Dressed to rule, Danish Environmental Protection Agency

South African – Danish Environmental Co-operation

Dressed to rule

Support from Danish consultants has helped young officials to gain the confidence to tackle polluters who were previously untouchable

On the 16th floor of a highrise building in downtown Johannesburg is an overcrowded open plan office whose colourful posters, sprawling piles of paper on the floor and lights burning deep into the night suggest the headquarters of a hyperactive grass roots organization.

Polluters beware: this is the office of the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment in Gauteng Province. The employees have both the power and courage to take decisions based on their positions. Over the last six years many a large company in South Africa has been forced to realize that the new government is getting tougher on environmental standards.

The officials credit Danced for much of their self-confidence and energy. Shortly after the rebirth of the department in 1994, they were taken through a training course run by Danish and local consultants.

"We went from uncertain, nervous attitudes to trusting that we were on the right track. We could now walk into a meeting and articulate our ideas," says Lize Bothma, one of four deputy directors of the department.

Prior to 1994, the department mainly dealt with conservation and agriculture. In the new South Africa, focus was shifted to industrial and urban pollution. Danced’s consultants helped the department write new manuals for the now mandatory Environmental Impact Assessments of new developments. But perhaps the most valuable contributions by the experienced Danes were their efforts as literary midwives and sparring partners for the relatively inexperienced officials in a department under reconstruction.

A battle won

When the phone rang with new cases, the real life problems often became education material in the courses conducted by the consultants. The project was constantly adjusted to accommodate the very busy reality of the officials.

"Danced deserves praise for being flexible enough to change the projects when the reasons were convincing. That helped us to adjust to the very dynamic developments in South Africa," says Morten Jorgensen, the chief technical adviser on the project.

The Danish support also helped the officials to make decisions they otherwise might have shied away from.

"We were given courage by international consultants who had tried it all before," says Dee Fischer, deputy director for waste management in the department.

She felt the heat from industry when the department refused to renew the licence for an incinerator that had been closed down after protests from people living nearby.

"It was revolutionary. It was unheard of, and there was just mayhem. The general opinion was that if this incinerator couldn’t operate, then all incinerators might as well be closed down."

But her determination paid off. The owners of the incinerator claimed that they were unable to test their emissions for dioxin, a highly toxic waste product.

"We stuck to our guns. And now we are going to have our first dioxin test," says Fischer.

This victory has had a number of effects. As the disputed incinerator treated medical waste, Gauteng Province will now lead a new Danced supported project aimed at developing a strategy for sustainable management of medical waste.

"The controversial recommendation will end up influencing national policy," says Fischer.

The art of asking questions

Field trips to industries were a major reason for the success of the Danced project. Because it was part of a course, and perhaps because the visits were often requested by foreign consultants, the officials got access to industries they never had visited before.

"The consultants took us there as a learning experience, not for us to come back the next day with demands," says Fischer.

"So we waited six months," adds Bothma, laughing.

The visits taught the officials that they can tackle pollution more effectively by asking better questions.

"We are being proactive now, asking the right questions. We don’t just want to know what is going into your hazardous waste. We also want to know why it is there in the first place," says Fischer.

This is the philosophy Danced pursues in its cleaner technology projects for South Africa’s industry (see "With stick and support", page 56). And this is the thinking that will eventually reduce the size of new waste dumps in the cities.

Mary Metcalfe, Gauteng’s minister for environment and Fischer’s and Bothma’s political boss, subscribes deeply to these ideas. She constantly tells her officials not to "fiddle at the edges" of the problems. She would rather concentrate on less waste than more "secure" garbage dumps. And instead of concentrating only on recycling projects, she wants a focus on waste reduction and re-use.

From fig leaf to tool

This is just one of many examples of a South Africa hurrying through progress that took decades in Europe.

"We are still seen as a rock in the way of development. But attitudes are changing," says Bothma.

As deputy director responsible for planning, she is often squeezed between two issues: politicians have promised the nation that they will build as many new houses as possible, but the government also wants to be more responsible about the environment than the apartheid rulers. Initially, the demand for a large number of cheap houses meant that the environmental impact of the new housing schemes received little or no attention as discussed in the chapter on the SEED project (see "Patience through progress", page 73).

"Previously, the Environmental Impact Assessments were used in an attempt to convince us that the projects weren’t too bad. Now they are used to influence the planning, rather than justify what has already been decided," says Bothma.

"New schemes are compromising a bit on the size of the houses to make sure there is money enough to put them in the right place. People are becoming aware we don’t want to deny development but just make sure it happens in the best place," says Bothma.

More money

The increased focus on the environment has secured extra funding for Gauteng’s environmental department at a time when public spending elsewhere is being slashed. The environmental budget has doubled between 1997 and 2000.

One reason is that South Africa is trying to secure growth and jobs through tourism. Nationally, environment and tourism shares the same minister, Valli Moosa. And he is well aware that tourists won’t like a polluted environment.

The officials in Gauteng do however fear that coupling environment and tourism could once again move the focus from industrial pollution and waste problems to national parks and conservation.

"The media focus on the penguins caught in an oil slick was a clear example of that," says Bothma, referring to the massive effort put into a highly publicized cleaning exercise following a huge oil spill in July 2000.

Jorgensen has, however, no doubt that attitudes have changed dramatically since 1994. He is impressed with the environmental department’s ability to further the developments initiated by the project.

"They have revised our manuals to an extent where they are almost unrecognizable. They have constantly updated them with experiences learnt and with new legislation," he says.

This enthusiasm does to some extent make up for the massive turnover of staff, so typical of South Africa’s often turbulent transition. Many of the best officials have moved on and become valuable employees in national departments, business and private consultancies. Many cited their newly enhanced qualifications when applying for new jobs.

"It became a big thing to have the Danced course on your CV. But their knowledge is not lost. It is just being used elsewhere," says Bothma.