1. According to Kohler (2016) South Africa is the 30th driest country in the world. Because we don't recieve a lot of rain, when it eventually rains the ground evaporates the water and it re-enters the atmospheric phase almost instantly. A challenge SA face is that only 20% of South Arica's ground water can be used, which limits the water availability even further. The need of water intensifies each year, with more people demanding more water.

According to Sarkodie and Adams (2020) many of South African's people can't afford electricity and are not easily accessible to a lot people. Only the "rich" people can afford electricity.

2. According to Calma (2011) social justice basically means to find a balance between our responsibilities as a society and our responsibilities as individuals to contribute to a just society.

3. According to Rathzel (2018) environmental social justice means that it is a type of justice for people who has been "left out" during environmental problems. For example in South Africa with all the mines, our air is getting polluted. So the environmental social justice is there to help those who suffers under the environmental conditions.

4. The wedland project helps to pure the water, provide water and to manage the water flow in poverty effective areas. This project also helped to provide job opportunities to at least 2000 people  who suffers under poverty.  Making their lives a little bit more easy.

5. The state of the environment in South Africa is very bad and sadly it is only getting worse. Almost all of our resources such as coals for electricity and water resources are finished. So we are forced to use other, more expensive ways to provide electricity and water to people. This is not convenient, because a lot of people in South Africa are poor and cannot afford to make this change.

1. Name the four environmental narratives identified in SA:

- The conservation.

- The economic.

- Non-state actors.

- Local views.

2. What is the objectives and motive for each narrative?

The conservation:

- The object is that the nature does not need human interference, it restores itself. Nature only requires humans to maintain it.

- The motivation is that it justifies the approach by creating alarm and panic about the state of the environment.

The economic view:

- The objective is that the environment is seen as commodity that is primarily there for selling-buying. The view is seen as an economic asset.

- The motivation is that nature is an untapped resource that should be exploited to lift people out of poverty- so a profit as well as development motive.

The non-state actor view:

- The objective is that the view originate from external interested parties outside of the local community.

- Motivation for the approach is a belief in the value of the environment that should be protected and respected.

The local community view:

- This view are complex and highly differentiated, because it is informed by time, place, individual characteristics and circumstances as well as local power politics.

- The motivation for the approach is influenced by the nature of the relationship with the environment as shaped by the socio-political context.

3. Do these narratives contributes to an understanding of the SA environment ?

Yes they do. All of this narratives helps us to understand more of our South African nature and how we contribute to the natures 'well-being'. It also helps us to understand what we as humans do that harms our country's nature.

4. What are the two main environmental discourses in SA, according to Stewart and Zaaiman?

- Sustainable development (SD) - This discourse works along other countries to advance the theory and practice of ecosystem accounting called the Natural Capital Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem services project. This discourse shows how and where people most depend on and impact nature.

- Social justice env discourses in SA - Shows us the problems in our communities such as poverty, poor quality education and unemployment. And also how we contributes to these problems. Power relations, political undertones, radicalism form the basis for the fight for environmental justice in SA.

5. How does the sustainable development discourses link to the SA policies:

- By using the ecosystem accounting it will help to provide us with a systematic way to measure, track and report on stock and flows of natural capital. It will help the SA policies to know what problems they should fix. 

According to Buckle the environment is a critical factor for nations to flourish. For example the only reason for the Eastern nations to flourish is because of warm climates. The Northern nations were innovative and industrious to survive the cold, producing a large quantity of food. But by modern times the Southern nations stagnated. So in South Africa we have different climates in different parts of our country. For example in the Freestate the warm weather is great for producing food and they also get enough rain to produce a large quantity of food too. But in the Karoo where the weather is extremely hot, they struggle with producing food and they also have little but no rain each year which makes it even harder to try and produce food.

Human societies are being exempt from the ecological principles and constraints that govern other species. Because of the pro-development paradigm, environmental degradation and crises takes place. Human beings are known for overpopulating and for all the pollution around the world. For example in South Africa, we have a lot of factories so that contributes to the air pollution that affects our ozone layer. 

So all the environmental problems within society are resilience, because although people need to change their behaviour and accept the challenges they are faced with, in SA it is not possible. In SA our service delivery are almost non- existant, so our government will no be able to help other people who suffer. For example in South Africa, the government can't help those people who have water shortages, the public needs to go out and help them.

Environmental problems are the main cause of society problems, but in most cases humans are the main cause of environmental problems.  Some environmental problems are air pollution and climate change and defrosting of ice at the North Pool. For example in South Africa there are almost yearly wild fires in Cape Town, which contributes to the air pollution. But sadly if our air pollution gets even worse than it already is, our ozone will disintegrate and we will SUFFER from the sun, everything will be burned. Even if there is a strong and huge storm in densely populated poorly structured houses, it would be most likely that more people would die than those who live in well structured houses. So everything has a connection to one another, for example we as humans don't look after the world, we are neglecting nature and in return nature ruin us by "natural disasters". 

Participatory development approach and critique with an SA example:

Participatory development helps societies to build their own capacity and self-reliance. It also gets people of the community involved in the development process. This participation is used as an communication model between community members and stakeholders. But like with everything else participatory development has shown some challenges such as limited capacity and inappropriate technologies. In South Africa their is an example of UNESCO's Finding a Voice Project who employs ICT for development initiatives. 

Woman in developmental approach:

Woman in development (WID) gave a voice to woman and pushes the issues of gender inequality into the centre stage of the international development regime. Woman were being left out development practice, research and policy. Some of the woman who was not benefiting fully and their status was made worse by development. The woman in development approach saw this problem as the exclusion of woman in development programs and approaches. The WID approach argued for the integration of woman in development programmes to improve woman's position in society. Although the WID approach has it's limitations, it increased the visibility of woman in development.

The woman and development (WAD):

The woman and development approach comes from the perspective that equality will be essential to improving woman's positions. It focused on the social relations existing between woman and men with woman always playing roles in their societies as productive and reproductive actors.

I  would say that the woman in development are most useful in the South Africa context. Because woman in SA is still regarded as someone with less value and are looked upon. There are still a huge gap between men and woman in SA, and that needs to change.

Modernisation is a process of social, economic and cultural transformation in which a country "evolves" from pre-industrial to a modern society. Countries follow a series of 5 stages of development that all countries have to follow. The traditional society, Pre-conditions for take off, Take off, The drive to maturity and High mass consumption. A country is considered modern if people have political, economical and social freedom and if they have high literacy rates.

Dependency is a result of the failure of the modernization theory to address the underdevelopment of the third world countries. They are focused on the origins and subsequent development of underdevelopment.

1. Growth and structural change.

Structural change refers to dramatic shift in the way a country, industry, or market operates, usually brought on by major economic developments.

South Africa has not made any huge progress in transforming the structure of its economy. Some even may say that in fact it had regressed. South Africa can be seen as a developed country and would most likely use the primary sector to generate their income.

2. Distribution of Income.

Income distribution is extremely important for development, since it influences the society. It determines the extent of poverty for any given average per capita income and the poverty-reducing effects of growth, and even affects people's health.

Income should be distributed fair between all the people in the country. In South Africa people who live in Gauteng receives more that 10,000 dollars and people living in Eastern Cape receives less than 4,000 dollars. Inequality moves along with growth, so the more a country grow the more inequality will take place.

3. Modernisation.

Modernisation underpinned the idea of development as growth, with modernisation defined as a linear path towards a developed industrial society. Economic development through industrial transformation would lead to economic growth, allowing poorer countries to catch up with industrial countries.

A country can only be modern when it starts to use modern technology, and South Africa is starting to use more modern technology in the medical world and in our daily lives. 

4. Demographic Transitions.

The demographic transition model graphs Birth rates, Death rates and Natural increase. The rate of Natural Increase is much higher in developing countries of the world, and many countries in HICs are actually experiencing population decline. 

In South Africa the demographic transition model is on stage 3, which is viewed as a marker of significant development. 

The definition of poverty by many experts can be seen as the standards one are met of a particular society at a particular time. That includes people's basic needs and how much food is available for them. People who fall under poverty will lack the resources to obtain a type of diet and don't have good living conditions.

Poverty takes away someone's peace of mind. People who fall under poverty don't know where or when their next meal will come from. Mostly these people will make use of donations from churches or soup kitchens. These people will also most likely don't have running or hot water in their homes, they will also not have basic hygiene products or tools such as toilets and baths, their environment will be bad.

And lastly people who fall under poverty will not be able to afford any luxuries such as going on holidays, buying fast food and going to events.

                What are the benefits of poverty for the individual and the community?

Poverty are normally linked to negative conditions such as homelessness and food insecurity as an example. It is a state of being extremely poor, when you struggle to get food or pay the bills.

The effects of poverty can follow you into adulthood, believe it or not. Poverty can cause chronic illnesses and even lack of work if you didn't have good education. More and more families are struggling with food insecurity as life goes on.

During all this negative conditions, some individuals and even the community can benefit from poverty. Because of poverty there are a lot of companies that provide work for minimum wage, so it gives more people the opportunity to apply and eventually get work.

Poverty even contributes to recycling. More and more people recycle bottles and cans for money. Everyday we see a lot of homeless people searching in the streets for something to recycle, and that is a way the community and individuals can benefit from poverty. Individuals are making money and the community is staying clean, a win-win situation.