The world is watching with some revulsion as the Trump administration sounds the death knell to most of its laws aimed at slowing pollution that drives climate change.
That country’s Environmental Protection Agency is set to repeal the 16-year old endangerment finding that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health.
It erases 16 years of building and implementing a regulatory foundation to ensure cleaner air — in a country which was already the largest single contributor to global carbon emissions.
It is bad news.
But while SA may have a far smaller collective carbon footprint, our national, provincial and local governments show a similar disregard for the environment.
Its neglect happens in the face of a constitution admonishing government to do all in its power to ensure a healthy environment for the benefit of present and future generations, and a raft of world-class environmental policies and laws supporting this outcome.
Sewage treatment plants around the country, under the control of municipalities, are left unmaintained, vandalised and decrepit.
Untreated sewage pours down roads, past schools and into homes.
It flows unchecked into once-pristine river environments, destroying fish, fauna and wildlife along the way.
Where are the environment, forestry and fisheries department’s environmental management inspectors who are supposed to enforce laws?
That inspectorate supposedly has pollution and waste enforcement officials who should police precisely this. Alas, the Green Scorpions are under-funded and seem to have no teeth at all.
And so it takes brave civilian gladiators to step forward and try to be counted.
Mzwandile Vaaiboom laid a criminal complaint against the Buffalo City metro, its mayor and officials for the persistent raw sewage discharge into the Buffalo River.
He says it left a lingering stench and posed a significant health risk to residents of Schornville and Zwelitsha, threatened livestock and degraded the ecosystem.
The river also feeds the Bridle Drift Dam, a major drinking water source for KuGompo.
Sadly, almost all major rivers in and around the city are also rancid with human waste.
The auditor-general last year found that only three of the metro’s 15 wastewater treatment works were functional. No small wonder residents are quite literally swimming in pooh.
It is difficult to believe that a government whose members have sworn to uphold the constitution and the law instead facilitate such total collapse of all the infrastructure designed to keep our environment cleaner.
Environmental crime is serious precisely because it affects the health of people.
It is bizarre that, despite a local government election around the corner, the ANC-led BCM cannot even do the simplest things for the welfare of the people who voted for it.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.