Mr Speaker

The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, in his Foreword to "Bioregional Solutions for Living on One Planet" a Schumacher Briefing series states "Achieving Sustainability is a massive challenge for humanity, requiring major changes in the way we think and act. Neither of those things is impossible, but I often wonder whether anything short of a series of human-induced catastrophes will be sufficient to jolt us out of our complacency. We have simply come to take all the services provided by the natural world for granted, refusing to accept that natural systems have limits and that all our actions have consequences"

The citizens of the Western Cape have indeed been jolted out of our complacency in recent times. Water, Energy and Fire have dominated our day to day lives and has certainly been a Wake up Call to all the people in the Province. In the past year we experienced a long drought cycle resulting in the need to enforce water restrictions in a number of municipalities across the Province. In February this year, we experienced the second major power outage in the Western Cape, with critical impacts on our communities and the economy. And the threat of further outages prevails. This past summer we witnessed a protracted Fire season with major human and ecological consequences.

We have had a taste of our fragility as a water-constrained, energy insecure and fire vulnerable Province. The impacts of Climate Change, rapid economic and population growth and inadequate long-term spatial and resource planning is a reality for us NOW.

Mr Speaker

The global trend of rapid urbanisation poses a number of challenges in our goal of building a sustainable home for all in the Western Cape. In his book "Cities" John Reader crystallizes this for us "?.the pace of urbanization has accelerated dramatically?By 1900 city-dwellers comprised one-quarter of the global population, and now - at the beginning of the third millennium - almost half the world's population lives in urban communities. And the proportion is expected to increase still further, so that by the year 2030 two of every three people on Earth will be living in a city. ?..In Africa, the world's most impoverished continent, the number of city-dwellers multiplied nearly tenfold between 1950 and 2000, rising from 32,7 million to 309,6 million and is expected to double again by 2025 when more than half of Africa's entire population (predicted to be 1.5 billion by then) will be living in cities".

This inevitable trend towards urbanization places us under pressure. Add to this the obligation to redress the Apartheid social and spatial legacy and add to this our responsibility to increase growth, a shared growth, in terms of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative of South Africa, then it is clear that the growth and development trajectory we choose in the Western Cape must be rooted in the principles of sustainable development, namely, development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", and requires evidence-based forward planning.

The use of the ecological footprint as a tool to measure the biologically productive areas of land and sea required to meet the consumption needs of human beings, namely, energy, food, materials and waste absorption, has thrown up a number of startling findings. Just a taste to "jolt our complacency"!

According to Desai and Riddlestone in their book "Bioregional Solutions For Living on One Planet", "Ecological studies suggest that as a global society we started to exceed the biocapacity of the planet - its long-term carrying capacity - in the early 1970's. Currently we are consuming around 30% more than the planet can sustain. In other words, we need one and a third planet Earths to meet our current global levels of consumption. In effect we are maintaining our current lifestyles by eating into the natural reserves, or natural capital of the planet."

They go on to conclude that "if everyone on the planet consumed as much as the average UK citizen we'd need three planets to support us and if we all lived like Americans we'd need 6 planets to support us".

According to the Green Trust and EWT Biodiversity of South Africa 2002 Report: "South Africa is currently running an annual ecological deficit of 1.6 hectares per capita." This means that South Africa is currently exceeding the biological capacity by more than 40%. We need to reduce this to 0% before we can say we are on a "sustainable" path of development.

Startling! If we think of this in terms of a bank balance, honourable members, then global society's bank balance is in deficit, in the red, with a large overdraft, in fact we have already placed the burden of debt on our future generations, an odious debt indeed!

Closer to home in the Western Cape it has become clear that the negative consequences of many of the current development trends, such as urban sprawl, urban growth that continues the spatial patterns of apartheid, high water and energy demand, private car usage and waste generation patterns will impact on our ability to reduce our own ecological footprint.

• The Western Cape generates 8,8 million cubic metres of waste per annum (this is equivalent to 36,6 million wheelie bins a year)
• Average solid waste per annum per capita is 2 cubic metres, with the high income group (which is also the smallest number of people) generating nearly 60% of all solid waste, 30% is generated by middle income groups and only 10% by the poor
• 5 out of 6 waste sites in Cape Town are on the Cape Flats which means that poor communities carry the brunt of the pollution generated - most of these landfill sites are nearly full
• Private motor vehicle ownership in Cape Town is at a current ratio of 178 cars per 1000 people resulting in increase in petrol consumption, pollution (65% of CO2 emissions) and congestion
• Western Cape is heading for a water demand and supply crisis
• 80% of the City's Waste Water Treatment Works do not comply with standards and a number of other municipalities are experiencing serious sewerage capacity constraints
• 54% of the total Residential Energy consumption is taken up by Urban medium to high income groups, 35% amongst the urban low income group, 7% by rural medium to high income and 4% by rural low income groups

Honourable members, it is clear that our current consumption and waste generation patterns in the Province are unsustainable. It is also clear that the consumption and production patterns especially amongst our high income groups have become unsustainable.

It is time we did get jolted out of complacency.

Mr Speaker

In order for us to contextualize how my department has geared itself up to engage with the long-term challenges facing the Province, let me remind the Honourable members of the House of our work in the past two years. In my Budget speech in 2004 I spelt out how my department would make the shift towards a sustainable development paradigm, necessary for us to provide innovative and cutting edge leadership in preparation for these challenges. In 2005, I spelt out, having made the paradigm shift, how we would go about practically embedding sustainable development in all our policies, strategies and programmes.

We have fundamentally recognized that for the Western Cape Province, sustainable development will be achieved through implementing integrated governance systems that promote economic growth in a manner that contributes to greater social equity and that maintains the ongoing capacity of the natural environment to provide the ecological goods and services upon which socio-economic development depends.

I am pleased to inform the House that we have laid the foundation to achieve the goal of embedding sustainable development through a number of policy interventions and other initiatives.

I am also proud to say, a number of firsts in the country at a provincial level.

• The finalisation of the Western Cape Provincial Spatial Development Framework
• The Golf and Polo Estate Guidelines
• The Urban Edge Guidelines
• Resort Guidelines
• A Status Quo Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment of the Physical and Socio-Economic Effects of Climate Change in the Western Cape
• Draft Western Cape Integrated Energy Strategy with a focus on Renewables
• Draft Sustainable Development Implementation Plan
• Integrated Law Reform Project
• 2Wise2Waste initiative
• Biodiversity Management and Protection
• Air Quality Management
• Unlocking the potential of an "Environment Economy"

The department finalized and launched the PSDF, one of the lead strategies of Ikapa Elihlumayo, in December last year. This is the first ever Spatial Development Framework for the Western Cape, and I believe, contains ground breaking initiatives that will, if implemented correctly, ensure that the necessary spatial changes and improvements in our living environments will be achieved. The PSDF is aligned with the National Spatial Development Perspective and other national policy frameworks and endorses the vision of "A Home for All".

The purpose of the PSDF is to:

• be the spatial expression of the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy,
• guides municipal Integrated Development Plans and Spatial Development Frameworks;
• help prioritise and align investment and infrastructure plans of other Provincial departments, as well as National Departments and parastatals plans and programmes in the Province
• Provides clear signals to the private sector about desired development directions
• Increase predictability in the development environment, for example by establishing "no go", "maybe" and "go" areas for development.

And most importantly it seeks to redress the spatial legacy of Apartheid.

The PSDF is a living document and will continuously be updated. This year we will be updating it with the latest economic data and projections.

It will become apparent from the PSDF that the associated policies intend to be far reaching and will have the potential to impact on almost every aspect of social, environmental and economic activities in the Province.

It is expected that this will provoke intense debate and even resistance as the implications of its impact on lifestyles become apparent. We must remember to keep our eye on the bigger long-term implications if we do not use the PSDF as the basis for achieving a sustainable growth path for the Province.

R3.5 million has been set aside for the implementation phase of the PSDF. This will ensure that the alignments between the PSDF and municipal SDF's take place. We will also provide a training course at the Provincial Training Academy for officials from all our municipalities, Town planners, architects, environmentalists, transport and civil engineers.

Mr Speaker

I am pleased to inform the House that the much awaited, much debated Golf and Polo Estate Guidelines has been finalized and approved by cabinet. Read in conjunction with the PSDF, it will ensure that appropriate development takes place in clearly defined areas; issues of water, accessibility to cultural and heritage sites, quality of jobs, Broad based Black Economic Empowerment and mixed income residential units amongst others, will now all be taken into account in our decision-making.

I had the opportunity of addressing the golf fraternity on these Guidelines recently, at their first annual Golf Business Summit. I am pleased to say that there was a general understanding of and appreciation for the need for these Guidelines. I am further pleased to say that the golfing fraternity has also taken up the challenge I put to them to address, amongst others, the organization of the industry, the transformation of the industry, the self-regulation of the industry through the development of a code of conduct. This should serve to discourage bad practice and encourage good practice in the sector. The positive outcome of this is that a task team has been formed to address these matters. I want to thank the industry for being responsive and willing to take up the challenge. We look forward to the outcomes.

The Urban Edge Guidelines, the next in the suite of guidelines and read in conjunction with the PSDF, requires municipalities to define their urban edges. These should incorporate forward planning for growth and must be linked to their SDF's and IDP's. The guidelines provide clear proposals on development both inside and outside the urban edge. It is a necessary intervention, if we want to control the unsustainable urban sprawl, which continue to blot our landscapes in the Province. This sprawl not only poses a risk to productive agricultural and ecologically sensitive land but is a terrible burden on our poor who find themselves on the periphery. It is costly in terms of transport and the provision of bulk infrastructure.

The urban edge guidelines encourage the efficient and economic use of space through densification and in so doing provides us with an opportunity to restructure and racially integrate our towns and city.

Mr Speaker

These Policy guidelines lay the basis for a sustainable development approach to planning and land use management in the Province. It also brings about transparency and predictability in our decision-making and we can certainly be held accountable if our decisions fundamentally contradict the critical elements of our guidelines. The rules of the game are clear.

A Status Quo Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment of the Physical and Socio-Economic Effects of Climate Change in the Western Cape

During the past financial year the Department initiated a study into the current situation regarding the impact of climate change in the Western Cape. ("A Status Quo Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment of the Physical and Socio-Economic Effects of Climate Change in the Western Cape"). The study was undertaken by a consortium of experts led by Dr Guy Midgley of the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). The report of the study was launched at the Sustainable Development Conference hosted by the Department in June last year. It was also used by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) as a showcase of work done in this regard, during the National Climate Change Conference in October last year. During February 2006 a Western Cape Climate Change Conference was held at Kirstenbosch and the outcome of the conference initiated the drafting of the Terms of Reference for the compilation of a Western Cape Climate Change Response Strategy and Action Plan. Bids for this project have already been issued and the appointment of an appropriate, competent bidder will be done shortly.

This will be done in partnership with the Department of Agriculture and an amount of R3 million has been set aside on their budget.

Mr Speaker

In the current context I am certain that I do not need to convince honourable members about the need for an integrated Energy strategy and action plans for the Western Cape. The Provincial Energy Consumption analysis has provided a sobering picture of current consumption patterns and future growth in energy consumption.

We are convinced that energy security plays a vital role in ensuring that the province can meet its economic, social and environmental objectives, and that it remains an attractive destination for investment. A sound energy policy and programme is essential in addressing environmental concerns, including climate change. The need to secure sources of cleaner, non-polluting and renewable energy as part of our future development plans is critical.

The draft strategy has been developed in partnership with key stakeholders in the Province and within the parameters set by national government. It has also taken into account of all the various initiatives at local government level.

One of the agreements reached in the Energy Risk Management Committee set up to deal with the current Energy problem in the Province, has been the establishment of a task team that will address the issue of renewable energy as part of the medium to long-term plans for energy security. My department is part of this task team and will play a leadership role in this regard.

The final draft Strategy will be available for public comment shortly and our social partners will engage with this through the PDC.

In June 2005 the Department successfully hosted a conference on Sustainable Development. The conference was attended by more than a thousand people from all walks of life and it was the first of its kind in the Province and probably the first by a provincial government in the country. The conference deliberations revolved around six themes, namely, Sustainable Human Settlements; Energy and Climate Change; Sustainable Water Use and Management; Sustainable Waste Management; Biodiversity Management; and Sustainable Transport. The outcome of the conference was agreement for the need to develop a Sustainable Development Implementation Plan (SDIP). The department will be finalizing this plan in this financial year and will be capacitating municipalities and other stakeholders to include sustainability measures in their planning. The SDIP will also be a critical informant to the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy for the Western Cape.

Members are aware that together with the PSDF, the Integrated Law Reform Project forms the other critical leg to our achievement of sustainable development objectives. The objective is to streamline and integrate Planning, Heritage and Environmental approval processes into one entirely new piece of legislation. This will have the impact of reducing the delays in approval processes by cutting red-tape and thereby reducing the cost to doing business in the Western Cape. Given the complexity of the process and the need to address current national, provincial and municipal competencies, the progress made has not been in line with the time-lines we originally set for ourselves. Although a first draft has been completed, ongoing consultations with our sister departments at a national and provincial level are still underway. As soon as these are finalized we will publish the first draft for public comment.

What started out as a departmental initiative to reduce our own ecological footprint through the REDUCE, RE-USE and RECYCLE programme, the 2Wise2Waste will be now catapulted into a provincial-wide project. The 2Wise2Waste brand will, in future, identify all environmental efficiency initiatives driven by the Department, and the Ministry will drive a campaign to embed this brand into the minds of all Western Cape citizens. It will become the Department's symbol for environmental efficiency. Further to this campaign, grassroots rollout of the 2Wise2Waste project, which will include practical implementation of water, energy and waste management efficiency practices, in partnership with DEA&DP, is envisaged within the Provincial Government of the Western Cape. It is envisaged that staff working in Provincial Departments of the Western Cape will have a practical understanding, through involvement and buy-in, of water and energy efficiency and waste minimization. In addition, the Department aims to finalise, approve and pilot the Departmental Green Procurement Policy which is in the process of being drafted, with a future vision of further rolling this out to the rest of Provincial Government, in a consultative manner. Included under our 2Wise2Waste programme will be our very successful Cleaner Production programme, which in this year, will target the Construction sector, following the success of our interventions with the Hospitality Sector in the last year. The 2Wise2Waste will also robustly promote the recycling economy.

The Department is embarking on an initiative to stimulate the recycling economy and to improve the access of the informal sector to the recycling economy. This is my department's contribution to achieve the targets of shared growth and accelerated growth. At the same time is addresses the need to minimize waste generation due to the landfill airspace crisis which the province is facing.

This project will also contribute towards job creation in the recycling sector and ensures that recycling initiatives become economically sustainable through the identifying new market for recycled material and to increase the demand for products from recycled material by increasing the value of the recycled material. The recycling economy presents us therefore with an important intervention into the second economy with the opportunity of building the linkages into the first economy.

Mr Speaker let me use this opportunity to acknowledge the presence of two groups of special guests in the House today. The Aurora Women's Network, who initiated an income-earning project through recycling paper. The notepads and covers you have before you have been produced by them. The soap has been produced using natural resources in the community, like rooibos and lavender. In this year when we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Women's' March to the Union Buildings please join me in saying thank you to these inspiring women.

We also have with us students from Ravensmead Hill High School, who have formed partnerships with surrounding businesses and their parents, in a recycling project. They have produced wonderful things from the recycled waste of the private sector ranging from art, decorations, clothing etc. and have assisted some parents in earning an income through this. Again, in the year that we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the struggles of the Youth in 1976, join me in saying thank you to our young girls and boys for their inspiring work.

Currently two Biospheres are approved in the Western Cape and initiatives with regards to the Knersvlakte, Cederberg, Cape Winelands and Central Karoo are under way. Assistance and guidance will be provided to the appropriate municipalities that are responsible for preparing the applications.

In addition to this, CapeNature is also actively engaged in promoting and creating conservancies and stewardship programmes with landowners surrounding our reserves throughout the Province.

A successful recovery plan, developed in conjunction with my department has lifted CapeNature out of a financial crisis.

CapeNature manages a whole range of programmes with various sub-projects - too many to report on meaningfully in a document such as this. Therefore, only the key programmes are dealt with as follows:

- Fire Management

Frequent and large fires currently represent the most critical threat to the Cape Floral Kingdom.

The fire season of 2005/06 has seen more than 100 uncontrolled wild fires in protected fynbos areas managed by CapeNature across the Western Cape. It is generally accepted that fire is an essential part of the natural ecosystem that sustains and evolves fynbos. The problem is that, with the increased incidence of uncontrolled fires, areas are burning repeatedly in much shorter cycles than would occur naturally. The impact of this on biodiversity is severe.

Ongoing fire management activities include:

Developing partnerships:

CapeNature continues to maintain an excellent working partnership with Working on Fire - the National Expanded Publics Works Programme. Eleven of the 44 of the national fire-fighting ground crew bases have been established on CapeNature reserves. CapeNature continues to develop further partnerships to increase its capacity to address fire management challenges.

Training:

Given the important but dangerous nature of fire fighting, CapeNature endeavors to provide basic, refresher and advanced training to better equip the Conservation Managers on the ground.

Fire Management Policy and Guidelines:

This important document is updated annually to provide guidance and interpretation for Conservation Managers in all issues related to Fire Management. A comprehensive integrated fire management strategy for all the conservation areas in the Western Cape will be finalised by September 2006.

Fire Data Management Project:

The Fire Data Management Project, funded by the World Bank (under the auspices of the C.A.P.E. Programme), will, by June 2006, provide an extensive historic databank of all the fires that have been recorded within the Western Cape. This databank will be 95% reliable and will form the basis on which critical queries regarding the impact of the fire regime on biophysical processes will be researched.

- Invasive Alien Management

Invasive alien flora and fauna threaten both biodiversity and economic progress. Alien vegetation threatens the Western Cape's water resources by infesting Mountain Catchment Areas, river systems and wetlands. It provides massive fuel loads for wild fires, and threatens endemic flora, some of which is seriously endangered.

CapeNature is the biggest Implementing Agent of the National Working for Water Programme in South Africa. During 2005/06, R17million was spent eliminating roughly 112281 hectares of alien vegetation in the Western Cape. In doing so, a total of 97 contractors were trained and equipped and now have their own registered businesses, each employing 11 people on average. 52% of these contractors and workers are female - and CapeNature is planning to increase this to 60% in the immediate future.

The establishment of these new small businesses has also brought benefits to the local economies through the supply of goods and services

- Creating mega-conservation areas

CapeNature manages approximately 18% of the surface area of the Western Cape, through proclaimed reserves, Mountain Catchment Areas, conservancies and natural heritage sites. The majority of these areas are separated from each other by privately owned land, human settlements and transport systems. In many instances this seriously impedes the natural migration routes of both flora and fauna, which, over time, can lead to the extinction of species.

The challenge, therefore, is to join up areas so that these natural migration routes can be extended and protected - from coastal areas all the way through to mountain ranges. One such initiative is the Cederberg Corridor, which aims at connecting the Cederberg mountain range with the coastal plains along the West Coast through a series of stewardships on the part of private landowners. Similar projects are being undertaken in the Gouritz and Agulhas areas. CapeNature is also partnering such an initiative in the Garden Route and Baviaanskloof areas.

- Investing in youth

Enabling and contributing to the development of our youth is a major strategic priority for CapeNature and accordingly a number of initiatives are in place amongst these:

Youth development:

CapeNature continued to conduct youth development programmes at its various centres throughout the Western Cape. These included both formal programmes and informal excursions and in one way or another CapeNature again hosted more than 30 000 young people during this reporting period.

Bringing conservation into the classroom:

CapeNature is currently cooperating with the Department of Education in an exciting new venture which seeks to integrate biodiversity conservation thinking into mainstream education thinking at a national level and align the methods and techniques used in CapeNature's youth development programmes with those used in mainstream education.

- Local economic development: more then 1100 jobs created

Wherever possible, CapeNature initiatives are designed to provide socio-economic development primarily through the provision of jobs. The programmes currently being run include:

• Working for Water
• Working for Fire
• Working for Wetlands
• Baboon Monitoring
• Coastal Care (clearing shorelines of debris)
• Community based natural resources management initiatives

To date, a total of 30 projects have created some 961 job opportunities (162 for women, 165 for men, 156 for young people and 478 for elderly and children). This figure excludes the 38 baboon monitors and their project coordinator - an R3.5m project funded by the National Poverty Relief Programme.

The Driftsands Environmental Education Centre, another project funded by the National Poverty Relief Programme. With a budget of about R8 million, the project involves the building of an amphitheatre, the refurbishing of the conference facilities, extensions to the waterwise garden, the creation of murals and "art" walls, the construction of bus parking facilities, and, finally, the development of a wheelchair-friendly 4km walking trail from the centre to the artificial dam that will offer a variety of bird life for viewing. Five community conservation officers, finance and administration officer, an admissions officer, a project coordinator and a marketing officer have already been appointed. Once the environmental impact study has been completed, the process of calling for tenders for the various construction jobs will commence - and this will provide the local community with at least another 100 jobs.

The department has budgeted an amount of R81.5m towards the funding of CapeNature, this represents an increase of 13% since the last financial year.

Mr Speaker

The new National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act No. 39 of 2004 was signed by the State President on 19 February 2005. The National Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism promulgated the commencement of certain sections of the Act in the government notice on 9 September 2005. To meet the requirements of the newly imposed Provincial mandate a Sub-directorate Air Quality Management was approved by Cabinet and established with the assistance of contract staff. In order to assist with an air quality needs assessment within the Province the Department is undertaking a passive ambient air quality monitoring programme to assess the ambient air quality and to determine future air quality monitoring needs. The project will be a cooperative governance programme between the province and the District Municipalities. The municipalities will assist with the setting up and collection of samples and the province will be responsible for providing the passive samplers, analysis and compilation of the final report and recommendations. The total amount budgeted for this is R220 397.

The environment presents a unique opportunity as an emerging sector for economic growth, previously undervalued. I believe that the environment presents a significant source for economic production. Globally this sector is currently valued at approximately 500 billion USD and is growing at a rate of 5% per annum.. The development of an environmental economy presents an excellent stimulant for developing the second economy as well as contributing to our ASGISA targets. For this to be realized it is imperative that the environment be mainstreamed into the broader economy of the Western Cape.

The environmental economy promotes sustainable development by improving the quality of life and conserving ecological systems while benefiting economic growth. It creates the potential for new manufacturing processes, sectoral economies, technologies and fair trade which promote innovative re-design for the environment as well opportunities for niche markets, eco-branding and eco-accreditation.

For example while Renewable Energy interventions are aimed at reducing the impacts of pollution and climate change it also presents tremendous opportunities for mainstreaming a new economic sector viz. through job creation from solar heater assembly plants, wind turbine manufacturing, exploring solar technologies and biofuel opportunities. In this context the province has a highly experienced and creative energy sector leadership & delivery capability. The renewable energy sector presents a high value investment and development potential. There is also a growing market and investor confidence and readiness through enthusiastic financiers, developers, operators and interested consumers.

We will have to look at market access and possible ways of opening up more business opportunities for the sector, for example affordable access to environmentally sound technologies. We will have to focus on creating a demand for environmental goods and services and conduct a critical analysis of market access and supply issues. There is a need to convert trade into demand for environmental services and not just promote supply issues. This department will be working closely with my other Department of Economic Development and WESGRO to facilitate trade expansion in environmental goods and services as well as explore innovative market-based approaches to developing the environmental economy of the Western Cape,

The utilisation of renewable energy will result in less pollution, increased community health and more environmental benefits. There is no doubt that the environmental economy can contribute significantly towards the province achieving its growth targets.

In this regard my department will provide strategic leadership, guidance and support in the province. My department will in the current year develop an Environmental Economy Strategy and Action Plan as well as produce sector based business plans to unlock the potential of the environmental economy.

In addition my department will over this financial year focus on the following key interventions:

• Explore the mainstreaming of renewable energy technologies within all public buildings, businesses and households in the province through measures such as solar heating, retro-fitting and more energy efficient building designs. Government will set the example by the installation of energy efficient technologies and construction methods. This will form part of a "green procurement" strategy whereby tenders for government projects may require strict compliance with cleaner and greener technologies and EIAs being approved subject to the installation and utilisation of environmental technologies.
• Explore the opportunities that exist within the recycling industry creating value and income from waste. A breakthrough can be created between the interaction between the 1st and 2nd economies.
• Expose the Environmental Economy as an emerging business sector to Young and upcoming entrepreneurs, SMME's, BBBEE companies
• Expand the 2-Wise-2-Waste Campaign

Support the Cape Nature poverty alleviation projects such as the

• Youth Development - YSP programme
• Working For Water and Alien Clearing
• Working on Wetlands
• Working on Fire
• Eco-Guides

• Enhance the Community-based Natural Resource Management and Coastal Livelihoods programme
• Undertake a provincial wide policy review that will enable the Environmental Economy to perform at maximum potential
• The department is in the process of finalising the appointment of a team of experts to assist us in the conceptualisation and development of this "Environment Economy"

Hounourable Members

All these and other policy and programme interventions by the Department will continue to inform Ikapa Elihlumayo, our Growth and Development Strategy for the Western Cape Government, be critical informants in the development of the Provincial Growth and Development Strategy (PGDS). I believe we have therefore been able to lay the foundations for placing this province on a sustainable growth path.

Mr Speaker

The total budget for my department in this financial year is R175.5 million rand. This amount includes the R81.5 million that is transferred to CapeNature. This in effect leaves a balance of R94 million for my department to fulfill both its legislative responsibilities and its long-term strategic responsibilities. Clearly this poses a challenge. We will need to form strong partnerships in order to achieve our objectives as a department.