Social and environmental conflict in sa

Social sciences

Geography

Grade 9

Social and environmental conflict in south africa

Module 9

Social and environmental conflict

1. Political background

After Nelson Mandela was released in 1990, conflict in South Africa escalated, while many people expected it to be the beginning of a more peaceful society.

This was the result of a combination of environmental needs and social unrest in South Africa over the past decades. South Africa faces serious environmental problems, but in recent times these were overshadowed by the negative social effects of apartheid, a resistance to minority government and the effort to establish a post-apartheid political dispensation. Despite the successful transition to a full democracy, the apartheid system was responsible for a problematic ecological legacy which will still be affecting the political, social and economic situation for many decades to come. The prospects for a prosperous, peaceful and democratic South Africa become even dimmer if we take into account that our environmental needs may influence our social stability.

Environmental needs, within the context of apartheid, have contributed to:

a decrease in agricultural productivity in the formal homelands;

migration to and inside urban areas; and

the deterioration of the local urban environment.

2. South Africa: after apartheid

The expropriation of land that once belonged to the original inhabitants of South Africa had already started with the British colonial rule, but racial segregation became entrenched with the victory of the National Party in 1948, and their subsequent enforcement of apartheid. Due to apartheid, 87% of the land fell into the hands of the whites, while the blacks, about 75% of the population, lived in homelands comprising about 13 % of the land.

The black population had to maintain themselves in these areas by means of agriculture, local service industries and migratory labour in mines and industries owned by whites.

From 1960 to 1980 the Government forced 1,75 million people, who settled in urban squatter camps and rural towns after the cancellation of their labour contracts, to the homelands. This contributed to:

semi-urban communities bordering on the homelands;

more people living in single-gender hostels near industries;

an obvious apartheid structure that exists to this day: natural environment features such as rivers, kloofs and ridges, or manmade obstructions such as industrial areas, railway lines separate the different racial groups from each other;

an uneven distribution of urban land, with blacks receiving insufficient land to provide accommodation for all, while such land was also unfavourably located (far from the city centre, close to industrial areas) with an inadequate infrastructure (poor sewerage systems, water and electricity services).

As a result of this state of affairs the black urban population became increasingly dependent on the local environment for their day-to-day needs, invariably causing a rapid deterioration of the environment.