The gap between rich and poor is widening with the result that human well-being over a large section of South Africa and Lesotho is now lower than it was in the 1990s.
This emerged from a CSIR study, Ecosystem Services in the Gariep Basin, part of the larger Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
The report focused on the Gariep Basin, 665 000 square kilometres that is home to 40 percent of South Africa's population and all of Lesotho's, ranging from destitute communities to industrialised societies.
It investigated the conditions of the eco-system services in this region and the well-being of the people.
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| The study found a continued high birth rate among the poor in the Gariep Basin |
The Gariep Basin contains seven of the country's biomes, 70 percent of the national cereal crop production and 80 percent of industrial activity. It includes Gauteng, the Free State, Lesotho and parts of the other provinces.
The study found a continued high birth rate among the poor in the Gariep Basin, so that the annual population growth now outstripped the increase in gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP per person has been declining steadily since 1980.
The gap was widening between the educated, wealthy segment of the population and the uneducated, rapidly increasing poor population. This had resulted in a steady decrease in the human development index.
This index, developed by the UN Development Programme, assesses human well-being by measuring factors like poverty, literacy, education and life expectancy.
Life expectancy in the Gariep Basin had decreased gradually during the past 10 years because of increasing HIV and Aids. The rate of unemployment had increased in the past 20 years because population growth had outpaced economic growth.
| Life expectancy in the Gariep Basin had decreased gradually during the past 10 years |
"This has caused the formal economic sector's absorption capacity to decrease from 73 percent in the 1960s to 12 percent in 1990. It has forced people to seek alternative options for income in the informal sector," the report said.
Regarding food supply, the report said that while agriculture had made "tremendous leaps" in recent decades, this had come with "severe costs to ecosystems and human health".
Apartheid policies had affected agriculture when large, white-owned commercial farms boomed as a result of subsidies and tax relief. After 1994, market deregulation and liberalisation of the economy led to an increase in the number of smaller, labour-intensive farms.
About 90 percent of South Africa's food consumption was met by domestic production, with enough calories and protein produced in the Gariep Basin to feed the country.
However, food insecurity still affected millions, a problem entrenched by apartheid policies that restricted access to land and other resources. The result is impoverished rural and peri-urban communities, surrounding pockets of affluence and wellbeing.
The report says there is a "crucial need" to incorporate eco-system services into decision-making related to the environment and development.
"The significance of eco-system services and their intimate relationship with human well-being is likely to increase in coming years and must be made tangible to a wider audience," the report says. - Environment Writer.
- This article was originally published on page 5 of Cape Times on November 02, 2004
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