BOOK Southern Africa

Wild Law Update: State Mining Company Threatens Environmentally Sensitive Areas in Mpumalanga

by Simon on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Siber Ink’s Wild Law updates are inspired by the work of Cormac Cullinan, who founded the earth jurisprudence movement with his seminal book on environmental law. See details below.

State mining company, African Exploration Mining & Finance Corporation, has applied for prospecting rights on 273 properties in Mpumalanga. Environmentalists argue that some of these sites, such as the Wakkerstroom area, are environmentally sensitive and shouldn’t be mined. The problem is that they may not be able to stop African Exploration: it seems that government may have exempted the company from key provisions of the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Development Act.

The state mining company that stirred up a hornet’s nest by targeting prime Western Cape wine estates has applied for prospecting rights on more than 273 properties in Mpumalanga — some of them in important and environmentally sensitive catchment areas.

In most cases African Exploration Mining & Finance Corporation plans to prospect for coal.

Environmentalists are deeply concerned about the rate at which the state-owned concern is capturing prospecting rights, particularly as it seems to be governed by a different set of rules that may exempt it from environmental scrutiny.

• Read the complete article in the Mail & Guardian

Book details

• Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
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  EAN: 9780958441780
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Image courtesy Mail & Guardian

Foodie Hillary Biller Interviews Jane Griffiths, Author of Jane's Delicious Garden

by Ceri on 16 Mar 2010   |   

Food fundi Hillary Biller talks to three green ladies about their gardens and gardening secrets: Jane Griffiths, author of Jane’s Delicious Garden; Pat Featherstone, author of Grow to Live; and Emilia le Roux, author of A Farm in My Heart. Here’s the Griffin portion of the article:

“Having a vegetable garden has really made me feel more connected to the world. It centres me, grounds me. When I'm away I really miss my garden. If I get back late at night I take a torch and go and look at it,” says Jane rubbing a couple of gem squash between her fingers. “It's about a sense of discovery, which is constantly changing.”

“Before I’d grown gem squash myself I never knew that they are covered with minute prickly hairs. Did you?” asks Jane passing me one.

• Read the complete article in the Sunday Times

Book details

• Jane’s Delicious Garden: An organic guide to growing your own food by Jane Griffiths
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  EAN: 9781920289003
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Jane’s Delicious Garden

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Wild Law Update: Construction Is Threatening the Wild Coast (on Two Fronts)

by Simon on 10 Mar 2010   |   

Siber Ink’s Wild Law updates are inspired by the work of Cormac Cullinan, who founded the earth jurisprudence movement with his seminal book on environmental law. See details below.

The Wild Coast is under siege with two areas of construction threatening its pristine ecosystems. A new N2 Wild Coast toll road project is that much closer to being approved, despite strong opposition and a final environmental impact assessment (EIA) report indicating that it will lead to serious social and environmental problems. (The report still gives the go ahead, seemingly disregarding its own conclusions). The sensitive biological area is also being harmed by the construction of illegal cottages within the Wild Coast Conservation Area:

The N2 Wild Coast toll road project has been given another green light after a decade-long controversy, but final approval could still be thwarted by strong opposition from Durban, the KZN legislature and other interest groups.

The final environmental impact assessment (EIA) report, which will be released on Monday, recommends that the project should go ahead, despite findings that it would lead to several social, economic and environmental problems.

The decision to recommend approval follows strong opposition to the toll plan by eThekwini municipal manager Michael Sutcliffe, the KZN legislature and several business and industry leaders in Durban.

• Read the complete article at IOL

THE GREEN Scorpions, protectors of South Africa’s coastal environment, are investigating fraud charges against illegal cottage owners on the Wild Coast who claimed they donated their cottages to the communities.

The Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs’ (Dedea) senior manager in charge of compliance and enforcement, Div de Villiers, said illegal cottage owners, who made such claims after they had lost their cases, created false expectations.

The Dispatch earlier reported how 54-year-old Nokhaya Duba of Mapansana village in Port St Johns cried when a five-room cottage had been reduced to ashes.

• Read the complete article in the Daily Dispatch
• More Wild Law updates

Book details

• Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
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  EAN: 9780958441780
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Image courtesy SA-Venues

Wild Law Update: Al Gore: You Can't Wish Global Warming Away

by Simon on 02 Mar 2010   |   

Siber Ink’s Wild Law updates are inspired by the work of Cormac Cullinan, who founded the earth jurisprudence movement with his seminal book on environmental law. See details below.

Nature’s knight and warrior against climate change, former US Vice President Al Gore reasserts the fact of global warming in a new article for The New York Times. Recent reports have blasted scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for overestimating the melting rate of Himalayan glaciers and related issues. Gore is at pains to point out that, just because there are flaws in the scientific process, it doesn’t make the reality of global warming go away:

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century.

• Read the complete article
• More Wild Law updates

Book details

• Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
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  EAN: 9780958441780
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Images courtesy Ecodot and Business Week

Wild Law Update: Google Invests in Energy

by Simon on 26 Feb 2010   |   

Siber Ink’s Wild Law updates are inspired by the work of Cormac Cullinan, who founded the earth jurisprudence movement with his seminal book on environmental law. See details below.

Global search engine Google is going green. The company has gotten approval to buy and sell energy on the wholesale market via a subsidiary, Google Energy. According to reports Google has pledged to be carbon neutral and is looking into renewable energy sources:

Google Energy, which is owned by the search engine company Google, got approval Thursday to buy and sell energy on the wholesale market. The company was created and applied for market based rate-authorization in December, and it will be able to start trading energy on February 23.

According to reporting by PC World, Google's move into the energy market is a strategy to help provide power to the electricity-hungry buildings that house its search engine, advertising network, email software, and all the other things Google does that require large groups of computers.

Google has also made a pledge to be carbon neutral, so being able to buy and sell energy will help it incorporate greener energy into its operations, the article said.

• Read the complete article at National Geographic
• More Wild Law updates

The question is, can Google get as green as Blackle? For the sake of the Information Age, we certainly hope so!

Book details

• Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
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  EAN: 9780958441780
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Image courtesy Buildaroo

The City of Cape Town's Grim Future: Counter Currents Demystifies the Challenges

by Thando on 22 Feb 2010   |   

The City of Cape Town is heading for disaster: indeed, it’s already in deep crisis if one cares to look closely enough. The recent proliferation of public construction, public squares and public housing along the N2 towards the airport is little more than a mirage compared with the direction of more underlying trends.

Cape Town’s grim future is born out of the confluence of the globalised economic and ecological collapse that is fast becoming the defining feature of the twenty-first century. It is manifested most starkly in the dire situation that faces the majority of the city’s residents, who are excluded from the formal economy and must rely on substandard public services and their own makeshift shelters. The scenario is serious enough to draw everyone’s attention but should be set against the broader issues of long-term economic resilience and environmental sustainability to achieve a low-carbon society – so we have our work cut out for us.

The purpose of Counter Currents, edited by Edgar Pieterse, is to demystify these challenges and present readers with a creative portfolio of thinking, practice and strong vision to show that we can find alternatives – and, moreover, that these alternatives are already emerging in (marginal) sections of the state, civil society and the business sectors.

Contents

• Introduction – Edgar Pieterse
• Reflections on Leadership and Governance in Cape Town – David Schmidt
• Jane Alexander: Hunger Artist – Ashraf Jamal
• The Right to the City – Abdoumaliq Simone
• Karen Press
• The Cape Town 2030 Initiative: A contested vision of the future – Stephen Boshoff
• Towards Urban Infrastructure Sustainability – Wendy Crane, Mark Swilling, Lisa Thompson-Smeddle, Martin de Witt
• Public Transport: Tackling Cape Town’s Achilles Heel – Herrie Schalekamp
• Making Public Space in 21st Century Cape Town: An idealistic planning construct or a catalytic city building project? – Barbara Southworth
• Cape Town Central City Strategy – Andrew Boraine
• District Six Development Framework: Prospects for urban and social sustainability – Lucien le Grange
• Oude Molen: Imagining sustainable human settlements – Nisa Mammon
• Kosovo Informal Settlement Upgrade: Sustainability towards dignified communities – Mokena Makeka
• An Experiment in Public Housing – Luyanda Mpahlwa
• Photo-Essay: Social Integration in Cape Town – Tau Tavengwa
• Nurturing Creativity: The Spier experiment – Tanner Methvin
• A Development Plan for Paardvlei, Somerset West – Dave Dewar & Piet Louw
• Space & Transformation: Reflections on the new WCED schools program – Iain Low
• Regionalism and Sustainability – Sue Parnell & Greg Clarke
• Dealing with Sustainability – Mark Swilling
• Why Transformative Change is so Elusive: A conversation – Edgar Pieterse, Mokena Mokekwa, Mark Swilling, Gita Goven, Andrew Boraine, Catherine Stone and David Schmidt
• Conclusion: Re-imagining Cape Town through the rebus of identity, economy and ecology – Edgar Pieterse

Don’t miss this important public-policy read: your future may depend on it!

Book details

• Counter Currents: Experiments in Sustainability in the Cape Town Region edited by Edgar Pieterse
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  EAN: 9781770097957
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Resensies: drie wortels vir drie tuinboeke

by Jani on 19 Feb 2010   |   

Uitspraak: groen wortels

Dit is nogal ’n uitdaging om ’n tuinboek te publiseer wat werklik al die uiteenlopende streke van Suid-Afrika in gedagte hou.

Marianne Alexander se Tuinmaak in Suid-Afrika deur die jaar slaag in ’n groot mate daarin om iets vir tuiniers oor die land heen te bied.

Die boek bied ’n maand-vir-maand-gids van wat in die tuin gebeur, tuintake vir die spesifieke maand, wat om in die kombuis- en vrugtetuine te doen, die geurtuin, plae wat in daardie tyd beheer moet word en wat daardie maand blom.

• Lees die volledige resensies in Volksblad

Book Details

• Tuinmaak in Suid-Afrika deur die jaar deur Marianne Alexander
  EAN: 9781770077928
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• Immergroen: Stories oor plante by Dave Pepler
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  EAN: 9780798150934
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• Healing Trees & Plants of the Lowveld by David Cumes, Rael Loon, Dries Bester
  EAN: 9781770078338
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Wild Law Update: New Global Climate Agreement Should Involve All

by Simon on 18 Feb 2010   |   

Siber Ink’s Wild Law updates are inspired by the work of Cormac Cullinan, who founded the earth jurisprudence movement with his seminal book on environmental law. See details below.

John Sauven calls for cross-party political support for a global climate deal after Copenhagen, a deal which he argues will be unlike any previous international agreement. It would need to involve everyone and not, for instance, allow wealthier nations to buy their way out of responsibility in a kind of “climate apartheid”:

Ian Katz says “it is hard to see where the political leadership for a global [climate] deal will come from” (The case for climate action must be remade from the ground upwards, 9 February). With climate science under siege and climate politics in disarray he's absolutely right that “anyone who cares about this issue must fight to keep it alive”. I believe that pressure will need to come from a new and much broader global grassroots movement. It will need cross-party political support and must engage the business community.

With Copenhagen behind us, it's time for a new discourse, one which acknowledges the majority view on climate science, accepts uncertainties, and encourages debate among scientists over their observations of the world. A debate framed in the language of risk and uncertainty in which economics and societal values will play a central role.

• Read the complete article in the Guardian

• More Wild Law updates

Book details

• Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
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  EAN: 9780958441780
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Stephen Keim Reviews Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan

by Jani on 12 Feb 2010   |   

Verdict: carrot

If you believe that the world is beset by a series of environmental problems that may well be fatal to civilisation, as it has commonly been understood, you may well be puzzled as to why the institutional responses to this crisis have, so far, been so ineffective. Some of the answers to that conundrum are provided in this interesting book.

Cormac Cullinan once practised law in the field of shipping and international commerce. At the same time, he is a former anti-apartheid activist. He now works as a partner in a specialist environmental law firm in Cape Town4 and also runs an environmental law and policy consultancy.

• Complete review in at Hearsay.org

• Wild Law homepage

Book Details

• Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
  EAN: 9780958441780
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Wild Law Update: Use Blackle, the Internet's Energy-Saving Search Engine

by Simon on 10 Feb 2010   |   

Siber Ink’s Wild Law updates are inspired by the work of Cormac Cullinan, who founded the earth jurisprudence movement with his seminal book on environmental law. See details below.

Have you heard of Blackle? It’s an ingeniously simple web service that lets you search the net with Google, but at a much lower energy cost.

The home screen at Blackle.com is, well, black – and search results are white text on a black screen. This means that loading the service requires less wattage from your computer monitor – which translates to one fewer puff of smoke from your local coal-burning power plant with every search.

Green is definitely the new black(le), so switch your homepage to Blackle.com now!

• Click here to watch a video of Blackle in action
• More Wild Law Updates

Book details

• Wild Law by Cormac Cullinan
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780958441780
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!