Opening remarks by Ms. Barbara Creecy, Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and The Environment at the Annual Garden Route Environmental Management and Climate Change Indaba 2023, 29 June 2023

Programme Director;

His Excellency Executive Mayor of the Garden Route District Municipality: Councillor Memory Booysen;

Distinguished representative from the University, Business, Labour, Civil Society and Community Based Organisations;

The Chairperson of the Garden Route Environmental Forum Dr Nina Viljoen;

Ladies and gentlemen

Allow me to warmly greet each one of you gathered here today and to also take this opportunity to congratulate the Garden Route Environmental Forum (GREF) Secretariat for organising this important event.

The significance of your work in planning to build climate-resilience here in the Southern Cape should not be under-estimated.

Climate change is no longer a distant reality and all of you know that drought, severe wild fires and, more recently, flooding are part of our lived experience.

The Sixth International Panel on Climate Change report indicates that the world has already warmed on average by 1.1 degrees above pre-industrial times, and here in Southern Africa, temperatures are increasing at twice the global average. Global warming is associated with extreme weather events that will adversely impact economies and livelihoods, as well as the security of essential resources such as water, food, and energy.

Because South Africa is a mega biodiverse country, we will experience climate change impacts differently in different parts of the country. This means we need tailor-made climate resilience plans which will be different for each local area.

Here in the Southern Cape we are part of the fynbos biome so we already know that wildfires are a natural phenomena that will intensify as a result of both intermittent drought and the presence of alien forestry plantations.

The Southern Cape, with its beautiful beaches, rivers, estuaries and lagoons will also face storm surges and gradual sea level rise as the polar ice caps melt.

At a national level the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has made strides in developing our climate change adaptation architecture following the adoption in 2020 by Cabinet of the National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy.

The Climate Change Bill, once passed into law, will ensure a legal framework is in place for integrating climate resilience planning and resourcing at all levels of government.

Because climate impacts have local specificity, municipal governments are the frontline responders to the effects of climate change, and their actions will determine whether or not we have sustainable development pathways and whether we are helping local communities to understand the challenges that lie ahead and the importance for them to build resilience now.

It is for this reason that the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment provides support to municipal officials on how to transit from planning to implementation. To assist, we have developed a range of easy-to-use tools, such as the Greenbook, the “Lets Respond Toolkit” and the Municipal Climate Finance training manual.

Because we are worried about the impact of sea level rise on coastal communities, we are focusing specifically on building the capacity of Western Cape municipalities to understand local vulnerability and plan to build climate resilient infrastructure.

Ladies and Gentlemen, here on the Garden Route, my Department has been working with the Municipality to develop projects that will build early warning mechanisms to detect and manage wild fires as part of our climate change adaptation programmes.

We have also worked together with our sister Department of Tourism to develop a Climate Change Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Report. This report is helping us understand how climate change will impact on the tourism sector and how we can take early action to save jobs and value chains.

The Department implements a wide variety of “Working For” Environmental Programmes that aim to rehabilitate and manage ecosystems vital to the health and well-being of people and nature. It is these programmes that will help build the Garden Route and indeed the country’s climate change resilience.

Ladies and gentlemen, the importance of empowering local communities to understand how natural disasters will affect them in the future will definitely save lives and resources.

Women and children living in conditions of poverty are most vulnerable to climate change. However, social networks and state-citizen partnerships can play an important role in building climate resilience within vulnerable communities.

During the floods that hit KwaZulu-Natal in April last year, the locally- based group, Enviro Champs, which had been trained and supported by the City of eThekwini and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, successfully used the FEWS early warning system to successfully evacuate residents from their homes in the Quarry Road West Informal Settlement.

Thanks to the training, bravery and dedication of the Enviro Champs volunteers, and the timely warnings by scientists who had established the micro disaster early warning system, not a single resident drowned as the Palmiet River washed away 450 homes in the early hours of the 12 April 2022. Sadly, the story in adjacent communities not part of this significant partnership, was very different.

I want to take this the opportunity to urge all of you here today to study this outstanding climate resilience partnership. It teaches us that vulnerable communities do not have to be powerless in the face of the climate emergency. It demonstrates the outstanding role scientific knowledge can play when it empowers community volunteers and it teaches us how local governments can save lives and resources by putting people first.

Let me conclude by thanking the Garden Route Environmental Forum for its continuous support to the country’s efforts to tackle climate change. This forum brings together scientists, local government practitioners, business, labour and community to exchange ideas, build partnerships and collaborative efforts across the community of the Southern Cape. Yours too is a model from which others can learn!

I Thank You!

Source: Government of South Africa