Preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development underpin the Department's goals of building a nation-wide commitment to sound environmental management, a new awareness of environmental issues and how they affect us all, particularly poor communities.

In December 2000, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development announced that South Africa would host the World Summit on Sustainable Development, also known as the Earth Summit, in 2002.

This will be one of the most important events for the next decade. It will shape the agenda of a globally defined, sustainable development future. South Africa's hosting of the Summit is an enormous undertaking of major global significance.

This will be the biggest conference ever held in the world - more than 60 000 delegates are expected, including 130 heads of state. To coordinate the management of logistics, a Section 21 company was registered under the name Johannesburg Earth Summit 2002 Co.

The Department is working with other countries, Government departments, provinces, municipalities, major stakeholders and UN authorities to set in place policies, logistical plans, funding mechanisms and communications strategies for the Summit.

The Summit will be a truly national undertaking requiring that all South Africans, both inside and outside government, get involved as hosts to ensure that South Africa is positively received in terms of both content proposals made, and logistical support provided.

The Under-Secretary General of the Department of Social and Economic Affairs at the UN, Nitin Desai, paid a visit to South Africa in late March 2001 and confirmed that South Africa was well ahead of schedule in its preparations for the Summit.

ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION AND REPORTING

Information and Statistics. Linked to part of its efforts to provide decision-makers and the public with high quality data on South Africa's environment, the Department is investigating the establishment of an internationally recognised Centre for Environmental Information and Statistics (CEIS).

The establishment of the CEIS could be an extremely useful tool. It sees DEAT becoming the centre of a series of "nodes" of information.

Instead of hosting and updating all the information in-house, we aim to co-ordinate access to information, and establish linkages with partners who will help in the exchange of, and access to, information.

The Centre would also feed into and benefit from information in neighbouring countries, Africa and global data systems.

The four major cities, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town have their own State of the Environment Reports (SoER). On a provincial level, SoERs for Gauteng, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal have been completed, and we are helping the others to draw up their frameworks.

There are also schools that are becoming more aware of State of the Environment Reporting. They could be assisted to draw up their own SoERs. We have worked with the environmental education resource centre Share-Net to produce a booklet that helps learners identify sources of environmental pressure and possible solutions.

The information gathered by schools could also feed into the city or provincial SoERs. Over the past year, Ultraviolet B radiation information has been updated on the Internet constantly, providing graphs updated every half hour. A webcam was also set up, and in future will focus on Pretoria's city bowl, showing air pollution levels realtime. Both of these resources are useful for schools, illustrating themes in Geography like the ozone layer, and temperature inversions.

This year, we also participated in two sectoral SoERs - the State of Rivers Report and State of Estuaries Report. Both are available on the Internet and in hard copy.

With every one of these steps, a fuller picture is emerging to inform planners, environmentalists, Government and developers on environmental problems, what causes them, and how to mitigate them.

We have also taken steps to extend SoE reporting to Southern African and African SoERs, with all this information ultimately feeding into a global State of the Environment Report.

The Overview Document of the National State of the Environment Report has been translated from English into Zulu and Xhosa, and in the past year, Tswana and Sotho.

New Environmental Indicators. DEAT is currently working with the CSIR, the HSRC and Mzuri Consultants in setting up a core set of environmental indicators for use in State of the Environment Reporting. The final list should be available by the end of 2001.

Examples of environmental indicators include:

• Emissions of greenhouse gases.
• Use of agricultural pesticides.
• Annual withdrawal of ground and surface water.
• Abundance of selected key species.
• Access to clean drinking water.
• Areas affected by desertification.
• Amount of protected land.

The Indicators Unit participated in workshops over the past year to help in the development of a core set of environmental indicators for the entire Southern African region.

The Norwegian agency NORAD has approved funding for this project. An indicator presence on the Internet was established.

Environmental Resource Economics. Over the past year, we have worked in partnership with Statistics South Africa and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry to co-ordinate and manage the natural water account for South Africa.

While Gross Domestic Product accounting measures the wealth generated from resources as they are changed or destroyed, resource economics measures the benefits of keeping natural capital intact.

We are working to develop and maintain a core set of natural resource accounts for the country. These would include forestry, minerals, fisheries and land use.

Coordination of Sustainable Development. The Department has initiated a process to develop an Interim Performance Report on Sustainable Development to meet the Government's commitment to Agenda 21, in accordance with Section 26 (2)(a) of the National Environmental Management Act.

We have developed guidelines to assist Government in reporting on its performance with regard to sustainable development.

As part of its commitment to implement Agenda 21, South Africa is preparing a National Strategy for Sustainable Development (NSSD), in time for the World Summit in 2002.

This process will also be linked to the review of Agenda 21's implementation at national and regional level by all countries around the globe in preparation for the World Summit.

ENVIRONMENTAL CAPACITY BUILDING

This section of the Department consists of two units, namely Capacity Building, and Environmental Education and Awareness.

Environmental Education. Last year, DEAT, the Department of Education and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry signed a historic partnership into being - the National Environmental Education Project, currently funded by DANCED. It supports and builds capacities in teachers to implement environmental learning in the new curriculum.

This project has the potential to put South Africa among the top countries in the world as far as environmental education in schools is concerned.

Initial key themes for the project are Water and Waste. We have developed learning materials on these themes as support material for schools.

We are developing a framework for an Environmental Education strategy to guide the process in the country, and the three departments are creating enabling resource material with the help of agencies such as Share-Net.

In the past year, three standard-setting bodies were registered with the SA Qualifications Authority (SAQA). They have started generating unit standards and qualifications in Environmental Education, Conservation, Environmental Science, Environmental Management, and Waste Management.

Capacity Building. One of the critical ways of ensuring sustainable development at all levels of Government is through the education and training of authorities at a local, provincial and national level.

Environmental management is an acquired skill and DEAT is building that capacity, especially among local authorities and councillors who have to adhere to the sustainable development principles of Local Agenda 21.

We have also sourced donor funding to support these educational programmes, most notably from USAID, which has donated R4,3 million over two years.

In the past year, we have supported capacity-building programmes in municipalities and six provinces - KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, North West and Free State.

With DANCED support, we have trained officials from all the provinces in Environmental Impact Assessment and Waste Management.

Other courses offered to municipalities and provinces included the US Environmental Protection Agency course in pollution control and enforcement through the University of the Witwatersrand.

LAW REFORM, PLANNING AND CONCILIATION

The National Environmental Management Act (107 of 1998) is pioneering legislation that creates a framework for environmental management in South Africa. It establishes principles for sustainable development, procedures for coordinating the environmental functions of government and mechanisms for civil society participation.

However, NEMA does not deal with the details of coastal management, biodiversity conservation and integrated pollution and waste management.

At present, there is no legislation on biodiversity, except at a provincial level. The laws governing air pollution and coastal management are outdated. The Seashore Act dates back to 1935.

Law Reform. It's for these reasons that the Department has embarked on a Law Reform programme. The aim is to write new law to give effect to the White Papers on Biodiversity, Sustainable Coastal Development, and Integrated Pollution and Waste Management.

The new law will replace outdated legislation and will promote coherence and integration of environmental laws. This legislation will be written as new chapters within the National Environment Management Act. It is a highly complex exercise that requires consultation with every level of Government, and with civil society. The first drafts of the legislation will be published for public comment and Parliamentary Hearings are likely to take place in 2002.

Cooperative Governance. Chapter 3 of the Constitution says that all spheres of Government (national, provincial and local) must conduct their activities according to the principles of cooperative governance. This requires some kind of co-operative effort so that Government departments properly reinforce the right of all citizens to a safe and healthy environment.

The creation of the Committee for Environmental Coordination, which brings national, provincial and local tiers of government involved in environmental management together, gives concrete form to the mentioned cooperative governance.

The National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) also takes this a step further. It requires departments that have an impact on the environment, or that have an environmental management function, to prepare Environmental Management Plans (EMPs), Environmental Implementation Plans (EIPs) or both.

The purpose of these plans is to coordinate and harmonise the environmental policies, programmes, functions and decisions of departments and provinces. These plans are submitted to the Committee for Environmental Coordination (CEC), an interdepartmental committee, for approval and adoption.

A sub-committee of the CEC, with provincial and national government representatives, meets regularly to evaluate and provide feedback on these plans. In the past year, we have accepted the EIPs and EMPs from the Departments of Minerals and Energy, Defence, Housing, Land Affairs, Gauteng, Western Cape and Mpumalanga.

Incidentally, DEAT's own EMP was accepted. They will all be published in the Government Gazette and made available on the websites of the respective departments.

Conciliation. Conflict is a normal and healthy part of decision-making and actions that seek to promote sustainable development.

The conflict management system provided for in NEMA is an essential component of the framework for coordination and cooperation.

Firstly, it encourages a collaborative problem-solving approach to relationships between government departments, and with civil society. Secondly, it provides a built-in safety valve when disputes arise.

We are in the process of establishing a user-friendly system for dealing with environmental disputes, as provided for in NEMA. There will be easily accessible points of entry for the public - training and awareness-raising programmes and case studies that illustrate the role of mediation and arbitration as tools for managing conflict. This will stop cases going to court, and therefore save large amounts of time and money.

DID YOU KNOW?

• About 17 million hectares (an area the size of the Eastern Cape) of our cultivated soils have lost most of their fertility through erosion.
• Only 8,6% of our annual rainfall is available as surface water. The rest evaporates or is taken up by plants.
• All major rivers in South Africa have been dammed or modified.
• Demand for water is projected to increase by 50% in the next 30 years.
• Forestry uses 3% of mean annual runoff.
• Five plant species have become extinct due to urban expansion.