Human Rights Day often prompts us as a nation to reflect on the gains we have made in the long journey to freedom, equality and the realisation of our rights as South Africans. But are some rights more important than others?
What about the rights we put aside because we deem them beneath economic benefits and therefore simply considered as “nice to have”.
No right should need to be seen as being more immediate than the next. Despite this, as a society we still find ourselves participating in the Struggle Olympics to emphasise the right to a healthy environment and wellbeing. Such is the case with the realisation of most, if not all, basic human rights in our country – the constant battle to remind the powers-that-be that all rights, due to the nature of their intersectionality, are important. The fight for what is already environmental rights is often shifted towards being a luxury right that can be overlooked for the purpose of development.
Policies and regulations to support this right are poorly implemented or completely disregarded, but fundamentally, environmental rights are human rights, concerning real lives. It’s far from being an exclusive agenda, perpetuated by privileged anti-development tree-huggers.
There is a clear disjuncture between environmental rights and other basic human rights where we fail to see the intersectionality between these rights. Environmental degradation should not be seen as just an ecological issue, but instead as a human rights crisis. It is becoming harder and harder to conceal the seriousness of the matter, and it does not suffice to continue to depict environmental rights as being two-dimensional and not the multifaceted rights that they actually are.
To elaborate, air pollution claims about 25,800 lives each year. More than 50% of the country’s wastewater treatment plants are dysfunctional, leading to contaminated rivers and drinking water sources with raw sewage. Added to that, in Mpumalanga, toxic air quality leads to thousands of premature deaths annually, while the 2015-2017 drought pushed 37,000 children into malnutrition. Let’s add to that the fact that climate-induced disasters have killed hundreds and displaced thousands in recent years. These incidents, although catalysed by environmental factors, are direct violations of other fundamental human rights: the right to life; the right to access water and food; the right to education; the constitutional rights of children; and the right to freely choose one’s trade, occupation or profession, and to be afforded the opportunity to earn a living through work.
South Africa’s policies in relation to climate change are generally quite progressive. We make all the right noises. We have accordingly committed ourselves to national and global agreements to ensure that we move away from fossil fuels to a just transition. We have also recently promulgated a Climate Change Act. Despite these commitments to safeguarding our environment for future generations on various levels, we still agree to developments that contribute to the detriment of our health and wellbeing. We still prioritise brief economic interests over the survival and dignity of our people.
Perhaps the more direct question to ask is: Are we content with the majority of people suffering, as long as there is a stint of development that will benefit those who have the financial means to circumvent the inevitable adverse impacts of environmental degradation?
Recent climate disasters continue to show that the people most affected by environmental degradation in this country are those who have been historically disadvantaged throughout the country’s development. Research tells us that women continue to bear the brunt of shortsighted developments that exacerbate climate change and cause severe environmental instability.
The reality for many South Africans is that they will never experience the wealth of health if they are living in an environment that exposes them to incapacitated lungs. Their children will never know what it means to have a full life if it is cut short because the environment does not allow them to breathe. Their right to access water will be but a luxury if we have to compete with large corporations who give us a fraction of their profits, but profess development. Their kids will carry the heavy burden of hunger and drought in barren land that no longer sustains them.
Environmental rights are human rights and the longer we continue to overlook their importance, the further we will be from ever achieving a just society for us all. DM