The Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa: Western Cape Region objects strongly to the proposal for the R300 ring road. Below follow some of the reasons for this position.
- Cumulative and secondary impacts - Apart from the extensive footprint required by the road and its undeniably significant social and biophysical impacts immediately it would also lead to further impacts. Roads attract development and there would be pressure by other land owners to capitalise on the infrastructure provided. This in turn is likely to exacerbate pressure on resources, pollution outputs and habitat destruction. Other roads have already had significant negative impacts and future ones like the N1/N2 toll Rd proposals (not alluded to in the context of the R300) will add more. This road cannot be assessed in isolation.
- Public Participation - Relatively few people attended most of the Open House Meetings to discuss the road proposal. The National Environmental Management Act states that Environmental Management must place people and their needs at the forefront of its concern. And later that all people must have the opportunity to develop the understanding, skills and capacity necessary for achieving equitable and effective participation, and further on that participation by vulnerable and disadvantaged persons must be assured. A road of this length will affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people directly and indirectly - many in an adverse way. Current attendance records cannot be used to justify the notion of opportunity to participate effectively.
- Public Transport - We believe that increasing road infrastructure encourages the use of private rather than public transport. The latter meets many more of the requirements for sustainable development than the former and is likely to consume less energy and produce fewer pollutants. Upgrading existing road infrastructure and ensuring the rights and safety of cyclists and pedestrians should be getting priority attention in a city which boasts an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) approach and has sworn to combat ills like bad air quality. Any new transport infrastructure investment should be directed at an improvement of public transport which is far more likely to serve the equity principle of sustainable development than one which encourages private vehicle ownership.
- Desirability - As an unsolicited bid, this road has no legitimacy as something wanted by the greater public of Cape Town. Notions put forward by its few and interested proponents that the road would lead to economic benefits, growth etc must be countered by an insistence that the carrying capacity of the region for additional development has already been exceeded. More activity of the sort promoted by another road will greatly increase the amount of environmental and social stress.
- Biophysical impacts - Any additional threat to bird, mammal, insect, fish or plant species cannot be tolerated. Such serious inroads have been made into the biodiversity of the Cape Flats over a few centuries of development that large amounts of international funding are now being channelled at preserving the last patches of natural heritage in the region via the C.A.P.E project. Civic bodies and organizations have been fighting hard to preserve or restore local environments like the Parkwood wetland, Zandvlei and the False Bay Coastal Park. It would be highly irresponsible of any commercial group or provincial/local authority to sideline these efforts in pursuit of something that the majority of the public is either ignorant of or fiercely opposed to. WESSA wishes particularly to endorse the comments made by the Zandvlei Trust and by Charles Oertel regarding their objections to the proposed R300 Toll Rd.
Yours faithfully
Patrick Dowling
Environmentalist