Statements or documents submitted
Commission on Sustainable Development:
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NEW VISION for Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan (1/08/11)(shortened)
Overall context and guideline: Development as if people mattered.
We are convinced that it is crucial for the NMBM Vision to be informed by the global challenges related to peak oil, climate change and the limits to growth, as these will dramatically impact on future sustainable living in the metro. The PED Nexus seminars held in 2010 to which NMBTN members made important contributions, and which culminated with the very successful LEAD International Cohort 15 , provided critical insights to these challenges and suggestions on the way forward that we trust will be seriously considered in the creation of the vision.
Within this context, we identify a number of key issues that need to be addressed:
a. Poverty reduction
The threat to food security in the metro continues to grow as the input and distribution costs of conventional food production escalate. With unemployment rates as high as they are in the region, a large portion of the population will find it increasingly difficult to feed themselves and their families.
b. Job Creation
A new and enhanced focus in these areas, while expressing our commitment to actively addressing peak oil, climate change, and building local resilience, could bring more long-term [decent] jobs to the region as well as considerably improving the quality of life for all people living in and around Nelson Mandela Bay.
c. Housing, spatial development and public transport
Back lock of housings, skewed spatial development and related public transport issue, inherited from the apartheid time have already been discussed in length but remains tricky issues to deal with.
Some experiences across the world (f.e in Curitiba in Brazil) have had innovative solutions to resolve this problem.
d. Education
If we are to create a society that is resilient, able to overcome the challenges of fossil fuel depletion and climate change, and sustain itself into the future, then the issue of education is of primary importance and needs to be given utmost priority.
e. Resource conservation
Because of the scarcity of water in the region, and energy supply being unreliable throughout the nation, any new structures being built must be designed and constructed with these issues in mind. Rain water harvesting, grey water recycling, renewable energy generation etc should become key elements in every design.
f. Sustainable development and the satisfaction of basic needs.
Commerce and industry have particularly important roles to play in reducing the negative ecological impact and fossil fuel dependence of our metro. The Coega IDZ has immense potential to assist this transition to a low-carbon economy and society should it begin to target specific industries such as manufacturing in renewable energy generation. Apart from creating a large number of long-term, sustainable jobs, it would set the pace toward a sustainable future. According to a recent study by the IPCC , “Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades - but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power”
Currently Coega is attracting dirty, energy-intensive industries (such as an oil refinery) which will completely counteract this vision of a low-carbon metro that is people-centered, and locally resilient. Such environmentally destructive industries do not provide long-term sustainable benefit to the majority of the metro’s people, and the negative health impacts are well known (as experienced with refineries around Durban for example).
Greater attention also needs to go into local manufacturing and distribution to local markets. This encourages a much stronger and more resilient local economy than one that is too dependent on foreign markets, |
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