Nature and the human endeavour are inextricably intertwined, and we best remember it if we are to survive as a species, writes Morné du Plessis.
As we careen towards the 10 billion population mark in 2050, there has come the sobering realisation that, at current rates of consumption, we will run out of natural resources and risk choking on our own waste, be it carbon emissions, plastic or derelict infrastructure.
Against this stark reality, you might call environmentalists eternal optimists. Whether we are working to limit the human impact on a fast-changing climate or to manage the environmental impacts of the vast food supply landscapes, we embark on ambitious initiatives to restore balance, reduce impact and protect our country’s vital resources and natural biodiversity.
Many environmental organisations like my own work tirelessly to look after our natural resources – the oceans, land and wildlife – so that we can all continue to benefit from food, water and a healthy climate. And in recent years, the lexicon of environmentalists has changed.
We talk about job creation, community empowerment, skills development, human health, agricultural extension, livelihoods, wellbeing, faith-based stewardship and disaster management. Of course, the more familiar language is there too: resilient landscapes, catchment management, restoration ecology, air quality, climate change, ecological services, biodiversity.
In South Africa the environment accounts directly for much of our economic activity and, if you factor in indirect influence, you would have to try hard to prove the absence of a connection. This is almost completely the opposite of where we were merely one or two decades ago.
How might this have come about?
Each one of us is connected to this future in an intimate way. The year 2050 is just around the corner in planetary time, and all of us are close to at least one person (a daughter, son, niece, nephew or child of a friend or colleague) who will inherit that future. A handful of us might even make it there ourselves.
Whereas in the 1970s there appeared to be no limits to growth, 50 years later we are still living as if that is still the case, even though we know that the next few decades will not be so forgiving. It seems that despite growing knowledge of the consequences of future resource limitation and global change (including climate change), humans as a species simply have no brakes.
Of course, there are those who bank on technological innovation to bail us out of resource scarcity, and to some extent it will. But there are also limits to bailouts. At some point everyone must acknowledge that the most cost-effective (and most aesthetically pleasing) way beyond such bailouts is to manage what we have in a way that addresses everyone’s needs.
But it seems that the pennies of logic drop on fertile ground only in moments of crisis. It takes a crisis such as Cape Town’s ‘Day Zero’ drought to focus the minds and actions of private citizens, civil servants and businesses. Only then do we fully appreciate that our water supply depends on carefully managed catchments and properly maintained infrastructure, and even then it is threatened by increasingly erratic rainfall patterns as a result of human-induced climate impacts.
The broader social consequence of water deprivation suddenly becomes a previously avoidable but now lived experience. The collateral consequences of water shortfalls affect human health through the shortage of clean drinking water and a decline in hygiene, the functioning of business and the production of food crops.
Sports leagues played on grass pitches are cancelled, office buildings become uncomfortable places to work in, businesses generating water-based products become secondary priorities and are shut down and educational institutions are disrupted. In the worstcase scenario, the few precious drops available are channelled to hospitals. Human productivity declines to almost nothing as individual households spend hours daily to secure their 25-litre ration of water.
It rapidly becomes a matter of mere survival and we soon realise that just one of the environmental resources that we have taken for granted is intertwined with almost every part of our lives.
There are also many similarly vital environmental resources that cost us nothing and that we take for granted. Touch the pollinators and you disrupt the source of much of your food. Touch the natural riverine vegetation and you disrupt the natural ability of a river system to calm a raging torrent.
Those who have the means may try to avoid the worst effects of environmental degradation – although that too is a risky game. The majority of people, however, do not have this luxury. Therefore, what started as a conversation about environmental overshoot soon turns into one of social justice.
Nature is not only beauteous and wonderful and a restorative retreat for the weary soul; it is the quintessential life provider. From nature we receive the food that nourishes, the water that replenishes and the raw energy that ignites so many aspects of our modern, urban world. It is virtually impossible to separate the interests of the environment from our own.
We ignore this simple truth at our peril.
Dr Morné du Plessis is the CEO of WWF South Africa.
Source Details: Nedbank Private Wealth Giving Report IV
