CHARTER'S CREEK : NOVEMBER 15, 1998

I thank Mr Ulf Doerner for inviting me to this function. It gives me great pleasure to participate in the activities of the Living Lakes project which has targeted for environmental attention and awareness some of the most sensitive eco-systems in the world. Indeed, I am equally aware that lake regions are some of the most important and yet most sensitive links in the chain of life. I am very pleased that the lake of St. Lucia in our country has been identified to join in the partnership of awareness and environmental monitoring which ties together several of the other important lakes in the world in what the project refers to as "The Lake Network". Networking environmental attention on lakes scattered throughout the planet is more than a symbolic representation of the global nature of environmental considerations. It also reflects the fact that many of these lakes are indeed segments of a unified eco-system tied together by migrant birds which carry life and environmental interaction from one lake to the other.

In South Africa there is still little awareness of the fundamental importance of lakes and wetlands to preserve life and a healthy balance between development and nature conservation. A few years ago South Africa acceded to international conventions calling for the protection of lakes and wetlands, and we then adopted the first legislation to give special protection to wetlands. St. Lucia was also identified as an area of specific attention and environmental protection. I was very pleased by this legislation which reflected some of the initiatives that I undertook to protect St. Lucia when I was the Chief Minister of the erstwhile KwaZulu Government.

In fact, I have been espousing the cause of environmental protection for many decades. I was an environmentalist when being an environmentalist was not fashionable, and I was often criticised by my colleagues in the struggle for liberation because of my devout interest to the cause of the environment. Decades ago being concerned about the environment, the animals, the birds and the lakes was considered to be less than serious and appropriate for a politician and a man of government. Today things have changed and there is finally the realisation that the environment is not just a priority of government amongst many others, but is perhaps the most important priority of them all, because human activities on the planet have reached the point of threatening not only the life of other species of animals and plants, but indeed our own long-term survival.

In recent years I have been fascinated by the development in the biological thinking which has led us to go beyond the theory of evolution postulated by Darwin, to embrace a broader and perhaps even mystical conception of the earth as a living organism in itself which encompasses all forms of animal, fungal and vegetative life. I am fascinated by the Gaia theory which regards the planet as a living entity and describes the relation between single species and single forms of life as dictated by an endless range of symbiotic relations. By moving back our point of observation, we can now see that what at a short distance and through the lenses of evolution seemed to be conflicts for survival, are indeed a large scale of co-operative effort within the parameters of a unified living body.

I am fascinated by the Gaia theory because it reflects knowledge that my own nation, the Zulu nation, has had since time immemorial. This knowledge has always led us to believe that we must respect the planet earth if we wish to survive in it. It is not for me to say whether we as humans are indeed a necessary component of Gaia with our own purpose within the function of the overall body, or rather whether we are a foreign body which, as a parasite, feeds on the greater corpus of our planetary host. But I know for a fact that in either case, if we do not achieve a stable balance with the greater whole, we, as a species, are doomed. For this reason I have always promoted the notion that environmental awareness and the care for the environment should not be the exclusive responsibility of government, but should involve each and every person. This notion is now readily accepted in other countries in which during the past decade environmental enthusiasm has developed across all segments of the population and led it to participate in programmes of environmental protection and management, such as waste recycling and the abatement of consumer-driven pollution and environmental exploitation.

Unfortunately in South Africa we are still far from having accepted the environment as a responsibility which affects all of us. I must say that regrettably the lack of generalised environmental awareness also serves the purposes of powerful vested interests which do not wish to bring to the fore the negative impact on consumers of current environmental practices and products. For instance, a few weeks ago in Parliament we held debates on the issue of asbestos which unfortunately did not reach any finality. In South Africa asbestos has been employed widely in the construction industry and to make many products with which consumers are in daily contact in spite of its proven potentially cancerous effects. Similarly, there is still little awareness about the imminent danger of endemic lead poisoning and we still use leaded petrol and lead pipes in houses. Moreover, I am very concerned by the little awareness that we have in our country about ground and surface water contamination, especially in respect of the circulation of free heavy metals. Changing the conditions of the human environment from our home environment to the work-place remains one of the most important items on South Africa's uncompleted environmental agenda.

Paradoxically, by focusing on specific segments of the natural environment which are kept in their pristine form, a greater awareness develops also in respect of latent dangers to human health and safety within the human environment. For this reason, I believe that the protection of lake regions is particularly important not only for what it achieves for the preservation of a balanced relation between man and nature, but also for what it teaches us about our own daily environment. All lake regions are particularly vulnerable to environmental pollution and as drainage places they receive in high concentration environmentally adverse discharges. It is in lake regions and wetlands that we can see the most negative effect of the same heavy metals which in our country often remain uncontrolled within the human environment. Lake regions are also particularly at risk because of their special attractiveness for human activities, ranging from development to tourism.

I believe that it is particularly important that the Living Lakes is conducting its projects also in South Africa to create an awareness about the impact of development and tourism on lakes. In fact it is the policy of our government to foster both tourism as well as development. A few weeks ago we have finally passed the Environmental Management Act which introduces in South Africa the requirement of environmental impact assessments which have been at the basis of the system of environmental management of North America and Europe alike for several decades. For as long as there are active environmental groups capable and willing to activate their procedures, environmental impact assessments will help to keep government's policies under control, and to understand the long-term effects of tourism and development on lakes. In fact, as we develop these industries, lakes will be the area in which the inevitable conflict between nature and human exploitation becomes the most critical.

For instance, St. Lucia has already been the ground of several environmental battles and it is with pride that I must confess that during the past decade I have always found myself to be fighting these battles actively and on the side of the environment. St. Lucia will continue to remain a great attraction and great pressures will continue to be applied to open it to the exploitation of human activities. In addition to tourist activities, residential development and fishing, St. Lucia will continue to receive the pressure of powerful economic interests which need to reach for and exploit its great natural resources to support the productive cycle. Both for politicians as well as the rest of society, it is difficult to balance the needs of people against the needs of the environment. We are aware that we must enable our communities to fish so that they can support themselves. We are aware of the need to mine titanium to enable the economy to grow so that we can provide for the ever-growing needs of our children confronted with the challenges of a rapidly growing world.

Under these conditions it is often suggested that it is irresponsible to protect birds, bacteria and plants at the expense of the most basic needs of people who are under the plight of poverty and abject social and economic conditions. It is also said that western countries have embraced environmental protection only after having fully developed their economy and provided for the basic needs of their citizens, to which end they have consumed enormous environmental resources not only in their own territory but across the world. According to this perspective applying the same standards of environmental protection in developing countries struggling to provide a basic and dignified life for their citizens, would be inherently unfair. Decisions regarding the environment are always hard to make, as they call on us to refrain from satisfying immediate pressing needs because of intangible long-term interests. For this reason the environment is really the field in which principle decisions must be taken. It is against issues such as the environment that decisions driven by principles can be more easily separated from those which are motivated by expediency or populism.

The protection of our lakes also offers an enormous opportunity to learn more about nature. I still remember the days in which we thought that wetlands were not so important in the overall scheme of environmental protection, and we had not realised that they are the very beginning of the cycle of life and that if we undermine wetlands and the microbiological life that takes place in there, even the survival of large species such as elephants would be threatened. Studying and protecting lakes and wetlands makes us understand how the infinitesimal small may be more important to the preservation of the cycle of life, than the extremely large. Indeed the life of larger organisms is supported by smaller ones and this realisation has profoundly changed attitudes towards nature conservation in South Africa.

Originally, the emphasis on nature conservation in South Africa was about large game such as elephants, rhinos and giraffes and their most immediate environment. I am delighted that through projects such as Living Lakes we can shift the emphasis and focus on the dynamics of life taking place in lakes which are so fundamental to the survival of all other species. There is still a great deal that we need to learn about these dynamics, the complexity and intricacy of which often escapes even the most sophisticated computer programmes. I was shocked but not surprised to read an editorial in the New York Times a few years ago in which it was pointed out that we know more about outer space than we do about the first ten inches of our soils which are at the basis of any form of life in our planet. For this reason, I hope that the Living Lakes project may contribute to bringing environmental awareness closer to the general public of South Africa, over and above the usual aspects of nature conservation on which we have focused in the past.

I express my appreciation to Mr Ulf Doerner, his organisation and all the prominent environmentalists who are here to support and inspire us. I also thank, on behalf of all the recipients of the special Awards, those people who have contributed so much to the preservation of our environment. As Patron of the Magqubu Ntombela Foundation, I am very proud to participate in this ceremony with such a prominent environmentalist as Professor Engelhardt, who read the Laudatio when I received the Bruno H. Schubert Award in Germany in June this year.

On my side, I remain committed to continue to speak the language of environmental protection even when it is not politically expedient and may be controversial. Those who know me know well that I do not fear to be less than popular when it comes down to matters of principle. For me the environment remains as much a matter of principle now that it is a more fashionable concern, as it was forty years ago when I began my journey of a committed environmental activist.

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