Environmental Justice in South Africa

GEOGRAPHY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND DEMOGRAPHY David A. McDonald, ed. Environmental Justice in South Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press/Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2002. 319 pp. Notes. Bibliographical references. Index. $59.95. Cloth. $26.95. Paper.

With contributions from academics and activists from a wide range of disciplines, this collection explores historical, theoretical, and practical engagements with South Africa's environmental justice movement in the 1990s. As David A. McDonald writes in the introduction, "At its core, environmental justice is about incorporating environmental issues into the broader intellectual and institutional framework of human rights and democratic accountability" (3). Yet he also acknowledges that "there is much that fragments the environmental justice movement" (4). Attempting to remedy this fragmentation, the collection considers the multiple meanings of the term "environmental justice," the assumptions and negative repercussions of its past uses, and ways to reconceptualize the term in order to correct and avoid historic problems. The essays critically examine the first decade of environmental activism after the dismantling of apartheid, explicating some of the movement's victories and contemplating future courses of action.

Mirroring the book's interest in encompassing both theory and practice, its organizational structure is helpfully divided into three parts: theory, practice, and narrative. The first four chapters are dedicated to theoretical debates surrounding environmental justice and offer important readings on South Africa's environmental justice movement. The second group of chapters focuses on practice, presenting case studies of environmental struggles, such as the community of Clewer's efforts to hold a mining company accountable for solid waste management and water contamination, and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance's attempt to prevent further expansion of a toxic waste site. Following each chapter are personal narratives of environmental activism and destruction. The pieces, powerfully written by Mpume Nyandu, serve as a constant reminder of the suffering that environmental injustice often wreaks upon disenfranchised South Africans. Yet as McDonald stresses, Nyandu's vignettes also highlight the ability of many South African individuals and communities to challenge environmental marginalization and demand a more just future.

Of particular note in part 1 is Farieda Khan's essay, "The Roots of Environmental Racism and the Rise of Environmental Justice in the 1990's," which explores the history of environmental racism-from the first white settlements in the mid-seventeenth century to the present-and its links with current perceptions of the environmental justice movement. Khan argues that until recently, environmentalism in South Africa was constituted by "a wildlife-centered, preservationist approach, which appealed mainly to the affluent, educated and largely white minority" and alienated the majority of the country's blacks. Although over the past ten years environmentalists have recognized that appealing to all South Africans necessitates the redefinition of the environmental agenda to include basic human needs, such as the right to "a clean, safe, and healthy environment" (28), environmental racism persists. Khan's article illustrates how the legacy of colonialism, segregation, and apartheid coexists with significant and meaningful progress within the environmental justice movement.

Those interested in organized labor and occupational health will find Peter Lukey's article, "Workplace Environmental Justice: Trade Unions and the Struggle for an Ecological Platform," of particular interest. Lukey's essay explores the tensions between the creation of jobs and the protection of the environment and chronicles this struggle over the course of the past decade. To get beyond the red-green impasse, he offers the concept of "workplace environmental justice," a "short- to medium-term framework that will resonate with workers for whom 'the value of life cannot easily be separated from the value of a livelihood'" (287). Lukey ultimately contends that, as influential NGOs, South African trade unions are capable of creating aggressive environmental positions and policies.

Although McDonald writes that the book is intended "first and foremost" for South African academics, activists, and decision-makers, Environmental Justice in South Africa is an important text for anyone interested in the continent and its history, sustainable development, environmental studies, and social change, as well as postcolonialism, globalization, and the widening chasm between rich and poor. The collection of essays is a crucial addition to the body of literature dealing with South Africa's transition from an apartheid regime to a full-Hedged democracy, capable of meeting all its citizens' most basic needs. The book skillfully combines history, theory, analysis, and practice. At the same time, it does not remain content itself with mere critique; rather, many of the authors offer practical recommendations for the problems on which they have reflected.