacts of climate
change. We have too few managers to effectively
conserve and manage our biodiversity – be
it in protected areas, production landscapes
or in our urban centres. We need to be able
to attract talented people – our young people
emerging especially from our disadvantaged
schools and communities – into the biodiversity
sector, where they can have the opportunity
to do exciting, meaningful work that can
make a difference to the country’s development
path. Our universities need to equip them
with the right skills, at the necessary
standards; we need to be able to offer them
jobs, career paths, supportive management
and willing mentors. WE MUST STRIVE TO BECOME
THE EMPLOYER OF CHOICE.
Ours is a country that
faces many challenges. It is also a country
of remarkable strength and richness. If
we use our strengths to overcome our challenges,
the result is a country that is rich with
opportunity and vibrant with hope. Our rich
biodiversity is part of our strength – it
is not an obstacle to development, but rather
provides us with an additional resource
for creating decent jobs, for promoting
rural development, for securing our water
supply and for sustaining the life-giving
ecosystem services upon which all other
development depends.
We have started to talk
about the financing models of the green
economy at our MINMEC meetings, as well
as rolling out green jobs. I would want
us to bring the work done in this initiative
into Mintech and MINMEC by the CEO of SANBI
reporting to us on progress made and the
challenges faced to implement this programme.
As you have started in 2007 already, we
should look at some deliverables now. Let’s
identify low hanging fruit. I hope this
workshop can find ways on how we can make
it happen where people live.
May I congratulate you
on taking us a step closer in realising
our priority area on education and trust
that your deliberations for the next two
days will make further contribution towards
our national objectives in the country.
I thank you.
