Only 44.4% of South Africans have piped water inside their dwelling, with most having to collect water from an outside source. Through the Women in Water programme, the Water Institute of Southern Africa (WISA) has resolved to help address the water collection challenges rural women face, and has facilitated the donation of 23 Hippo Water Rollers.

While water issues can impact anyone, the greater burden is placed on women, and the role of women in rural areas as the primary water collectors, is well known. This activity limits the productive activity of women, excludes them from income generating opportunities and, in some cases, even threatens their health and well-being.

WISA’s Women in Water initiative aims to address these challenges and make a difference in the lives of rural women. Women in Water The WISA Water Science Division held its second annual Women in Water Conference in October, 2017 under the theme ‘Making a splash’. Ayesha Laher of WISA’s Water Science Division explains that the aim of this conference was to look outside of the traditional water sectors like water treatment and water science.

Agricultural practices, which support food security but increase the demand for water, were identified as a focus area. WISA decided to partner with Hippo Roller and asked conference attendees to sponsor Hippo Water Rollers to be passed on to recipients who were in need. 

Uplifting food gardens The Paper Manufacturers (PAMSA) and Recycling (RecyclePaperZA) Associations of South Africa met this call and donated 10 Hippo Water Rollers to Food and Trees for Africa (FTFA), a social enterprise that addresses the issues of food security and environmental sustainability.

One of these was handed over the Modimo Oteng Co-Operative in Marlboro Gardens, north east of Johannesburg, where a small group of six people, five women and one man, grow vegetables on a plot of land that was formerly a dump site.

Produce is sold for a small profit at a market in the upmarket area of Sandton, while some is donated to a nearby old age home. Another one of these rollers was donated to the Alexandra Greening route, established by Paul Maluleke as community tourism project under the Ecotourism Initiative and Department of Environmental Affairs.

The project encourages members of the community to grow their own food to sustain themselves and earn an income. Maluleke said would like see more young people getting involved in these initiatives in order to pass down indigenous knowledge to future generations.

The third food garden to receive a Hippo Water Roller was the Molobanyane Co-operative in Alexandra, run by Voilet Phala Mabaso, or Mam Vi (short for Mama, or Mother, Violet) as she is known in the community. Mam Vi grows mainly herbs on a section of land shared by several co-operatives.

She has grown her garden to supply produce to locals, markets and some restaurants and has even built her own drying room where she dries and pickles various produce. Mam Vi says she earns enough selling her produce to cover her living costs and pay the people who work for her.

She will use her Hippo Water Roller to store water for her saplings when the water is off – something she says is a fairly regular occurrence. FTFA will identify recipients for the remaining Water Hippo Rollers. Hippo Water Rollers The Hippo Water Roller Project was established in 1994 in response to the water access challenges faced by rural women and children across Africa. The South African invention is now in use in more than 25 countries, making it easy to collect water in tough rural conditions. The Hippo Roller holds up to five times more water than a single bucket (90ℓ) and is simple and easy to use. Grant Gibbs, Executive Director, Hippo Roller explained some of the key design elements that make the product though and user friendly:

1. The clip on handle allows the Hippo Roller to be easily pushed or pulled
2. A large opening allows easy access for cleaning, but is small enough to prevent small children from falling into the drum
3. A small recessed cap, the size of a standard bottle cap – making it easily replaceable – allows easy water pouring
4. A rounded bottom edge with a stable base allows the drum to be easily rolled upright

By Danielle Petterson| Editor: Water&Sanitation Africa

Community garden representatives receive Hippo Water Rollers

Mam Vi in her garden in Alexandra with the township of Alexandra behind her and the Sandton skyline on the horizon

The post Rolling out water first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

In South Africa, 1.3 million hectares (ha) of pine and eucalyptus trees are sustainably managed for commercial processing into wood and paper products. Through modern science and nanotechnology, wood fibre – cellulose – is used in automobiles, aerospace, defence and even medicine.

While Arbor Week traditionally calls on all South Africans to plant indigenous trees as a practical and symbolic gesture of sustainable environmental management, timber plantations deserve due recognition for the benefits they bring to the economy, society and the environment.

Wood and paper products touch our lives every day and it’s a relationship that often goes unnoticed, unless we were to take those same products away. From furniture, roof trusses and timber poles to books, writing paper, magazines, as well as boxes and packaging in innumerable shapes and sizes.

“When we grasp that trees are farmed for commercial use, we are able to understand the important role they play,” says Forestry South Africa executive director Michael Peter. “Just like any agricultural crop, trees are planted, harvested and replanted to ensure a sustainable supply of wood. And like any crop, plantations have an impact on the environment.”

Such impacts, Peter explains, are offset by the carbon dioxide absorbed and oxygen released by trees, by the employment and development benefits which forestry brings to communities, and by the biodiversity that is conserved by land owners.

In commemoration of Arbor Week and the theme ‘Forests and Water’, Forestry South Africa shares the facts about timber plantations, water, biodiversity and people.

Plantations and water

• Plantations are not irrigated as trees get their water from rainfall. This means that there are none of the high costs associated with delivering water to other users, such as dams, pipelines, pumping stations and water purification plants.
• Plantations also use a small fraction of the fertilisers and herbicides used in other land uses and, as such, negative impacts from these activities on biodiversity and water quality are very low.
• Plantations are one of the most efficient and beneficial water users – both in respect of the timber produced and the associated carbon dioxide sequestered (absorbed) in the process.

• Plantations use both soil and water resources but these can be measured against the returns they provide:

1. Forestry uses just 3% of available water in the country. This is just 5% of the water used by agriculture (62%). (Strategic Overview of Water Sector in South Africa, 2010. Department of Water Affairs)
2. Forestry occupies about 1.2% of the land used for agriculture
3. Plantations and the forest products sub-sector provide 22.5% of jobs in agriculture

• All forests are vital to the Earth’s water supply as they influence how and where rain falls, filtering and cleaning water.

Plantations and biodiversity

• The South African National Biodiversity Institute concluded in a seven-year grasslands programme funded by the Global Environmental Facility that the grasslands managed by plantation growers were the most diverse and best conserved of all land uses in the programme.
• There are more formally protected grasslands and natural forests under management of the plantation industry, than in any other commercial land use sector.
• Some 80% of the land reserved for plantation forestry is certified to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council. Approximately 25% of this land is not planted to trees and is conserved for biodiversity.
• The Living Planet Report published in 2014 by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London lauded the Mondi Wetlands Project among the four solutions to global wildlife loss.

Plantations and people

• Apart from the 165,000 jobs in forestry, there are an additional 551,000 forestry-related jobs in upstream and downstream sectors (pulp and papermaking, furniture, timber for mining and construction etc).
• Forestry provides other social benefits to about three million people in rural areas: access to education, training, health care, housing, nutrition, transport, infrastructure and business development and support.

Trees – in all forms – are essential to life on our planet. They absorb excess carbon dioxide and pollutant gases, and provide clean air, water and climate regulation. As a renewable resource and a livelihood for many communities, forests are an important part of the solution to meeting global needs for food, fuel, fibre, medicine and other products essential to daily life.

The post Celebrating trees, wood and water this Arbor Week | 4 – 10 September first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

The video is part of Sappi’s “The Thing About” series narrated by environmental journalist Johan Botha, that shares information about the company’s commitment to People, Planet and Prosperity through conservation and biodiversity management, community initiatives and partnership programmes as well as land and forest stewardship projects.

Dr Dave Everard, Sappi Environmental Manager explains how the company strives for a balance of these “3Ps” to manage the business in such a way that it is financially viable, environmentally sound and socially responsible. Dr Everard says he believes that, “timber, or vegetation biomass is one of the saviours to future sustainable issues of the planet,” and “creating more markets to use timber is a good thing as long as the timber is produced in a responsible way.” As Sappi grows, it continues to find innovative ways to improve yield, and minimise and reuse waste without negatively impacting the people and natural environment through plantation farming.

Sappi’s Ngodwana Energy Biomass Project was recently named a preferred bidder in the South African Department of Energy’s 4th window Renewable Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme. Through this project, Sappi will use locally-supplied biomass to produce energy for the national grid.

For more information on Sappi’s sustainability initiatives, please see the company’s Group Sustainability Report.

Stay tuned to Sappi’s YouTube channel. We’ll let you know about future videos in this series released in the next few months.

The post The Thing About…Earth Day first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

The partnership between food processing and packaging Tetra Pak and recycling operation Gayatri Paper Mills ensures the complete, environmentally responsible and friendly lifecycle of the carton from cradle to grave, as 6 000 tons of used beverage cartons per annum are destined for local reuse.

“When the contents are gone, the carton lives on,” says Rodney Reynders, environment cluster leader, sub-Sahara Africa at Tetra Pak. “The unpretentious carton pack goes largely unnoticed in consumer homes worldwide more than 400 million times a day – appreciated for it’s low carbon, low cost simplicity but unrecognised for it’s engineering excellence.”

Tetra Pak’s cartons are made even more environmentally friendly with the introduction of the recycling facility as the impact of every element of the carton’s lifespan is now considered, from responsibly managed forests to use and reinvention as a recycled product.

In addition the multilayer engineering keeps product fresh inside for up to 12 months without needing energy-sapping refrigeration. Milk and juice processing machines from Tetra Pak use the latest technology to save energy and water,while technical processing support to customers focuses on reducing productwaste during the packaging of milk and juice.

The partnership is looking for rapid annual expansion in the volume of recycled material which will be sold backinto local industry. It creates wealth from waste and sustainable local revenues.

This partnership is part of Tetra Pak’s ongoing global programme to boost recycling rates. In 2010 Tetra Pak supplied 158 billion individual packages used by food and beverage companies around the world to deliver over 74 billion litres of milk, juice, fruits and other products to consumers. Thirty two billion used cartons were recycled globally that year which eliminates more than 473 kilo tonnes of waste and provides the base material for a host of new products.

The model is based on established carton recycling businesses in Brazil and seeks to include partners from local businesses to government and entrepreneurs.

Several direct jobs have already been created by the partnership with many more knock-on jobs for balers and collectors. Tetra Pak works closely with local recycling programmes to provide an extensive base for consumers to recycle their household carton waste, both as part of suburban home collection programmes and drop off sites at schools, key retailers and some industrial drop off areas.  Lists of recycling drop off points can be found at www.tetrapak.co.za and www.mywaste.co.za.

Tetra Pak’s aseptic cartons consist mainly of renewable paper board (75%) with the remaining layers of aluminium and polyethylene (PolyAlu) making up 25% of the carton.  Both portions of the used carton waste are 100% recyclable.

Recyclables are collected across the country by waste management and private collection companies who sort them into different materials streams. Carton waste is then baled and sold on to Gayatri Paper Mills for recycling.

Gayatri employs a modified hydro-pulper, not unlike a giant, domestic blender which separates the paper board from the PolyAlu through a cold water friction process.

The baled units are fed, caps and all via an elevator, into the hydro pulper. The hydro pulper blade agitates the cold water solution and within 20 minutes the paper board has become separated from the PolyAlu portions. The pulp is pumped off into the main paper mill where it is turned into cardboard. The cardboard is then converted into boxes that are used to ship milk and juice products into stores for people to buy – a complete, closed loop product story.

The PolyAlu portion that remains is baled and sent for aggromulation into small pelletsthat can then be used to manufacture a wide range of useful products, from cellphone covers, to park benches, school desks and chairs.

 ABOUT TETRA PAK

Tetra Pak is the world’s leading food processing and packaging solutions company. Working closely with our customers and suppliers, we provide safe, innovative and environmentally sound products that each day meet the needs of hundreds of millions of people in more than 170 countries around the world.  With almost 22,000 employees based in over 85 countries, we believe in responsible industry leadership and a sustainable approach to business.  Our motto, “PROTECTS WHAT’S GOOD,” reflects our vision to make food safe and available, everywhere.

More information about Tetra Pak is available at www.tetrapak.com

The post Tetra Pak and Gayatri Paper Mills partnership bears fruit first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

Breathe in, breathe out

• All paper in South Africa is produced from sustainably managed plantation-grown trees, recycled paper or bagasse (sugar cane fibre).
• Plantation-grown trees are farmed for paper, just as maize is planted for cereals and wheat for bread. In South Africa, 600 million trees across 762,000 hectares are specifically grown for use in pulp and paper manufacture and the industry plants in excess of 260,000 trees every single day.
• The fibre is not sourced from the wood of rainforests, indigenous or boreal trees. This is a myth, often wrongfully perpetuated by e-mail footnotes.
• Plantations are atmospheric carbon sinks which mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by absorbing carbon dioxide (CO₂) and releasing oxygen through the natural process of photosynthesis.
• Only 9% of the total plantation area is harvested annually. This is replanted within the same year. Only mature trees are harvested.
• Carbon absorption continues as the new trees grow and young trees are able to absorb carbon more rapidly than the older trees. These trees, and thus paper products, are a renewable resource.

Respecting our water resources

• South Africa’s plantations require neither irrigation nor regular fertilising.
• The total annual water usage by timber plantations was calculated to be 428 million m³ per year, approximately 3% of the total annual water usage in South Africa. By comparison, water used for irrigating crops amounts to 7,9 billion m3 or 62% of the total annual requirement. (National Water Resource Strategy: Dept. Water Affairs and Forestry 2004)
• The industry has also voluntarily reduced its plantation area by 80,000 hectares in riverine and other ecologically sensitive areas.
• Further downstream, pulp and paper manufacturers have implemented water recycling technologies to reduce the industry’s water footprint.

Managing our resources sustainably

• South Africa has the highest level of international certification of its plantations in the world. Over 80% of South African plantations are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
• PAMSA members subscribe to the FSC’s Chain of Custody which tracks FSC-certified material through the production process – from the forest to the consumer, including all successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing and distribution. Consumers should look out for paper and wood products bearing the FSC mark of certification.
• The industry has 1,6 million hectares of FSC-certified land of which only about one million hectares are planted to trees. The majority of the other 600,000 hectares are grasslands. These have been assessed by South African National Biodiversity Institute to be the best conserved grasslands in the country. It is therefore important when referring to impacts of monocultures on biodiversity, that they are considered at landscape level and not at stand level.

ENDS

The post Sustainable plantation management makes all the difference. first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

Globally, wetland ecosystems provide many regulatory services such as water purification and flood attenuation.  In Africa, wetlands are very important to many people by providing provisioning services such as fodder for grazing, and water for domestic and agricultural use.  In the face of climate change, some of these services are becoming increasingly important, as is the growing need to appreciate how society, wetlands and climate are closely connected in direct and indirect ways.  While wetlands may be victims of human-induced climate change, at the same time they also provide a way of lessening the change itself and helping us to adapt to climate change. 

Human induced climate change is a reality and threatens to alter temperatures and rainfall patterns across the globe significantly by the end of the 21^st century.  Warming is predicted to be larger in Africa than the global annual mean, with drier subtropical regions (i.e. South Africa) warming more than the moister tropics.  Rainfall in Southern Africa is likely to become generally more variable.  A decrease in rainfall is predicted for much of the winter rainfall region (Western and Northern Cape and parts of the Eastern Cape) and western margins of the country with greater rainfall predicted on the eastern margins.

Above all else, wetlands are sensitive to the amount and seasonality of water they receive, and rely on a positive water balance, for at least part of the year, for their existence.  Climate is one of the most important external drivers which determine the quantity and timing of streamflow in wetlands.  Even subtle shifts in climate may alter not only the quantity of water made available to wetlands, but also the timing of the water input. Because ecological processes in wetlands are largely regulated by the quantity and timing of flows, major climate change-driven changes in water flows are likely to lead to change in wetland structure and functioning and therefore the goods and services they provide to people.

Dams, water abstraction, drainage, alien species and pollution are all degrading our wetlands, reducing their resilience (their ability to recover from disturbance or shocks).  Many of our wetlands in South Africa are seasonal or temporary in character, flooding only during the wet season or for a short period when there is temporary abundance of water in the landscape.  These “drier” wetlands may be more vulnerable to changes in water timing and reductions in quantity than those wetlands that have a more secure and abundant source of water.  Many of South Africa’s wetlands have a connection with an aquifer (ground water) that provides water during periods of no rainfall.  It is expected that changes in temperature and rainfall will alter recharge rates to groundwater stores reducing the discharge of water from these into wetlands.  These types of wetland are likely to be vulnerable to climate change.  Wetlands without water (or considerably less water) may become dry-lands, losing many of their ecological attributes that make them valuable to people.

Globally, wetlands are a huge store of carbon, and although occupying only 4-5 % of the earth’s land area, they hold approximately 20 % of the land’s carbon. The saturated conditions characteristic of wetlands promote soil organic matter accumulation by slowing down organic matter decomposition. Soil with particularly high levels of organic matter is referred to as peat.  In most cases, peatlands have been accumulating carbon over thousands of years, with South Africa having some of the oldest peatlands in the world.  However, if the peatland is dried out, a lot of this carbon can be lost in a few years.  Thus, peatlands need to be conserved and rehabilitated to prevent the loss of a potentially very large pool of carbon into the atmosphere.  It has also been suggested that wetlands should be created to help mitigate the carbon being emitted from the burning of fossil fuels.  However, here it is important to note that wetlands emit methane, which potentially offsets a lot of the wetland’s positive contribution as a carbon sink.  Thus, wetland creation is not a panacea for balancing the carbon being emitted from the burning of fossil fuels, which have accumulated over eons.

Wetlands as a means of improving society’s resilience to changing climate

Climatic extremes, including floods and droughts, are predicted to become worse, and wetlands can play an important role in helping to dampen the effect of these extremes.  The contribution that wetlands make to reduce the severity of floods by accommodating and slowing down flood waters has been well demonstrated. Coastal wetlands, particularly mangroves, also provide storm protection.  For example, research has shown that when a coastline is battered by a tsunami those sections of coastline which still had intact mangroves are generally much less severely impacted than those where the mangroves had been cleared.

The function that wetlands play in storing water in the local landscape is well known.  This water is available to support plant growth during dry periods, either in the form of natural plants, which may be a critical source of food for livestock or for wisely cultivated crops for the direct consumption by people. In this way, a wetland can be a life-saving safety-net for poor small-scale farmers.

How can we protect our wetlands under the reality of climate change?

An important strategy is to significantly reduce the stress on these systems caused by human activities that weaken the health of the wetland and make it less resilient to change caused by climate change.  This means that we will need to manage our wetlands better.  We need to be mindful of how much water we abstract or divert from these wetlands (e.g. dams or afforestation), we need to ensure that wetlands are grazed and burnt appropriately.  Alien plants in and around wetlands need to be carefully controlled to limit their spread within the wetland.  Developments such as roads should be carefully placed to reduce the impact that these have within wetland.  Some wetlands, such as those which have been severely dried out by artificial drainage channels or threatened by erosion gullies, are in need of additional assistance such as constructing anti erosion measures.

Not all wetlands are equally vulnerable, and identifying those wetlands most at risk from climate- and other environmental change would help best focus resources where they are most needed.  Although more research is required, available data indicate that wetlands in the winter rainfall areas of the country and those on the western margins of South Africa stand out for immediate attention.

Wetlands are impacted upon by many factors operating across a range of scales from global to local, and it is often difficult to predict  the effect of different factors and how they interact to ultimately affect the services which wetlands deliver.  This emphasizes the need for adaptation, in the sense that there is an ongoing process of monitoring and evaluation and adjustment to account for the lessons learnt.  Ultimately, wetland users, government departments and NGOs need to collaborate and learn together in order to work towards more resilient wetland use in the face of a rapidly changing environment. It is for this reason that social learning is becoming increasingly recognized as a critical element of the work of NGO programmes such as the Mondi Wetlands Programme.

The complete version of this article including citations is available on request from info@wetland.org.za

Source: : Mondi Wetlands Programme / Wildlife & Environment Society of South Africa: www.wetland.org.za

The post What does climate change mean for our wetlands in South Africa? first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).

• wetland drainage and cropping
• timber production
• overgrazing
• overharvesting of plants
• poorly managed burning
• the building of dams
• mining and industrial pollution
• urbanisation

The post The wonder of wetlands first appeared on The Paper Story (PAMSA).