The environmental narratives identified in South Africa

Four narratives found in SA

1. The conservation
2. The economic
3. The non-state actors
4. The local views

The objective and motivation of each narrative

Conservation

The Conservation narrative is rooted in the Apartheid era. It takes away the rights of people and remove them from their rightful land; it is forced evictions.

The motivation is to ensure the conservation of the land in the interest of the nation, societies and communities because people usually use it for their own personal gain while they are busy destroying it.

Economic

The economic is seen as a commodity that is primarily for selling and buying.

Nature is an untapped resource that should be exploited thus sold for profit to lift people out of poverty-so it is a profit as well as developmental motive.

 Non-state actions

Views originate from external interested parties (e.g. academics, scientists, non-governmental organisations) outside the local community.

The intrinsic value of the environment should be protected and respected.  It challenges the state power and decision making in unrestrained economic growth.

Local community views

These views are complex and highly differentiated because it is informed by time, place, individual characteristics and circumstances as well as the local power and politics.

It is motivated by the nature of the relationship with the environment as shaped by the socio-political context. As well as the politics and practices as framework direct views and response of local communities.

Do these narratives contribute to an understanding of the SA environment?

Yes, it does contribute to understanding the environment of SA because it shows us the problems that our country is faced with. Again, it gives us direction to take in order to overcome them and have solutions that will work for everyone.

Two main discourses

Sustainable development

 It requires co-operation, commitment and co-ordination of efforts on all levels of government. It purses development without harming the environment.  

Environmental and social justice

It reflects the diverse views on the society, environment interface and incorporates views from diverse organizations and groupings.

How does the sustainable development link to the SA policies?

The NCA provides a systemic way to measure, track and report on stocks and flows of natural capital. It relies on various measures to track national progress and inform policy and decision-making. It includes resources such as water, minerals, energy, timber, fish as well as accounting for ecosystem assets and ecosystem services.

According to Buckle's theory to the environment is a crucial factor for notations to flourish. The Eastern notations flourish because of warm climates, fertile soil and enough rainfall. The Northern notations were innovative and industries to survive the cold by producing a large quantity of food. 

South Africa is a country with more than one climate. In places like Mpumalamga with a warm climate, enough rainfall and fertile soil, they are able to harvest food that can last for a very long time including the winter time. They are able to plant all year through. Then we come across places like the Northen Cape, they cannot produce such large quantities because they do not have enough rainfall. Since South Africa is faced with multiple difficulties of their own water shortage is one of the biggest problem. Our government cannot meet the required basic human needs because of all the corruption that is taking place. 

The anthropogenic nature of environmental problems 

Environmental problems and human beings are linked together and we see the results through the environmental problems that we see and have today. These problems are mainly caused by humans rather than nature itself. 

The generating of electricity in our country means that we need to mine for coal. Not only it is costly it also impact our health. We end up breathing air that is polluted by chemicals that are being released from the firms, sometimes we find ourselves drinking water that is also contaminated by dangerous chemicals. In Cape Town, the field fires that would break out also adds towards global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer. With the rural-urban migration increases it means that deforestation also has to take place as that brings a lot of species lives in danger of extinction. 

Participatory Development 

This approach enables society to build their own capacity and self-reliance.  Participation is used as a way to collaborate and provide information between community members and all stakeholders involved. 

Since South Africa is dominated by corruption the concept of Ubuntu cannot work in our communities. Everyone wants to benefit from the other without having to do the work. That is where people in power tend to take advantage of the poor instead of working together,  they rather steal from the poor. 

WID

WID gave women voice and pushed the issues of gender into stage. Men were for the most time seen as superior over women and their capabilities were often underestimated. The WID approach argued that this intergration of women in development programs are too improve the position of women in society. 

WAD

The main focus is between women and the development processes rather than the to integrate in development. They saw that both men and women are not benefitting from the global economic structures because of the unequal distribution of resources. 

Learning Activity 6

Dependency theory

The dependency theory is based on the Marxist view of the world. They focus on the cause and consequences of underdevelopment. How the rich countries exploit the poor for their benefit. It is seen as a product of colonialism that the rich countries are where they are. According to the theory, all modern economics are united into a single capitalist with economic structure.

Modernization theory

The modernization theory states that poor countries are poor because they are yet to develop into modern economics and their failure to do so is big because of the internal factors such as the resistance to the free market. All countries begin at the traditional underdevelopment level. Poor countries must let go of their cultural values in order to grow.

Four factors that constitutes development in the context of South Africa

1 Rural to urban migration  

A lot of people are moving to urban areas because they want to better their living conditions. Young people leave their rural homes to go to schools in the big towns and some they go there to seek job opportunities. They go there because the market is much better, and cost of living is not so expensive like back at home.

2 Growth and structural change

South Africa is a developing a country, therefore its main production is both primary and secondary. As our country is developing day by day there are needed who will work in both the sectors. Some people will be left to work in the primary sector that mainly takes place in agriculture, fishing and forestry and some will end up in the manufacturing businesses.

3 Improvement in education and health

At first education was not a priority, but right now in South Africa everyone has the right to education. Our country has public schools for those who cannot afford to pay for themselves, as well as bursaries for students who wants to go to tertiary but cannot afford it.

Just like public schools there are public clinics and hospital, the government has made effort to make means for people to be taken care of free of charge. Even though they are not efficient as private ones, they still get the job done.

4 Political transformation

South Africa is a developing country, we have many political parties and the right to vote. All parties are in a political race to run or lead the country and each party has different objectives and goals. In essence when we look at them they all want to benefit in a way.

According to us we would define poverty as the state of  not having enough resources to meet our daily needs in a family, community or society. Where we either have little or nothing in order for us to survive. 

Experts define poverty in these following ways:

Firstly, Townsend defines poverty "as a group of people that does not have resources to obtain specific diets, who cannot engage activities which are customary or that are accepted their societies. They are being excluded from the everyday running’s of the community". They look at the social exclusion and the levels of income.

Secondly, Levitas defines it as “when there is a lack of resources, rights, goods and services in order to be part of the normal day to day functioning of the society". Poverty has an impact on their social relationships as they are affected by age, race, gender as well as their employment status. 

Normally when we look at poverty, we associate it with people being jobless, homeless and all the negative aspects that follow. Poverty is when a person does not have enough to make ends met for his family to live by on. Poverty is the result of people who could not finish school, they either dropouts or they had limited or poor education.

This is where we get our domestic workers, shop assistants, petrol attendents generally all the people who are willing to work for a basic wage just to be able to out meals for their families. We need such people in order to keep our houses clean even though they are unequal to other people, we need them to keep the balance in the society.

Small business start to emerge and even recyclers, these people indirectly keep our communities clean by picking up all the waste and turning them into money. These are the people who are willing to get their hands dirty at a small price to play. Poverty allow people to be more creative and think out of the box, they do not depend only  on one source of income. Some will work on themselves that could come in handy and help them earn money through it. 

Feminist orientation and Conflict orientation  

The two theoretical approaches that I chose to work with is the feminist orientation and conflict orientation. There is more difference between the two rather than the similarities when looked at them.

Both theories are similar in the sense of one group has more power over the other. The one suffers the consequences of not having the power of speak up for themselves. Should they try to speak up for themselves a conflict will arise because they are submissive to other people, and the one’s in power do not like that in a way they fear competition.  They seek justice for what is done against them. These are the rules that were placed by men in place in order to suppress them into something they do not want.  

They are different in this way: The feminist theory advocates for women equality meanwhile the conflict orientation advocates for equality in a community or the society at large. The first way, the feminist theory specifically looks at women and the conflict theory look at all the groups including women. Feminist theory is a redress of what went wrong that lead to the inequality of women especially in the cooperate world, where women are now in demand. Whereas with the conflict theory is a redress that looks at everyone who are unequal in a society as a whole no matter the race, gender or other social factors like their background. This theory seeks to bring equality and just among the society so that it can move in one direction.