How a Durban alliance united against pollution and redefined environmental justice over 30 years

Back in 1995, just a year after the formal birth of democracy, the ideological and spatial divisions of apartheid were still firmly in place in many parts of the country, including the residential areas south of Durban.

Yet it was here, in one of the country’s most notorious air pollution “hotspots” that local residents of all colours came together 30 years ago to form a single alliance to push back against environmental injustices in their neighbourhoods. It came to be known as the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) or “Sedsee” for short.

Over a period of decades, the former Durban City Council had allowed heavy industries to expand or to establish new operations close to Africa’s largest harbour, seemingly with little regard for the negative impacts foisted on thousands of predominantly poor and working class communities living nearby.

The biggest polluters included two of the country’s largest fuel refineries (Engen and Sapref), a major pulp and paper mill and hundreds of smaller chemical storage and manufacturing plants. 

Complaints about the choking fumes and toxic spillages from a variety of industries had been largely ignored, while attempts to access information about the composition, sources and volumes of pollutants were often brushed aside on the basis that such information was “confidential” in terms of the National Key Points Act.

But that began to change in March 1995 when newly elected president Nelson Mandela

style="font-weight: 400;">visited the Engen refinery in Wentworth and was confronted by scores of angry residents, protesting outside the refinery gates.

Mandela soon instructed the deputy environment minister Bantu Holomisa to convene a “multi-stakeholder” indaba to resolve the long-standing complaints.

This was the catalyst for the formation of the new SDCEA, bringing together civic and environmental groups from the predominantly Indian neighbourhoods of Clairwood, Merebank and Isipingo, black residents from Umlazi, coloured residents from Wentworth and Austerville and white residents from the Bluff and Fynnland.

As former Bluff resident and environmental activist Rory O’Connor recalled: “Pollution has no boundaries. It was affecting all of us. So we got together to form a common voice.”

He was speaking on November 15 at the 30th anniversary celebration of the alliance at the Bluff Eco Park.

Desmond D’Sa, the veteran Wentworth civic leader and Goldman environment prize winner who has led the alliance from the start, recalled that SDCEA’s first office was a stuffy shipping container in the car park of the Harlequins rugby club on the Bluff.

Fellow SDCEA veteran Louise Colvin said one of the strengths of the alliance was D’Sa’s insistence on inclusivity and independence: “It didn’t matter whether you were a communist or a Christian, educated or not.

“The alliance was born in an era of hope, but I don’t think we saw what was coming down the road. Many (activists) joined the government — but not SDCEA. They were determined to remain independent and to remain true to their community-based mission.”

This was just as well, she remarked, noting that: “We never realised the extent to which greed and corruption would take root (in the government) or how deep those roots and tentacles could go.”

Angela Andrews, a Legal Resource Centre attorney who worked closely with SDCEA on several campaigns, said the alliance was “relentless” and it became a beacon for other environmental justice groups across South Africa and elsewhere.

Due to the pressure exerted on both the government and industry, one of the alliance’s early victories was a significant reduction in sulphur dioxide pollution levels from the Engen and Sapref refineries. 

This came after a peer-reviewed health study by the universities of KwaZulu-Natal and Michigan in 2007 showed that children living near South Durban’s heavily polluted industrial area were at much greater risk of asthma and other respiratory diseases, compared with children in the city’s north. The asthma levels in South Durban were among the highest recorded in global medical literature.

The same study also recorded “substantial levels” of benzene and other cancer-causing air pollution emissions in South Durban.

Earlier, with support from California-based activist Denny Larson, SDCEA volunteers had formed a “bucket brigade” to collect low-cost air pollution samples using sealed nappy buckets and other equipment that could be bought at most hardware stores.

Later, with financial support from the Norwegian government, the eThekwini community health department established one of the country’s most extensive air quality monitoring networks, which also linked the licensing of Durban industrial plants to progressive reductions in pollution levels. (Sadly, that network was systematically dismantled almost a decade later during a restructuring plan that reduced the staff complement by nearly 75% and provoked the resignation of its head, Siva Chetty. The Engen and Sapref refineries subsequently ceased production, in 2020 and 2022 respectively, with the future of these sites currently uncertain.)

Industrial air pollution has not been the sole focus of SDCEA, however.

Along with organisations such as groundWork, alliance members also took aim against toxic waste dumping in several parts of the city. 

The SDCEA also campaigned vigorously against the destruction of the old Clairwood Racecourse, one of the last “green lung” areas in South Durban, to make way for a new container and logistics hub. D’Sa was worried that further warehouses would endanger community health and safety due to a massive influx in heavy truck traffic and diesel fumes.

D’Sa also led a subsistence fishers resistance campaign to a ban on angling within Durban harbour in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York, and also opposed attempts by Transnet to evict market gardeners growing vegetables and other produce next to the old Durban International Airport. 

SDCEA alliance member and former chairperson Vanessa Black spoke of D’Sa’s “tenacity”, observing that: “Things don’t change just by having a big mouth — but it does help!”

Despite his reputation in some quarters as a “firebrand”, former colleague and current WaterCAN executive director Ferial Adam said: “What sets Des apart as a leader is his humanity. He has always believed that people matter. He refuses to accept that injustice is ‘normal’.”

Also speaking at the anniversary celebration, current SDCEA chairperson Verushka Memdutt praised D’Sa for always being accessible.

“You can pick up your phone at any hour of the day and Comrade Des will answer — or get back to you.”

Abahlali base Mjondolo shack dwellers leader S’bu Zikode, singled out D’Sa for his courage and refusal to back down under intimidation, recalling that a pig’s head was dumped on the doorstep of his home some years back. (In a separate incident, a petrol bomb exploded against the front door of the D’Sa home.)

“We (Abahlali) are a creation of SDCEA. It has taught us what solidarity looks like.” DM