South Africa is the 30th driest country in the world this is According to Kohler (2016), SA receives little annual rainfall and have little accesses to clean water, linking us to shortage of water as it is polluted by mines and most of the SA land id dry.

In South Africa not everyone has access to electricity or the modern energy supply it is not widely available to the majority of the population. Electricity is only available to those who can afford it, this was according to Sarkodie and Adams (2020).

Calma et. (2011) define social justice as a complex concept with many different meanings and emphases that deals with balance between individuals and society measured by comparing distribution of wealth among the society.

Environmental social justice is a type of social justice that tries to address equity and fairness in relation to injustices caused by environmental challenges.

That is contracted by climate change (drought or global pollution) that affect people across all socioeconomic and social groups leading to injustice where the rich are able to respond to the effects of climate change, according to Räthzel, N.

In South Africa the government have tried to support the sustainable use of inland and coastal natural resources and lowering carbon emissions, pollutants in the atmosphere, and the impact of climate change,

According to Zabala and Sulivan, the wetland project was used to alleviate poverty by creating employment for about 2000 people.

South Africa's environmental situation is terrible, and it's just getting worse. Almost all of our resources, such as coal for power generation and water, are depleted. As a result, we're compelled to employ more expensive methods to provide people with energy and water. Because many people in South Africa are impoverished and cannot afford to make their own food, this is inconvenient and environmentally unfriendly.

According to Stewart and Zaaiman Ch21 (p. 514 – 521). In South Africa the are four development narrative found between the relationship of society and the  environment, namely the conservation view, the local economic view, the non-state actors view and local community views. 

Each narrative has it on motives

The conservation view, people are denied a chance to participate in decision making as they are excluded and their rights to land and other natural resources on that land is removed.

The motivation, it approach justified by creating alarm and panic about the state of the environment, making people to believe that they have to move. sees environment as victim that has to be saved from the society.

The economic view, the environment is viewed as commodity for selling and buying, benefiting only the privileged groups.

The motivation behind this approach is capitalism, that the natural resources have to be sold to lift people  out of poverty.

The non-state actor view the views come from external interested parties outside of the local community and sometimes it may exclude the local community representation.

The motivation behind this approach are the beliefs that the inherent value of the environment that should be protected and respected,​ supervised by communities and government, the strong belief that environmental resources are finite and people should not use nature to serve their own needs and it also challenge the state power & decision making in promoting unrestrained economic growth.​

The local community view, the views vary and they are extremely differentiated, as they are informed by time, place, individual characteristics and circumstances as well as local power & politics.

The motivation being the nature of the relationship with the environment as shaped by the socio-political context and policies and practices being place to challenge the communities relationship with the environment.

All the narratives contribute to an understanding of the SA environment, they help us know what are the causes of environmental change and the rich are able to take some rural land using the approaches taking land with resources so that they can benefit themselves and boost the economy.

The are two main environmental discourses in SA, the Sustainable development and Environmental and social justice.

The Sustainable development, include all the developed and developing countries and the different groups for country to succeed or develop. The resources are used to pursue development without harming the environment and Profit from the environment but do justice to communities.

Environmental and social justice, environmental resources are used to overcome social problems and environmental justice in the distribution of waste is managed.

The sustainable development discourses link to the SA policies by using the Natural Capital account and valuation of Ecosystem Services will benefit from measurement and tracking resources. It helps to link national economic and demographic data, to show how and where people most​ depend on, and impact the nature​ so that the things to be fixed or improved are known.

Use environmental sociology theory to analyse and critically discuss society’s response to environmental problems or challenges and the notion of social justice and social resilience in this regard, with reference to the SA context.

Buckle’s, identified two eras in the world history to say that the environment is a critical factor for  nations to flourish. The Eastern nations grow because of their very large quantity warm climates, fertile soil, rain. The Northern nations being located to survive the cold, producing a scale of food, while the Southern nations become trapped. In South Africa there are different climate change, that result in some areas to have fertile soil, rain and produce a large scale of food and other areas have dry land making it hard to grow food, the soil unable to produce as the is no enough rain. 

Huntington established a correlation between climate and intrapersonal factors and external factors, that a productive climate result from some of the industrial efficiency which was later criticized, In South Africa the are lot of mines that pollute the air affecting our Ozone layer, leading to shortage of rain that result in water shortage in South Africa, rural not having access to clean water polluted by mines and shortage of rain to fill the rivers and dams with water. 

The environmental problems within society are resilience,  according to Hosu et al. (2018) South African service delivery is not key, the leaders are promising the society change but it takes time. In South Africa a policy documents for water suppliers were introduced in 1994, but there are still areas facing water shortage, this still shows inequality. 

Environmental problems can be defined as the human activity that has a negative impact on the physical and biological climate. 

There are many environmental problems some are influenced by nature and other influenced by the society. The actions of the society has contributed to these problems, global warming being the current leading one as it highly experienced by the whole world, this leads to Ozone depletion the layer around the earth that protects inhabitants from the harmful ultraviolet light of the sun being thinned or forming holes allowing sun rays to cut through. The society burn coal and fossil fuels and emission of cars and also the propellant in aerosol cans, styrofoam ochlorofluorocarbons used in refrigeration and air-conditioning systems leads to global warming.

Adverse Effects on Marine Life, caused by over fishing by society and pollution of oceans by society continue to dump mercury and microplastic that contribute to death of marine species. The decline in fresh water caused by humans activity in overuse, pollution, wastage, population growth and flooding are all the role of society. 

Water pollution, air pollution, land loss, solid waste pollution, and deforestation are all problems in Southern Africa. In South Africa the are many mines which contribute to the above problems, the Sasolburg coal mining it is polluting the air and affect the breathing of those around and the coal and gold mine around Gauteng and Mpumalanga contribute to soil pollution as the remains are dumped on land, causing the land to loss nutrients for wild life to grow.

 The participatory development approach

Participatory development this kind of process is used by community members and stakeholders to communicate. It also helps the societies to build their own capacity and self-reliance. In South Africa UNESCO's Finding a Voice Project employs ICT for development  initiatives, local content creation and distribution contributes to the formation of local information networks. Beside every good thing it does the participatory development has revealed certain difficulties, such as a lack of capacity and the use of ineffective technology.

Boserup‟s contribution to visibility of women and development.

. E Boserup was the first women to come up with an important statement of  position of women in development. She discouraged modernization and strongly believed that the thing to improve or develop women is the economic efficiency that would emancipate women in the third world​. This gave women were given a voice and gender concerns were moved to the forefront of the international development regime.

 emergence of WID approach 

. It is focused on the liberal modernization philosophy and focuses on women in progress. Women's empowerment will be accomplished by raising economic concerns. Because of illiteracy and a lack of vocational schooling, they were unable to integrate into the new economy.

the approach through the first three conference 

Mexico (1975), Nairobi (1980), and Copenhagen (1990) hosted the first three international women's conferences (1985). The WID was pushed into being by a third women's party. The status of women was equal to men as a result of this strategy. This was first published in 1975.

GAD approach

This is a symbol of progressive feminism, which emphasizes women's liberation and the uprooting of sexism. Women are not considered a uniform in the GAD solution.
Women are not treated as a homogeneous group in the GAD solution. It asserts that the position of women should be seen in the light of socioeconomic, ethnic, and other forces that form a society.

Modernisation theory 

Modernisation theory is a technological, economic, and cultural transition through which a nation "evolves" from a pre-industrial or underdeveloped society to a global society by following the prescriptions of the More Developed Countries (MDCs), such as the Northern countries 

-believes that a country's underdevelopment is due to the country's failure to transform into a modern economy.

-would want to substitute old methods with more modern methods.

-fails to see economic inequality and disparities in socioeconomic status.
 

dependency theory

dependency theory is  a state in which one economy's growth and extension is at the cost of another economy, as in slavery and colonization.

-believes that colonization of first world countries (MDCs) is to blame for a country's underdevelopment.

-promotes the interdependency between conventional and new methods for a country's growth explains and investigates global inequality and social status disparities

-believe that developed economies have benefited at the detriment of developing nations.

growth and structural change 

The development requires structured change that the economy's operation must move from primary sector to the secondary sector, then to the tertiary sector.

South Africa is both considered a less developed and the developing, as it uses both the primary and secondary sector to generates its income, from  agriculture and to manufacturing of goods.

distribution of income 

the distribution must be even to all the people so that it can accelerate growth and promote economic development. 

In South Africa it is distributed uneven, the poor receive social grant for survival which benefits them and its affect the rich and wealthy as tax is highly deducted from their wages. And all in all the different job opportunities or qualifications contribute to the unfairly distribution of income.

Modernisation 

development or economic growth is thought to result from economic growth, industrialization, socio-cultural transition, and political transformation.

South Africa is a modernized country as it has engaged it self with modern and advanced technology​, which are traits of a modernized society and country. 

demographical transitions 

Development requires improvements in health and sanitation contribute to a reduction in mortality rates. And this will help a country to reduce over population and create better opportunities for women.

South Africa is currently at stage 3 of demographical transition, this is the marker of significant development because of its upraising economic reasons.

Experts define poverty in many different ways, they say poverty is connected to national income or the distribution of expenditures where they most focus on the income of a household how much they generate and what good and needs they spent it on. Poverty is the limitations towards basket of goods, this came from the ​poverty datum line which is made of two parts, the primary poverty datum which only included the costs of food, clothes, cleaning supplies, electricity, and light, and the Secondary Poverty Datum Line, which also included the cost of housing, taxation and transportation for breadwinners.

The experts introduced the Household Subsistence Level and Household Effective Level to determine poverty  what expenses and needs do a household must have to be considered living in poverty or not, and this limited the number of poverty by 50% according to (Meth, 2006). 

Hoogeveen and Ozler - Upper and Lower Bound Poverty Lines, use the cost of basic needs to determine poverty which focused on prices, their basket of goods had food, alcohol, cigarettes, lodging and utilities, compensation for domestic employees, personal care, household facilities and other household consumer products, fuel (excluding firewood and dung), clothing and footwear, and transportation (excluding public transportation), purchased cars, communication costs, schooling, reading materials, permits, and other expenses

The food insecurity measures of poverty, it calculated the subsistence diet for households, or it is based on food consumption. This approach suggest that  poor people
standards of living, result of their previous decisions, which are used to determine other needs.
Their poverty and lack of access to capital have dictated that they obtain only what they need or want.

Townsend, 1979. defined poverty as lack of resources to get a good diet, engage in building activities, and must have good surviving conditions and comforting customary that are approved by the society.

    The benefits of poverty for individual and community 

poverty can be defined as the struggle that is faced differently from different societies as they are classes on every society with minimum standard of living. Deprivation has been used to to determine poverty as it looks at large range of living standards. the income levels and lack of resources detect poverty, social exclusion and lack of healthy products are one of the signs of poverty in most societies or communities. 

Poverty beside being harsh to those experiencing it, the are also benefits of poverty. For individual or community the hunger to hustle everyday kicks, people look for domestic work for try prevent poverty, large number of volunteers are present if needed in the community. Better norms are present in poor areas and culturally organized. Most people are united help each other to achieve better or good. less racism is recorded in areas with poverty and it helps with recycling keeping cities clean.