Dilemmas in print, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

South African – Danish Environmental Co-operation

Dilemmas in print

"Poverty is our greatest environmental problem," says the editor of Land & Rural Digest. He and his staff produce a magazine that often speaks for the rural poor in confrontations between the environment and the needs of the population.

Victor Munnik has included a little Danish currency on his necklace of African beads, by threading the leather thong through the hole of the attractive one krone coin. He hurries to assure us that it’s his own money and not part of the 5 372 067 Danish kroner with which Danced has funded his Land & Rural Digest.

The magazine is Munnik’s and Danced’s attempt to create a space for environmental debate.

"Danced is unusual in a number of ways. They have a far more strategic approach than other organizations. But they are also maddingly thorough," says the editor, looking almost crazed by the thought that anyone might suspect him of having spent the tiniest bit of Danish environmental assistance on his own necklace.

Danced’s strategy in South Africa is why Munnik’s magazine and the rest of the documentation unit of Environmental and Development Agency Trust (EDA) still exist. Danced chose to support EDA at a time when foreign support for South African non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was becoming somewhat unfashionable.

NGOs going through tough times

During the 1980s and early 1990s, many NGOs dealing with the environment, education or human rights were merely cover organizations for the banned ones struggling against apartheid. After 1994, it often became all too obvious that these NGOs no longer had much to offer apart from job opportunities for their own staff.

Many donors therefore decided to give most of their foreign aid to the state. The ANC-dominated government did after all represent the values which the donors had supported in the fight against apartheid. The donors believed that the state would be more efficient than the NGOs in distributing the foreign aid.

In reality, the donors thus closed a number of NGOs by halting their funding. But the donors were soon to realise that this had not necessarily been a wise decision.

First, the state bureaucracy was battling to disburse the large amounts of money and so in many cases it went unspent. Second, there was a continuous need for the NGOs to fight for the poor and keep debate in the country alive. Third, and probably most importantly, a number of the now financially squeezed NGOs had for years done excellent development work in poor and remote corners of the country.

A Dane on the shoulder

The now 25-year-old EDA was a good example of this. The NGO supports the rural population in a nation with too little land for the poor, too much erosion, and too little political clout. In two provinces, EDA runs programmes that help small-scale farmers market their products and fight for land rights.

When Danced arrived in South Africa, EDA already had more than 10 years experience in print media. In the 1980s, the NGO published The People’s Workbook with advice on anything from rearing chickens to building wells, and from sanitation in poor communities to the background of the rural population’s political struggle.

In 1989, the book was followed by the magazine New Ground, which counted among its readers Danced’s first advisers in South Africa.

"They liked the magazine. But we didn’t have money to continue publishing it," says Munnik. He was one of the few staffers who stayed on, after the magazine and EDA’s media unit collapsed in 1995.

With funding from Danced and support from two NGO networks – The Rural Development Services Network (RDSN) and The National Land Committee – the new magazine was born. The money arrived with a demand for tight control which Munnik loves almost as much as he detests it.

"I have a small Dane on my shoulder I talk to all the time," he says, going through the pile of reports he has to write. But Danced’s demand for reporting also constantly forces him to check that he and the magazine are on the right track.

"It’s quite an education. The reports are an opportunity to reflect on what we are doing," he says.

Voices from Dukuduku

Danced’s reason for supporting Land & Rural Digest was to secure a magazine for the rural population and people engaged with the environment. The magazine was meant to educate and stimulate debate at the same time.

When you read through a number of issues, it becomes very apparent that EDA’s point of departure is development and human needs. The magazine carries more material on degraded agricultural land and farm workers’ rights than the survival of the rhinoceros. The focus is on access to water rather than the living conditions for song birds in the wetlands.

Occasionally, Danced will suggest a shift in balance towards more traditional environmental issues. "They often say that it could be more green. But they don’t dictate," says Munnik.

His own ideal of a story for the magazine is one that presents the environmental cause seen in context of the poverty that often creates the problem in the first place.

"Poverty is the greatest environmental problem in South Africa," says Munnik. His own coverage of the Dukuduku Forest issue in the province of KwaZulu-Natal is a good example of the ever-lurking conflict between environmentalists and poor people battling to survive.

The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has long tried to get Dukuduku administered as a protected area. It’s one of the few relatively untouched coastal forests in South Africa. But the conservation authorities have refused to take control of the forest as long as it is still inhabited by what they call illegal occupants.

Some of the residents of the forest are undoubtedly illegal immigrants from neighbouring Mozambique. Others tell that their families have lived in Dukuduku for generations and that they have a claim to the land. They live on crops ranging from mangos to marijuana (in South Africa known as dagga), which they grow in ever-increasing clearings in the forest.

"The story shows the tension between human needs and bio-diversity. The confrontation is very visible," says Munnik.

His articles helped place the story on the national agenda through subsequent reports on radio and television. And Munnik believes the coverage has increased the chances of a compromise that will benefit both humans and the environment. Danced has recently chosen to support a project in Dukuduku with exactly these aims.

Water for all

Munnik counts a long-running "Water for all" campaign as a victory for the magazine, the RDSN network of NGOs and the South African Municipal Workers’ Union. In 1999, the campaign was picked up by the African National Congress which then promised 6 000 litres of clean water a month to every household in South Africa.

A widespread cholera epidemic in KwaZulu-Natal has since confirmed that EDA and other campaigners had very good reasons to ask for access to clean water for all.

Land & Rural Digest has also been very successful in focusing attention on continued racist terror against farm workers in Mpumalanga province and in contributing to the debate on land rights. Given that the occupations of farms in neighbouring Zimbabwe was copied on a minor scale in South Africa in late 2000, it is safe to predict that access to land could become an explosive issue in South Africa.

On the downside, the magazine still has a long way to go to become commercially successful. Advertising in the magazine is sparse. And much of the total circulation of 4 000 is given away for free to politicians and others with influence in the environmental debate. The number of paying subscribers was hovering around 1 200 in January 2001.

"We have been more anxious to get known than to get subscriptions. We spoilt people. But this meant greater influence," says Munnik. His unit is planning to make a major contribution to the NGO Forum at the second UN Earth Summit in Johannesburg in 2002.