SDCEA youth declaration of demands

The Peoples Declaration

As the youth of various communities in the KZN Province (South Durban and Greater Durban communities, Richards Bay, Fuleni, Mtubatuba and Empangeni) who are drenched in pollution, unsustainable development, exploitation and destruction of communities and livelihoods, we feel that effective measures should be taking to combat the issues we face daily. We have come together in solidarity and as we stand united, we urge all tiers of Government and industries to consider us and what we want.

Our communities have been forced to live in the shadows of major industries that destroy our lives on a daily basis. These industries have no regard for human life or our ecosystem, and continue to pump harmful gasses and oils into our air, water and soil. We have watched this pollution and mining suck the life out of our communities as well as our environment. We cannot stand by and watch our friends and families suffer; we cannot stand by and watch our beautiful ecosystem wither away under dark clouds of pollution. Things MUST change NOW!

We say NO to. . .

* We say NO to air, land and water pollution.

* We say NO to community exclusion, exploitation and externalization.

* We say NO to trucks on community roads.

* We say NO to unsustainable development (Durban Dig Out Port, Clairwood Racecourse, Rezoning of residential areas)

* We say NO to Nuclear Energy and fossil fuels

* We say NO to Mining activities near our land (Residential and protected areas)

* We say NO to exploitation of our natural resources

* We say NO to desalination plants

* No to Gas and Oil exploration activities on/in our oceans

We say YES to. . .

* We say YES to sustainable and renewable energy.

* We say YES to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

* We say YES to infrastructure development that considers the people and the environment.

* We say YES to community inclusion and participation in major decision regarding communities.

* We say YES to youth empowerment and upliftment

* We say YES to sustainable and eco-friendly jobs

* We say YES to implementing a smart grid system that will feed into the national grid with renewable energy

* We say YES to initiating rain water tanks where Government subsidises them especially to communities living along the coast instead of desalination plants

We say NO to more energy and pollution intensive industry.

Several old power plants and Sasol’s Secunda complex have used up the coal from their associated mines and also need new mines. The colliers are also expanding production for the lucrative export market through Richards Bay. Approximately 40 new mines are needed before 2020. They say Eskom alone will burn 4 billion tons of coal by 2050. That means over 7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. We also need a smart grid system that will feed into the national grid with renewable energy.

The world’s largest mining corporations – Anglo American, BHP Billiton, and GlencoreXstrata as well as other companies such as Ibutho coal and Ithendele coal mine in Fuleni and Mtubatuba respectively– dominate the coal fields along with Sasol. They devour even more land. They close in on our settlements from all sides. They fill the air with coal dust. They leave a wasteland behind. In addition to the pollution of water used in production, mining turns groundwater into toxic ‘acid mine drainage’. The large-scale destruction and contamination of aquifers, wetlands and rivers now presents the prospect of an environmental catastrophe which will, for South Africa, be as devastating as catastrophic climate change. The country is becoming hotter and drier with climate change and we need to conserve scarce water and not ruin it.

We say NO to more coal mines.

Government insists that it will build a fleet of six large nuclear power stations along with the nuclear fuel supply chain. Radioactive dust blows across the cities of Gauteng and poisons its streams and rivers. The nuclear regulator has neither the capacity nor the will to do anything about it. Nor does it have any solution to decommissioning or to the long term disposal of nuclear waste, even from the existing plant at Koeberg. The cost of decommissioning is also very financially straining. Nuclear power stations do not emit carbon but the supply chain is both energy and carbon intensive. The potential for disaster has again been demonstrated at Fukushima in Japan and it is striking that not even such technically advanced nations have been able to contain the fallout.

We say NO to the new nuclear build.

The escalating costs of Medupi and Kusile have driven up the price of electricity. Many of us can no longer afford electricity even if we have what government calls ‘access’. These big plants are designed to provide power to big industry but we are all compelled to pay for them through the rising tariffs. People pay at a much higher rate than big industries which is unacceptable.

These costs have also exposed South Africa’s economic vulnerability. The proposed nuclear build will be much more costly and will likely finish the job of bankrupting the country. The Minerals-Energy Complex model of cheap and abundant power provided by big base-load plants for energy intensive industries is collapsing and should not be allowed to bring the whole country down with it. Energy hungry plants that get power below cost should be closed down, starting with BHP Billiton’s aluminum smelters.

Government is committing hundreds of billions more to reshape the whole country in support of this form of development. It is draining water from Lesotho to feed the energy intensive industries, power stations and coal mines. It is expanding rail capacity primarily to carry coal, iron ore and manganese to the ports for export. It is expanding road capacity for trucking and expanding the capacity of the oil and fuel pipelines.

We say NO to plans for expanding the Minerals-Energy Complex.

Transnational energy corporations are now prospecting for offshore oil and gas all around South Africa’s coast. The destruction of sea life starts with seismic blasts used in exploration. Onshore, Shell is leading the assault to get ‘non-conventional’ gas from shale by fracking. Fracking has generally resulted in the large-scale venting of methane, a local pollutant as well as a potent greenhouse gas. It not only uses huge quantities of water but purposely contaminates it with a cocktail of chemicals. As with mining, it will also contaminate the groundwater. Government has handed out concessions for fracking across a vast area from the dry Karoo to the critical watershed of the Drakensberg.

We know that climate change is already happening and bringing destruction and death to people in all parts of the world. To limit the damage, we need to reduce carbon emissions as rapidly as possible. Existing fossil fuel reserves – the stuff that miners and oil corporations have already booked – contain more than five times the amount of carbon that can be burnt if people are to have a reasonable future on earth ambiguous – it seems you are promoting the burning of these reserves. Oil and gas production has always been both dirty and bloody but production from ‘non-conventional’ resources is even dirtier.

We say NO to the privatisation of renewable energy.

The logic of capital is not compatible with addressing climate change. It requires never ending economic growth for its survival. Growth has brought unprecedented wealth to the owners of capital, prosperity to the world’s middle classes and untold misery to the majority of people particularly in the global South. Capitalism plunders the resources of the earth and of the people. It is the driving force behind ecological disruption on all scales from the local to the global. Climate change is the ultimate symptom of this renting of the earth system.

We say NO to the future of the earth being decided by those who are destroying it. We can no longer have faith in this process. Unless the people drive a process of rapid change in the economic and political system, we face escalating damages as the earth is made uninhabitable.

Yet we see the state being used to defend elite and corporate interests at all levels from the local to the global. Governments are making increased use of secrecy, surveillance and coercion. In South Africa, the ‘Secrecy Bill’ gives extraordinary powers to the state and the notorious apartheid era Key Points Act has been revived in order to obstruct people’s scrutiny of state and corporate actions. Poor people in particular are subject to violence at the hands of the police and of informal surrogate groups.

We say NO to the Secrecy Bill and Key Points Act. We say NO to the violence of state and corporations. We say NO to corporations deciding our future.

There is a lot of NOs but we also have many yesses.

We say “YES” to a very steep reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. When we stop burning fossil fuels, we will also stop emitting sculpture dioxide, nitrogen oxides and a host of other pollutants that are emitted along with carbon dioxide. Our air will be pure and clean again, people and other species will breathe freely and we will experience a rapid improvement in health. Rivers polluted with industrial effluent will clean up with time. Because we will be left with the toxic legacies of the petrochemical and mining corporations, special measures will have to be taken to deal with acid mine drainage and with land saturated with toxic substances. But we will no longer be adding to the problem. We will have begun the long process of healing ourselves and the earth.

We say ‘YES’ to food sovereignty. Food is the most basic form of energy for people. Food sovereignty is about people’s right to define and take control of production and consumption and hence of their own futures. Most of water is used in industrial sector for irrigation, if we should start organic farming we are able to store water in the ground. It is about healthy food produced through ecologically sustainable methods. It puts people at the heart of food systems and policies, rather than markets and corporations.

We say ‘YES’ to people’s energy. Eenergy sovereignty is about making renewable energy people’s energy. It is about providing enough clean energy for everyone’s needs, with decentralized clean energy. Whether renewables are powering up a household, a settlement or the national grid, we believe that they must be under people’s democratic control. Energy from the declining fossil fuel system must be used to build the renewable system and related manufacturing capacity. We need to build for people, not for profit and waste. The use of energy is integral to people’s houses and settlement. It is a part of how we live.

We say ‘YES’ to infrastructure that considers people and the earth. We need the infrastructure for water, waste and sanitation and we welcome government’s commitment to create it. But our infrastructure needs to work with nature and not against it. We need to build in a way that conserves water and does not intensify the impacts of flood and drought. We need to work towards zero waste as an expression of our respect for ourselves and for the earth. We need sanitation systems that return the nutrients to the earth and add to its fertility.

We say ‘YES’ to sustainable employment. A great deal of work needs to be done if we are to respond adequately to climate change. The market has not and will not create the jobs to do it but leaves millions of us without employment and the means to live. We therefore support the campaign for One Million Climate Jobs which understands that this must be a public initiative driven by people and supported by government.

We say ‘YES’ to real participation. Participation is loudly proclaimed across the country but we do not see it working. What we see is that people are excluded so that those with political and economic power can manage things in their own interests. We say, ‘Nothing about us without us’. Participation is not only about whether we are consulted in this or that process about local plans or service delivery or even national policies. Real participation means that development as a whole must be democratized.

We say ‘YES’ to people’s economy. These are some ways to start creating an economy for people instead of profits. To take it further, sustainable development founded on economic, social and environmental justice should replace growth as the central organizing principle of economy. This means a commitment to growing human solidarity and equality as well as a relationship to the environment which enhances rather than degrades the functioning of ecosystems both for their intrinsic value and for the eco ‘services’ they provide. Put differently, it implies that people recognize themselves as a living part of earth’s ecology.

As we stand united and in solidarity with not only KZN residents but with communities and individuals all over the world, we urge and request our Governments and industries to consider us and what we want and need for our ordinary lives to improve. We will not sit back and be pushed into development in the false hope of economic empowerment to the people. These developments and projects only benefit a few wealthy rich individuals and large businesses/ cooperation’s, not the people on the ground and that needs to change.