More of the brown, less of the green: putting water into our "water factories"

                                                     A media trip to the Western Cape Part III

Photograph used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA

“So we want more of the brown, less of the green?” asked one member of the audience. She was responding to a slide of two people, one standing on brown veld and the other on “lush” greenery (see photo above). The problem with the latter was that the budding greenery was that of a fresh invasion of Invasive Alien Plants (IAPs). The brown was an area that had been treated and subsequently regained its health.

IAPs are not a serious contender for what grabs our attention. We might have a vague idea that invasives have to go, but our buy-in doesn’t go much beyond that. When informed, though, that water lost to invasive alien plants is estimated at an annual 1.44 billion cubic metres nationally we might start paying attention. This volume could sustain 120 000 hectares of crops to increase food production, or supply 3.38 million households of four members for one year.
 

Helen Gordon has done the maths, and her presentation on the first evening of the media tour was certainly food for thought. Gordon is Programme Manager for the WWF Water Balance Programme.

The recent drought’s deleterious effect on agriculture and the economy would show to any observer the importance of water. If you regard water as coming from a tap and have never gone beyond this, then this article will hold little interest to you.

The expense of keeping water in those taps is enormous. R1.4 billion per year is required just to keep existing water infrastructure ticking over. A further annual amount of some R63 billion is called for to upgrade what we have in order to meet the projected demands. And when the rains don’t come, that water supply is threatened before it gets close to our taps.

But investment also needs to go into our ecosystems, what WWF calls “the water factories”. Without functioning ecosystems it doesn’t matter how much is spent on dams and the other water infrastructure!

The Water Balance Programme, through its IAP clearing projects, puts “new” water into freshwater ecosystems. It is an important water supply intervention. A background to IAPs in the country:

• IAPs destroy the proper functioning of wetlands (vleis in South Africa) and the plant habitats and communities along the river margins (riparian zones). The ecosystem services provided by these ecological bulwarks are lost to us.
• IAPs have invaded a total area of some 18 million hectares in the country. Indigenous vegetation cannot compete with them and so the natural balance becomes out of kilter and biodiversity is lost.
• Working for Water is the government response to IAPs. Some 2.7 million hectares have been treated over the past two decades with some R800 million being spent every year. Clearing is costly and requires on-going commitment. 

The next article will deal with the first stop the following day, a look at how the Water Balance Programme saves water, infrastructure (pumps, bridges) and creates jobs.

The first evening

A media trip to the Western Cape Part II

A break in the journey: looking over Riviersonderend. Photo used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA

At Cape Town airport a contingent of media, WWF SA and Nedbank personnel boarded the three minibuses making up the small convoy that began to thread its way across the beautiful scenery that lies to the east, heading towards the Overberg region. Nedbank is one of the major partners of the work we had come to see. 

We broke the one-and-a-half hour journey, halting at a vantage point to view Riviersonderend where much of the work is being done.  

Back on the buses, we headed for Greyton, a picturesque village that most of us will certainly visit again. At The Post House we were allocated rooms and given an hour to rest before presentations on the WWF work in the Western Cape. 

I returned to the main street and made a sortie to get the feel of the place. Mountains in silent conversation with each other loomed high over street buildings on every side, their words unheard from down below. Around the time that the talks were due to begin, the moon, as if to join the assembly, stepped out to the right of a mountain at the far end of the village, and conversations of cloud passed across its face from the gathering darkness.

“How best can we secure and maintain the ecological infrastructure for food and water security?” is the over-arching question asked by Inge Kotze, senior manager of WWF SA’s involvement in agriculture. Agriculture finds itself very much in the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) questions of the day, and for this reason WWF SA includes agriculture as an area of operation. Indeed, balancing food, land, water and energy security is an important consideration for any strategist looking to ensure a country’s future and prosperity. 

Inge Kotze, senior manager WWF SA agriculture speaking to Nancy Richards, SAfm. Photo used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA

To demonstrate how South Africa’s Food, Energy and Water (FEW) questions are intertwined, Kotze shows three consecutive slides mapping (1) key food production areas, (2) regions where coal is mined or energy procured, and (3) major catchment areas supplying water. Point made. The overlap is telling. And so the WWF SA-Nedbank partnership is very active in Mpumalanga, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

Nearly 80% of land in the country is deemed agricultural land (for some reason, mining is included under the “agricultural use” label). Whatever the actual figure is, that farmers own most of the landscape is undisputed. For this reason, some view agriculture as a threat to biodiversity. WWF, on the other hand, recognises the “intimate land connection” of the farmer.  By reinforcing a farmer’s natural love of the land, a winning partnership can be created (we will take a look at some examples in the fourth and fifth of this series of articles).

Agriculture has the potential to be at the forefront of the country’s transitioning to a low water, low carbon economy, and WWF SA is helping the sector to make this reality. Numerous sector-specific best practice guidelines are available, and one area the organisation is focusing on is the WWF Living Farms Reference (LFR), an excellent idea as human beings learn more by seeing something demonstrated than by reading about it. It is practical and easier to absorb.

Other key focus areas are:

1. Making and building the business case for the WWF interventions;
2. “On farms” engagement with key sectors through the piloting and implementation of the LFR (wine and fruit, dairy, sugar, barley, grasslands beef);
3. Capacity development and regulatory support (government support, organised agriculture, worker unions, financial sector). 

 

"Food. Water. Energy. For all. Forever." is the WWF SA's logo. Photograph used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA.

“Priority projects” for the next five years are described as:

1. Conservation Agriculture for all commodities and farming systems
2. Restored ecological infrastructure for increased landscape productivity, socio-ecological resilience and soil carbon sequestration
3. Collaborative integrated catchment management for improved water security (quality and quantity) and job creation
4. Energy efficiency and renewable energy case studies to inspire the transition to low-carbon agriculture
5. Climate-proofing the growth of agri-processing in the Western Cape
6. Integrated knowledge system for climate smart agricultural extension.

Sustainable agriculture has been defined by role players like Prof Izak Groenewald at the University of the Free State’s Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Rural Development and Extension simply as agriculture which ticks all the economic, environmental and social/ethical boxes. This is the trajectory on which WWF and its partners like Nedbank would like to see agriculture. The next articles will look at three visits we made on the day following.

A media trip to the Western Cape

Photograph used courtesy of Helen Gordon, WWF SA

In Conversations with Myself, Nelson Mandela ponders the question of when to speak and when to be quiet. And if there is something to say, when to say it? And how to say it? Volunteering information “gratuitously”, for example, leads to the person speaking becoming “ineffective” (page 219). 

The same wisdom can be found in sources like Proverbs and the Tao te Ching.

        “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver” (Proverbs 25:11).

        “The excellence … of (the initiation of) any movement is in its timeliness” (Tao te Ching 8:2, Legge translation).

WWF South Africa is an organisation involved in the work of encouraging environmental responsibility. Now being in charge of people in your own organisation already involves skill and wisdom; how much more when many of the objectives involve the buy-in from people not on your payroll. You can imagine it is possible to step on people’s toes.

Sometimes people need their toes stepped on – we are not denying this. The problem arises that when offence is taken, lack of enthusiasm morphs into obvious and deliberate lack of co-operation. Was it time to speak? Was your knowledge offered “gratuitously”? Your motivation might have been noble, but by alienating those whose co-operation you sought you now sabotage your task. 

My eyebrows did a raise when I heard, some time back, that WWF SA was getting involved in agriculture. Environmental activists are referred to as “greenies” in some agricultural circles. The implicit (and explicit) criticism is that you get agriculture and you get environmentalism and never the twain shall meet. The ous from environmental circles do not have to wring their living from the soil and are out-of-touch with lofty but impractical ideas.

Members of the agricultural media were invited to see the work being done by the WWF SA in the Western Cape. We accompanied the trip and this is the first of six articles on our impressions and findings. 

Sustainable water and sanitation solutions for South Africa

Press release:  Strategic Water Partners Network South Africa


With the gap between supply and demand for water expected to reach 17% by 2030, many South Africans will be required to radically change their attitudes to the way in which this precious commodity is being used and conserved, especially in the treatment of human waste.

With the gap between supply and demand for water expected to reach 17% by 2030, many South Africans will be required to radically change their attitudes to the way in which this precious commodity is being used and conserved, especially in the treatment of human waste.

Population growth coupled with a rise in urbanisation and increased economic activity are key contributors to the growing demand for water, while poor usage habits, the denigration of wetlands, climate change and consumer and commercial losses are factors causing the availability of this valuable resource to dwindle.

With an estimated 11% of households still without sanitation services, and 26% with sanitation services which do not meet the required standard, the public health and environmental risks are enormous. In a water-scarce country like South Africa, the solution cannot be ‘flushing’.  Instead, game changing new technologies which require little or no water, are required if the country is to address the sanitation challenge and the looming water gap.

Jay Bhagwan, Executive Manager at the Water Research Commission, and representative of the Strategic Water Partner Network (SWPN), agrees with Water and Sanitation Minister, Nomvula Mokanyane that, ‘It’s not all about flushing…’, and comments that universal access to sanitation does not mean that everyone must be able to flush but rather that there is universal access to a more appropriate way of treating human wastes – faeces and urine.

“We need to build a culture which embraces the sustainability of water and recognises the benefits of treating human wastes as an asset rather than a liability”, he says.

Sanitation makes up about 60% of the capital costs of water services and between 30% and 40% of water is used for flushing.  But while South Africa is one of few countries which returns up to 68% of water for indirect use, sludge should be viewed as a resource:

• the energy, nutrients and reuse of which provides an opportunity to recover phosphates and nitrates for fertilization; 
• to convert sludge into biogas for power; and
• to recover water from flushing.

While there is some progress on effluent re-use within certain municipalities, the challenge of treating waste relating to sanitation remains.  Current modalities for collection and removal of waste are often messy and hazardous to health whereas a flush toilet and central sewage system is viewed by society as the optimal method of disposal. In many cases this is not sustainable in the longer term. Instead, alternative thinking is required for solutions which:

• result in less or no waste water and sewage;
• treat the effluent at source;
• result in beneficiation;
• deliver the same user convenience as a flush toilet; and
• saves water while being environmentally safe.  

Dry technologies, through processes which involve, dehydration; desiccation; solar treatment; combustion and the like are promising and could provide the solution which is so urgently required.  

SWPN is made up of some of South Africa’s most forward-thinking corporates along with the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), municipalities, civil society and other stakeholders.  Many of these progressive organisations have taken the lead in developing innovative, water-efficient solutions in the interest of sustainable socio economic growth for the country.  

One such project is the Green Drop initiative, led by the DWS. This incentive-based regulatory programme assesses and evaluates the management of more than 800 wastewater treatment facilities by 156 municipalities. Especially relevant in agricultural areas where grey and effluent water are utilized for irrigation, this initiative provides tools for municipalities to assess and evaluate waste water quality, sample analysis credibility, process control and treatment facilities. Given the public health risks associated with ecoli and other harmful micro-organisms, compliance monitoring is vital in ensuring safe produce.  

Municipalities, like Witzenberg in the heart of the Western Cape’s fruit growing region are testament to the positive commercial impact this initiative has had on its farmers and consumers.  However, in other municipalities where treatment of sewage has not been optimal and levels of harmful bacteria have exceeded safe limits, there has been a negative impact on commercial trade. 

Various organisations within the voluntary yet carefully structured SWPN platform have embarked on ground-breaking initiatives which utilize lower quality water in the interest of preserving the country’s water resources.  

1. Notable amongst these include Khumba Iron Ore’s Sishen mine in the Northern Cape which is part of the Anglo American Group. This mine uses effluent from the wastewater treatment works for its processing operations whilst injecting the groundwater abstracted from the mines into the potable water supply. 
2. Other exemplary leaders in this respect are the cities of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay and Johannesburg which recycle effluent from their wastewater treatment works for industrial use, irrigation and cooling water in power stations. 

Richard Holden, speaking on behalf of the SWPN comments that industries should think twice before using potable water if lower quality water is available and will do the job just as well.  The recently released Draft National Sanitation Policy as well as the Medium Term Strategic Framework of the NDP recognise the need for reforms which encourage new thinking around sanitation and the treatment of effluent.

The SWPN anticipates that this draft policy will go a long way to address the socio-cultural aspects of poor sanitation and will pave the way for new innovations in the treatment of effluent.  Furthermore, while its members are committed to broadening their focus beyond the factory fence to ensure that their employees and extended communities are not negatively affected by poor sanitation, other organisations should follow their lead.

Sustainable sanitation and potable water solutions that meet the needs of the population necessitates a collaborative effort by consumers, industry stakeholders and government and  the SWPN, its members and partners are committed to working together with government to find mutually beneficial, viable solutions in the interest of all South Africans.