scholarly journals Environmental Justice and Human Rights on the Mining Wastelands of the Witwatersrand Gold Fields

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 67-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy-Lynn Humby
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Environmental Rights ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Political Alliances

In South Africa, the constitutional and statutory framework seemingly establishes a strong synergy between environmental rights and environmental justice. A prevailing notion of transformative constitutionalism additionally positions law as the foundation for large-scale social change through non-violent political processes. A case study of the Tudor Shaft Informal settlement on the Witwatersrand goldfields elucidates the ambiguities in the notion of environmental justice and the tensions between claims based on the environmental right and socio-economic rights. By highlighting the existence of local moral orders—political alliances based on access to resources that frequently employ violence to achieve political ends—it also suggests the limited reach of the constitutional order and the project of transformative constitutionalism.

scholarly journals To Save Lives: The Ethical Precedent set by South Africa’s Leadership during Lockdown

Phronimon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Anthony Pittaway
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Precautionary Principle ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Epidemiological Data ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
The Precautionary Principle ◽  
Large Numbers

None of the lockdown decisions made by governments in response to the Covid-19 pandemic can be considered to be self-evident outcomes of objective data. Executive members of each nation’s government considered the particular pandemic circumstances that they deemed to be important and relevant, and decisions were made based on limited epidemiological data in combination with a variety of contingent socio-political and economic variables. These kinds of decisions fall partly into the philosophical category of ethics, and they can be summarised under the umbrella question: What should we do? The precautionary principle must have played a large role in the decision-making process, considering the conspicuous lack of reliable data on which to base decisions. In this article, I turn to South Africa as a case study, and I tease out some of the precautionary factors that may have, in part, driven many major decisions prior to and during the South African lockdown. I argue that if the precautionary principle can be used as part of the justification for large-scale government interventions to save an unknown number of lives, then consistent use of the principle should warrant concerted responses by government to a variety of potential threats and problems in South Africa. I also argue that for government’s focus on saving lives to be consistent, preventative action in response to phenomena that take worryingly large numbers of lives annually, is necessary.

Making Informal Settlements ‘Visible’ Through Datafication: A Case Study of Quarry Road West Informal Settlement, Durban, South Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Sutherland ◽  
Bahle Mazeka ◽  
Sibongile Buthelezi ◽  
Duduzile Khumalo ◽  
Patrick Martel
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Informal Settlements

scholarly journals Reducing the environmental impact of shark-control programs: a case study from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

2011 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geremy Cliff ◽  
Sheldon F. J. Dudley
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Shark Species ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
The Past ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Shark Attacks ◽  
By Catch

Large-scale shark-control programs at popular beaches in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, provide protection against shark attack. Although these programs have enhanced bathing safety, reducing the environmental impacts of decades of fishing for large sharks and the associated by-catch remains a challenge. Over the past three decades, there have been several interventions to reduce such impact in the KZN program. The first was the release of all live sharks, including those species known to be responsible for fatal shark attacks. Measures to reduce catches of sharks associated with the winter influx of shoals of sardines, Sardinops sagax, have been increasingly successful. In addition, extensive removal of nets has resulted in a major reduction in effort. Collectively, these initiatives reduced mortalities of sharks by 64%. Baited lines, termed drumlines, were introduced at 18 beaches, where they replaced some of the nets. The former had a far lower by-catch of rays, turtles and cetaceans and significantly lower catches of certain shark species. Replacement of some nets with drumlines is planned for the remaining beaches. Only two attacks, both non-fatal, have occurred at protected beaches in KZN over the past three decades, indicating that the program has maintained its public safety mandate while it has succeeded in reducing its impact on the environment.

scholarly journals The Role of Amateur Football in Circular Migration Systems in South Africa

2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malte Steinbrink
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
New South ◽  
Informal Settlement ◽  
Circular Migration ◽  
Informal System ◽  
Local Case ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Migration Systems

This article explores the significance of amateur football for the changing patterns of circular migration in post-Apartheid South Africa. Even after the end of Apartheid, the abolishment of the migrant labour system has not brought a decline of circular migration. The state-institutionalised system has merely been replaced by an informal system of translocal livelihood organisation. The new system fundamentally relies on social networks and complex rural-urban linkages. Mobile ways of life have evolved that can be classified as neither rural nor urban. Looking into these informal linkages can contribute to explaining the persistence of spatial and social disparities in “New South Africa”. This paper centres on an empirical, bi-local case study that traces the genesis of the socio-spatial linkages between a village in former Transkei and an informal settlement in Cape Town. The focus is on the relevance of football for the emergence and stabilisation of translocal network structures.

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