Hundreds of people are working around the clock to clean up a lake in the heart of Vietnam’s capital in hopes of saving a rare, ailing giant turtle that is considered sacred.

Only [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 05 March 2011

Hundreds of people are working around the clock to clean up a lake in the heart of Vietnam’s capital in hopes of saving a rare, ailing giant turtle that is considered sacred.

Only 4 giant freshwater turtles are believed to be alive worldwide

Experts say pollution at Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem Lake is killing the giant freshwater turtle, which has a soft shell the size of a desk. It is one of the world’s most-endangered species, with only four believed alive worldwide.

Teams of people are cleaning debris, pumping fresh water into the lake and using sandbags to expand a tiny island to serve as a “turtle hospital”. The rescuers may even try to net the animal for the first time as part of the effort.

The Hoan Kiem turtle is rooted in Vietnamese folklore, and some even believe the creature that lives in the lake today is the same mythical turtle that helped a Vietnamese king fend off the Chinese nearly six centuries ago.

It swims alone in the lake and in the past has been glimpsed only rarely sticking its wrinkled neck out of the water. But it has recently surfaced much more frequently, alarming the public with glimpses of raw open wounds on its head and legs.

Pollution

Meetings were called, a council was established and 10 government agencies were put to work to try to save it.

It’s the first time anyone has tried to capture the turtle, and Vietnamese have flocked to the lake in hopes of spotting it – a sign of good luck – as newspapers run daily articles about its plight.

“For the Vietnamese, the Hoan Kiem lake turtle is the most sacred thing,” said retired state employee Nguyen Thi Xuan, 63, who travelled from a suburban district to try to get a glimpse of the animal.

“He has helped the Vietnamese to defeat foreign invaders and also helped the country to have peace. I hope he will live forever.”

The lake, which measures 1.6km is a city landmark for its curved red bridge leading to a temple on a tiny island. Weeping willows and other leafy trees shade a sidewalk that rings the water, a popular site for tourists and Hanoians to exercise and relax.

But the lake has been trashed with everything from bricks and concrete to plastic bags and raw sewage. It is not uncommon to see men urinating directly into the murky water. The pollution is slowly killing the Hoan Kiem turtle, a Vietnamese biologist said.

“I believe the injuries were caused by sharp edges from debris in the lake,” said Ha Dinh Duc, who has studied the lone turtle for 20 years and considers himself its caretaker. “The poor quality of water also makes the conditions unbearable for the turtle.”

Endangered

The turtle rescue team hopes to coax the creature onto land so they can treat the wounds.

Sandbags have been built up to expand a small island for it to emerge. But if it does not crawl onto the platform by itself, a net will be used to capture it.

Veterinarians will then work at the so-called “turtle hospital” to take skin and shell samples for analysis, and will then determine how to treat it. Photos reveal scars and pink open sores on its head and legs. A white fungus-like material also covers a large section of its shell, which also has lesions.

No one knows the turtle’s age or gender, but international turtle experts estimate it is probably between 80 and 100-plus years old. They believe it is probably the most endangered freshwater turtle species in the world. It weighs about 200kg and its massive shell stretches 1.8m and 1.2m wide.

Legend has it that in the mid-15th century, King Le Loi defeated Chinese invaders with a magic sword given to him by the gods. After the victory, the king was said to be boating on the lake when a giant golden turtle rose to the surface and snatched the sword in its mouth before plunging deep into the water to return it to its divine owners.

The lake was later renamed “Ho Hoan Kiem”, which means “Lake of the Returned Sword”, and the tale became an important part of Vietnamese culture that continues to be taught in school and performed at popular water puppetry shows.

But real or mythical, the turtle that swims in the lake is a legend to the Vietnamese people who call him “cu rua”, a word of great respect reserved for great-grandfathers.

“I prayed at a temple this morning hoping to have a glimpse of him,” said Vu Thi Dung, a 58-year-old farmer who travelled 100km for her opportunity to see the turtle. “I had a chance to see him three times already. I’m really glad. It’s urgent to treat him and clean up the lake.”

- AP

South Africa is considered among the top five most mega-diverse countries in the world, boasting almost 10% of the world’s known bird, fish and plant species and over 6% of the world’s mammal and [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 20 September 2010

South Africa is considered among the top five most mega-diverse countries in the world, boasting almost 10% of the world’s known bird, fish and plant species and over 6% of the world’s mammal and reptile species contained on a land surface of only 1,1 million square kilometres (1% of the Earth’s total land area).

To highlight the crucial role nature’s rich diversity plays in our lives, the United Nations (UN) has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB-2010).

Tswaing Crater,about 40 km north of Pretoria, is extraordinarily rich in fauna and flora.

According to the UN Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, biodiversity (the variety of life on Earth), is essential to sustaining the living networks and systems that provide us with health, wealth, food, fuel and the vital services our lives depend upon.

The Convention, of which South Africa is a signatory, covers all ecosystems, species and genetic resources, linking traditional conservation efforts to economic goal of using biological resources sustainably, setting principles for the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits from use of genetic resources, notably for commercial use and covering rapidly expanding field of biotechnology, and addressing technology development and transfer, benefit- sharing and biosafety.

Unfortunately, South Africa’s increased population growth, habitat destruction, overexploitation, pollution and the introduction of invasive alien species are all placing increasing pressure on our natural systems.

This holds particularly true for South Africa’s freshwater ecosystems, with the 2006 South Africa Environment Outlook indicating that 82% of the country’s main river ecosystems are threatened.

Water management areas in the south of the country (i.e. Berg, Breede and Gouritz) and those associated with the middle and upper Vaal River have been identified as being most in need of protection, that is, these rivers risk irreversibly losing their ability to support their biodiversity components. Of South Africa’s estimated 220 freshwater fish species, at least 21 are threatened.

On 17 September at the Tswaing Crater, one of South Africa’s foremost natural heritage sites, the Water Research Commission (WRC), South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), Ditsong Museums of South Africa, and the Departments of Water and Environmental Affairs hosted a seminar with the theme ‘Biodiversity is life – Biodiversity is our Life’.

The Tswaing Crater is one of four known impact craters in South Africa. Twaing is considered one of the best preserved meteorite craters in the world. The crater boasts an extraordinary rich fauna and flora, and is particularly known for its variety of bird species.

During the seminar tribute was paid to heritage of another kind in the form of the official launch of the WRC publication, The Journey of Mma Tshepo Khumbane. The publication reflects on the life lessons taught by social activist Mma Tshepo Khumbane, who has dedicated her life to emancipating communities from the struggles of hunger and poverty.

Mma Tshepo, who trained as a social worker, has been teaching especially rural women for decades how to apply rainwater harvesting techniques to grow their own food.

Original article by: Bonani Madikizela
Edited by: Admin
Source: WRC

By Bill Harding, a limnologist (aquatic sciences), who has been involved with issues to do with SA dams since the ’70s

South Africans will be aware that our country is not blessed with abundant rainfall, [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 27 June 2010

By Bill Harding, a limnologist (aquatic sciences), who has been involved with issues to do with SA dams since the ’70s

South Africans will be aware that our country is not blessed with abundant rainfall, with an average of only 450mm a year, compared with the global average of 860mm a year.

Without substantial supplies of underground water, we rely heavily on water that is stored in dams. Our reliance on stored water is rendered critical by population growth and industrial expansion. Water resources per capita of population are dwindling.

Brandvlei Dam. Pressure on many dams is increasing, with a considerable portion of their inflows made up of wastewater effluents and urban runoff.

At the same time, pressure on many dams is increasing, with a considerable portion of their inflows made up of waste-water effluents and urban runoff.

The Department of Water Affairs and Environment manages 574 dams, of which 320 are major dams, each holding more than a million cubic metres of water. From this storage, irrigation uses 62%; urban and domestic use equals 27%; and mining, industry and power generation absorb 8%. Commercial forestry utilises 3%.

Evidence suggests that the quality of about 35% of the storable volume is already severely impaired – and nearly all of this in the economic heartland of Gauteng. Water quality is in fact poorest in the areas with lowest runoff and highest contribution to GDP.

Insidious and sinister changes are appearing in some dams, completely unnoticed by routine monitoring programmes. From this it may be reasonably assumed that SA would possess a national programme for reservoir management.

In recent months there have been many reports referring to a water crisis, mentioning the extreme levels of pollution in most Gauteng dams.

It will come as a shock to learn that SA has no such programme. None of our academic institutions teaches limnology (aquatic sciences) as a career subject, and the Department of Water Affairs, custodian of our water resources, has no directorate of reservoir management that co-ordinates appropriate management of our dams.

Curiously, the National Aquatic Ecosystem Health Monitoring Programme does not mention the word “dams”. So what is the condition of South African aquatic sciences?

“South African limnology is in disarray. It is poorly funded, failing to address certain important environmental problems, lacks a cohesive sense of direction and its potential contributions to effective water-resource management are grossly underrated.”

This statement is, in several ways, almost as true now as it was back in 1989 when it was made by one of the world’s most eminent limnologists, the late Dr Bill Williams.

Williams’s report was commissioned by the then Foundation for Research and Development, a unit that existed within the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. It was compiled at the time the foundation was terminating its inland-waters ecosystem research programme, which encompassed a number of projects spanning all aspects of aquatic sciences.

The Williams report was kept secret by its initiators. The foundation considered that “it would be counterproductive to enter into open debate on the issues raised by the evaluation”, yet noted that “the future of limnology activity (is) of concern”.

As with other administrative crises, there is no time available for finger-pointing. The problems must be assessed, sleeves rolled up and the issues practically and pragmatically addressed. The logical question is, “what is the status of South African aquatic sciences now”?

South African limnology post-1989 has suffered a massive decline – especially with respect to lake (dams) science and management. This was in part underpinned by inaction on the part of the Department of Water Affairs.

The emergence of the Williams report, however, suggests that, in the absence of guidance from the scientific community, the department could reasonably assume that there was no cause for concern.

The years following 1990 saw increased direction of funding into river biology and ecology – almost to the exclusion of anything else in aquatic science. Oddly, despite the punctuation of most South African rivers by dams, there have been no calls from the river ecologist fraternity for the authorities to hasten attention thereto.

A wealth of limnological information has been generated by local authorities and water supply agencies. The bulk of this work was born of a self-preservation need to, in the absence of nationally funded support, understand and manage the nature of the water resources being treated and supplied to consumers.

Regrettably, most of this developed knowledge base remains inaccessible. South African limnologists are few and far between, effectively working in silos. Competition for funding is fierce, resulting in a reluctance to collaborate.

There is little to be gained from picking apart why the Williams report was kept secret. It was a far-sighted, unemotional and accurate analysis of limnology in South Africa. Had it been brought into the open at the time, it would have served as the road map to guide limnology into the new South Africa.

We should perhaps draw solace from the notion that it is never too late to learn. Equally so, with scarce water resources, sooner is better than later.

In the absence of a well-funded and cohesive strategic plan for South African limnology, the country will remain ill-equipped to manage its impounded water supplies.

The rapidly worsening condition of South Africa’s dams will soon catapult the problems they pose to the fore. More than ever before there is a need for fully integrated (rivers, wetlands, dams) assessment and management.

A fight breaks out as student Vikas Dagar jostles with dozens of men, women and children to fill buckets from a truck that brings water twice a week to the village of Jharoda Kalan on [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 31 May 2010

A fight breaks out as student Vikas Dagar jostles with dozens of men, women and children to fill buckets from a truck that brings water twice a week to the village of Jharoda Kalan on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Wei River

Several thousand kilometres away, in central China, power-plant worker Zhou Jie stands on the mostly dry bed of the Wei River, remembering when he used to fish there before pollution made the catch inedible. Dagar and Zhou show the daily struggle with tainted or inadequate water in India and China, a growing shortage that the World Bank says will hamper growth in the world’s fastest-growing economies.

It also pits water-intensive businesses such as Intel’s China unit and the bottling plants of Coca-Cola against growing urban use and the 1.6 billion Chinese and Indians who rely on farming for a living.

“Water will become the next big power, not only in China but the whole world,” said Li Haifeng, the vice-president at sewage-treatment company Beijing Enterprises Water. “Wars may start over the scarcity of water.”

Water demand in the next two decades will double in India to 1.5 trillion cubic metres and rise 32 percent in China to 818 billion cubic metres, according to the 2030 Water Resources Group, a research collaboration between the World Bank, management consulting firm McKinsey & Company and industrial water users such as Coca-Cola.

That would produce returns of about 12 percent from investments in companies that treat or process water, said Arnaud Bisschop, who oversees $3.2 billion (R24bn) investments in the Water Fund run by a unit of Pictet & Cie in Geneva.

The World Bank estimates that 1.2 billion people in India, where farmers use 80 percent of available water, will exhaust their fresh water supplies by 2050 at the current rate.

For Dagar, and the 200 other villagers in Jharoda Kalan, that shortage is already a daily fact of life. “This is for our drinking and cooking,” he said, pointing to four bucketfuls he won from the fight. “I’ve been waiting for the past hour.”

South-west China had its worst drought in a century this year, prompting Premier Wen Jiabao to say that the country would face a test to meet its grain output target.

India’s farmers are awaiting the start of the rainy season this month after the weakest monsoon in more than three decades last year cut rice output by as much as 10 percent, according to the agriculture ministry.

China, with 20 percent of the world’s population and 7 percent of its fresh water, has contaminated 70 percent of its rivers and lakes, while half the cities have polluted groundwater, according to the World Bank. By 2030 China will have a supply shortfall of 201 billion cubic metres unless the government takes steps to control demand, McKinsey partner Martin Joerss in Beijing wrote in an April report.

The pollution and shrinking rivers are partly a result of China’s rapid industrialisation and growth.

“China can solve this problem in a way that creates economic value as opposed to economic cost,” said Joerss. “There is tremendous, though largely untapped, opportunity to meet China’s enormous need for water resources by focusing on better managing demand.”
Investments in technologies to ease China’s water deficit are expected to reap 165131bn (R11bn) in profit a year, according to the McKinsey report.

Asian water-related companies had benefited from the demand for treatment and supply and have potential for further gains, said Bisschop. He said profit on water investments in China may be about 8 percent to 12 percent a year, with even higher returns in some cities.

Intel said it had expanded its transparency and disclosure on water use and adopted a new water policy as part of the California-based company’s commitment to responsible water management. Intel spokeswoman Susan Qian declined to comment on the company’s water use in China.

- Bloomberg

India is the world’s fifth-biggest polluter, a new study confirmed on Tuesday, with its greenhouse gas emissions growing by more than 3 percent annually between 1994 – 2007.

Ganges River pollution

The Asian giant [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 12 May 2010

India is the world’s fifth-biggest polluter, a new study confirmed on Tuesday, with its greenhouse gas emissions growing by more than 3 percent annually between 1994 – 2007.

Ganges River pollution

The Asian giant is also suffering from the effects of global warming such as rising temperatures and sea levels along its coasts. The study represents the first update to an assessment of India’s air emissions that was done 16 years ago. More than 80 scientists from 17 institutions across India were involved in the study, said Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister.

The sectors that showed the most significant annual growth in emissions were cement production, 6 percent; electricity generation, 5,6 percent; and transport, 4,5 percent, said the study, which was released by India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests.

India’s per capita carbon dioxide emissions were roughly 1 360 kilograms in 2007, according to the study. That’s small compared to China and the US, with 4 763 kilograms and 19 278 kilograms respectively that year. The study said that the European Union and Russia also have more emissions than India.

Still, pollution is causing India’s environment to erode significantly, the study said, underscoring the need for India to take action. Continuous warming and the changing rainfall pattern “may jeopardise India’s development by adversely impacting the natural resources such as water, forests, coastal zones and mountains on which more than 70 percent of the rural population is dependent,” the study said.

Temperatures in India, which already suffers from economically debilitating heat and drought, could rise by 2 to 4 degrees Celsius (3,6 F to 7,2 F) by 2050, the study said. In addition, the study says, India’s coastal waters have risen between 1,06 and 1,25 millimetres per year over the last four decades, the study said, threatening life along the coasts.

UN scientists says greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide – emitted mostly by burning fossil fuels for electricity and transportation – are causing climate change that threatens potentially catastrophic environmental damage such as floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

A conference in Copenhagen in December failed to reach a new legally binding treaty after two years of UN-sponsored negotiations.

Last week, some 40 nations agreed to take individual steps to fight global warming but made little progress during a three-day meeting near Bonn, Germany, toward a new international climate change treaty.

- Sapa

Far too many of the world’s plants and animals — and the wild places that support them — are at risk of collapse, a U.N. report finds, despite a global goal set in 2002 for [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 11 May 2010

Far too many of the world’s plants and animals — and the wild places that support them — are at risk of collapse, a U.N. report finds, despite a global goal set in 2002 for major improvement by this year.

Frogs and other amphibians are most at risk of extinction.

Frogs and other amphibians are most at risk of extinction, coral reefs are the species deteriorating most rapidly and the survival of nearly a quarter of all plant species is threatened, the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity said Monday in a report issued every four years.

The outlook on the planet’s ecological diversity and health is produced under a 1993 treaty since joined by most of the world’s nations. It says the planet is falling short of its goal to achieve by this year “a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels.”

Pollution, climate change, drought, deforestation, illegal poaching and overfishing are among the many culprits named.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warns in the report that the consequences of “this collective failure” will be severe for everyone on the planet if it is not quickly corrected.

“We must give it higher priority in all areas of decision-making and in all economic sectors,” he says. “Conserving biodiversity cannot be an afterthought once other objectives are addressed — it is the foundation on which many of these objectives are built.”

The U.N. had declared 2010 would be the “International Year of Biodiversity,” seeking to raise awareness.

But the report provides extremely dire projections of the state of biodiversity globally, such as the loss of huge areas of the Amazon rainforest and many fresh water lakes.

The report is based on a survey of some 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles and intergovernmental assessments, and was financed by Canada, the European Union, Germany, Japan, Spain and Britain, along with the U.N. Environment Program.

Among the biggest problems is that species are being lost even before scientists can properly study them.

“That’s the tragedy of biodiversity loss,” said Delfin Ganapin, a senior manager for the U.N. Environment Program’s Global Environment Facility that provides financing for the treaty’s goals. “Before you’ve read the book in a library, you’ve already lost the books.”

Competition for jobs and economic growth, rather than lack of planning, is seen as the biggest hindrance, particularly in the least developed nations of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where many of the world’s most impoverished people live.

Africa, for example, is home to a quarter of the world’s mammal species and a fifth of all bird species. Forty-nine of the African Union’s 53 nations have strategies for saving imperilled species.

But none of the 110 nations that submitted reports to the treaty claimed to have met their individual targets for improving biodiversity.

Still, many of these problems “could be solved with urgent action,” Ganapin told a news conference at U.N. headquarters.

“If we can only summon even a fraction of the money that was put in to solve the financial crisis, we would have been able to avoid very much more serious and fundamental breakdowns in the Earth’s life-support ecosystems,” he said.

The report does contain a few slivers of hope: It says, for example, that measures to control the spread of so-called alien invasive species have resulted in the rescue of at least 31 bird species during the past century.

By: John Heilprin
- AP

With over 10 per cent of migratory birds in danger, this weekend conservationists will highlight the extinction crisis threatening nature’s global travellers.

Tasmanian Silvereye

The theme for World Migratory Bird Day 2010, celebrated around [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 May 2010

With over 10 per cent of migratory birds in danger, this weekend conservationists will highlight the extinction crisis threatening nature’s global travellers.

Tasmanian Silvereye

The theme for World Migratory Bird Day 2010, celebrated around the world on 8-9 May, is ‘Save migratory birds in crisis – every species counts!’

Around 19 per cent of all known birds are considered to be migratory, of which 11 per cent are Globally Threatened or Near Threatened.

“The threat of extinction faced by individual bird species is a reflection of the larger extinction crisis threatening life on Earth,” says Bert Lenten, Executive Secretary of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) and initiator of the World Migratory Bird Day campaign.

Migratory birds face a plethora of mainly human-driven threats: agriculture is degrading natural habitat including vital breeding areas, and imported alien invasive species are changing prey and habitat patterns. Hunting and trapping, logging, an increasingly urban world, pollution and climate change all pose significant dangers to global bird populations.

Events for WMBD in over 40 countries will include bird festivals, educational programmes, presentations and bird watching trips organized by hundreds of dedicated groups and organizations around the world.

An international photo competition – The World’s Rarest Bird Photo Competition – is also linked to WMBD this year, with a focus on the world’s most threatened birds.

Critically Endangered bird species are found throughout the world in all countries and territories.

“International collaboration is the only way to conserve migratory birds as they pass along their flyways”, said Dr Marco Lambertini, BirdLife’s Chief Executive.

“That’s why the BirdLife Partnership, with over 100 national organizations across continents, can make a great difference in providing safer routes for migratory birds, as well as promoting the crucial inter-governmental efforts needed to address the growing threats along the flyways”.

Source: UNEP

Taxpayers are facing a R40-million clean-up bill to eliminate pollution from a toxic waste dump near Durban which contains high levels of mercury, a dangerous heavy metal which damages the brain and other parts of [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 12 April 2010

Taxpayers are facing a R40-million clean-up bill to eliminate pollution from a toxic waste dump near Durban which contains high levels of mercury, a dangerous heavy metal which damages the brain and other parts of the body.

Mercury was used by the SADF to prevent canvas from rotting

The poison was dumped in several pits in the Hammarsdale area more than 30 years ago. It is thought to have originated from a former Tongaat-Hulett subsidiary company, Hebox Textiles, which used to dip South African Defence Force military tents in a mercury-based fungicide to prevent the canvas from rotting.

The unfenced and unrehabilitated dump was exposed in The Mercury newspaper earlier this year following concern that mercury might still be seeping into surrounding groundwater and rivers.

The Department of Water Affairs gave the assurance two months ago that the pits posed no threat to water, but it refused to release the results of previous water monitoring tests in the area.
Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on Sunday that further water tests were done last month and these also suggested there was no threat to rivers and groundwater.

Sonjica was responding to written queries from Democratic Alliance MP Gareth Morgan, who visited the abandoned mercury pits earlier this year and took photographs of cattle eating grass directly above the contaminated pits.

Sonjica confirmed that sludges from Hebox Textiles and other companies in the Hammarsdale industrial area had been dumped into several ponds in Hammarsdale between 1970 and 1980.

The Mercury has seen a report prepared by Umgeni Water in 1994 which showed that mercury levels in the pits “greatly exceeded” South African guidelines for disposal of mercury in soil.

Though Umgeni concluded that groundwater pollution from the unlined sludge ponds was not likely to pollute groundwater, it suggested that the government should be cautious about managing the site in future.

According to Sonjica, water samples were collected from several places around the waste dump in October, 2004. These showed no mercury pollution in the nearby Sterkspruit River, which suggested that the Shongweni Dam was also not polluted by the dump.

More recently, Sonjica said ground and surface water samples were taken on March 11 and these also showed “no impact on the water resources”. Morgan said on Sunday he would request copies of the test results.

Sonjica said her department met officials of the eThekwini municipality and KZN Department of Environmental Affairs five years ago to discuss a rehabilitation and remediation plan for the dump.

But the clean-up never started because of “budgetary constraints” in her department, and latest estimates showed it would now cost between R30-million and R40-million to rehabilitate the site.

“Funding is currently being mobilised for this,” she said in her letter to Morgan.

In the interim, further warning signs had been erected near the site in English and Zulu, and a procurement process had started to erect a fence around the site at a cost of about R1-million. Earlier this year, a spokesperson for the Tongaat-Hulett group said Hebox Textiles had been sold in 1991.

On the issue of mercury sludges and who should be held responsible for clean-up costs, Tongaat-Hulett said at the time: “We have not been able to verify, in the short time available, the possible use of mercury and its disposal at Hebox Textiles. We will be commencing an internal investigation.”

- Tony Carnie
Source: iol

A new warning has been issued to the public not to swim or fish in the Swartkops River as the water quality has deteriorated further.

Swartkops River Mouth. Photo by Graham Hobbs.

Last month, [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 02 April 2010

A new warning has been issued to the public not to swim or fish in the Swartkops River as the water quality has deteriorated further.

Swartkops River Mouth. Photo by Graham Hobbs.

Last month, the 2010 Redhouse River Mile had to be moved from the Swartkops River to Cannonville on the Sundays River due to dangerously high levels of pollution.

Jenny Rump of the Zwartkops Trust said yesterday that effluent had been flowing into the river for days because broken sewerage pipes had not been repaired. “The trust has received complaints from the residents of Aloes and Wells Estate that sewage has been running past their houses.

“It has been flowing in their streets for days now,” added Rump, The Herald General Motors Citizen of the Year. “This is dangerous for the people’s health. They have to live with the sewage smell for days,” she said.

Rump said the Swartkops River, popular among swimmers and anglers, attracted a lot of visitors over the Easter weekend. Some of the stormwater drains that run through Wells Estate, which borders the sea, were broken, Rump added.

The deluge of litter that comes from the drains also joins the Swartkops River, causing two types of pollution.

“Sewage sometimes also bubbles onto the streets of Motherwell, apparently from collector stations where pumps have broken down, and then finds its way via the stormwater drains into the river,” she said.

Municipal spokesman Kupido Baron could not comment last night on the latest pollution development at the Swartkops River. “All I know is that we have been working on the issue since the time the River Mile event scheduled to take place there had to move.

“I know there is a strategy in place, and we have weekly testing of the bacteria level at the river,” he added without disclosing the nature of the plan.

Source: Weekend Post

Ministers and officials from ten countries and territories in East Africa yesterday endorsed or signed off on a potentially far-reaching protocol to protect East Africa’s coastal and marine environment from land-based activities and pollution.

The [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 01 April 2010

Ministers and officials from ten countries and territories in East Africa yesterday endorsed or signed off on a potentially far-reaching protocol to protect East Africa’s coastal and marine environment from land-based activities and pollution.

The new protocol – five years in the making – makes the western Indian Ocean the third marine area of the world to achieve a multilateral agreement to limit and control land-based impacts on the marine environment, after the Mediterranean (1980) and Wider Caribbean (1999).

The parties to the agreement are Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles, Reunion, Mauritius, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, which will be signing the protocol in the near future.

Durban Beach. Burgeoning cities such as Durban are threatening the very resource base that sustains them.

“This agreement comes at an opportune time, and will be assisting us with our initiatives in coast East Africa to save one of the few remaining areas of the world that are still unspoilt,” said Dr Amani Ngusaru, head of WWF’s Coastal East Africa Marine Programme.

“Over 60 million people in eastern and southern Africa live and depend on the goods and services provided by the coastal and marine ecosystems of coastal east Africa.”

A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Study, Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis of land-based sources and activities in the Western Indian Ocean Region estimates the economic value in the form of goods and services provided by marine habitats such as coastal and mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds to be more than US$25 billion per year.

“However, the resources of coastal East Africa are coming more and more under threat from rapid population growth, increased resource exploitation, unplanned development and climate change,” Dr Ngusaru said. “Burgeoning cities such as Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Durban are threatening the very resource base that sustains them.

“Countering these trends is complicated by a lack of capacity and effective legal instruments that governments can use to champion the protection of the marine environment.”

The signing of the protocol followed nine demonstration projects focusing on dissemination of technologies and approaches for the sustainable management and protection of the marine ecosystems. These included wastewater management using advanced constructed wetlands in Kenya, Seychelles and Tanzania and community-based resource management and eco-tourism demonstration projects in Comoros and Madagascar.

A waste management demonstration project and a soil erosion control, both using indigenous vegetation, were implemented in Mauritius.

The meeting of parties to the Nairobi Convention for the Protection, Management and Development of the Marine and Coastal Environment of the Eastern African Region also endorsed a first ever Strategic Action Programme for marine protection in the area.

Source: WWF