THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFRICA

Municipal Systems Bill and related legislation

The South African Government needs to develop local authorities as the prime agents of developmental change and service delivery, particularly in rural areas of South Africa. To facilitate this, the Systems Bill recognizes the need for Integrated Development Plans highlights ways for the new municipalities to approach service delivery and empowers them to raise levies and rates to finance this. It also makes allowance for novel partnerships in service delivery and entrenches the "Batho Pele" principle.

There is no doubt that the functioning of local government will be radically altered and significant changes in landuse and rural community dynamics could result from this and subsequent financial legislation.

The Botanical Society’s interest lies in the opportunities this bill creates for Local Government conservation actions, rural conservation job creation and the encouragement of sound land-use practices. Currently, the largest threats to biodiversity rich land in South Africa (and particularly the Western Cape) are from invasive alien plants and bad landuse practices, mostly on commercial farms and local authority land. There are currently 16 million hectares under some form of private conservation management (compared to state run parks and reserves of just less than 6 million). Due to declining provincial subsidies, many municipalities are looking to deproclaim their nature reserves or to reuse them for more profitable developments, such as upmarket housing estates. At least 85% of the remaining Biodiversity in the unique Cape Floral Kingdom (and probably the rest of SA) is in private hands. Government noted in the White Paper on Biodiversity that unless we can find incentives to encourage landowners to conserve this, it is likely that we will lose many of our most threatened habitats, squander significant biodiversity and neglect constitutional commitments to a safe, healthy and conserved environment. It is also crucial to help fulfil our international obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity. We see the Systems Bill and the proposed rural rates as an important mechanism to help avoid this disaster.

Injudicious application of land taxes in various states resulted in significant environmental destruction, particularly to agriculturally rich landscapes for short-term gain. Two states instituted land taxes after careful deliberation over the possible environmental and social effects and have noted a positive spin-off in private conservation and sustainable land management (CSIRO report 1996 Reimbursing the future). Some local authorities (e.g. Johnstone Shire in Queensland) decided on rate rebates for crucial habitats of international conservation significance and have shown that this was the best and cheapest mechanism to meet its international biodiversity conservation commitments.

Research there has shown that local government is the key link to conserving biodiversity, and, far from being a drain on resources, can actually boost local economies.

In South Africa, the challenge is to link the sustainable land management to job creation to ensure permanence and meet other national priorities.

In several areas, the imposition of land taxes has caused significant environmental damage through increased subdivision of farms and properties, to pay for the increased rates. In some areas (e.g. The Dakotas) numerous job losses were noted when marginal rural enterprises were forced to close down when the local land taxes were raised above a critical limit.

These lessons have great relevance for SA. An unforeseen consequence of the reformed farm labour and tenure laws actually resulted in increasing job losses. We must be mindful to ensure that the new Municipal Systems and Finance Bills do not result in similar unforeseen outcomes.

1. Several rural enterprises and marginal farming operations are overburdened by the new rates and close down. Many rural and farms jobs are lost.
2. Struggling farmers are not motivated to clear alien vegetation, help in fire prevention, and maintain suitable stock densities. Catchment Management Agencies (government key water provision system) are significantly hampered. Our seriously degraded natural resources are stretched beyond recovery and the land rendered useless.
3. All levels of Government have to share a greater burden of rural resource provision, especially alien-free catchments and fire fighting, over and above providing for an increasing population of rural poor.
4. SA fails to meet its international obligations under various treaties and conventions, and loses a significant portion of its unique and precious natural heritage and the basis for its most potentially productive industry, Tourism.

1. District Municipalities could be encouraged to prepare for their IDPs a sectoral natural resource conservation plan highlighting all irreplaceable and threatened ecosystems and natural resources under their jurisdiction. All state conservation land and natural and cultural heritage sites should be exempted from the tax unless there are sound reasons why they should be included.
2. All communities or private landowners that have land identified through these plans could be assisted in maintaining its conservation worthy status. This could be achieved by preferential service delivery to those areas, provided the land in question is zoned accordingly, managed properly and audited regularly. These areas could also enjoy a full or partial rebate on their land taxes (rural rates) provided certain criteria were met, as they would be assisting the local authority in meeting its sectoral plan.
3. Training rural people in land and resource auditing, land rehabilitation plans, soil and water conservation could create a rural industry, along the lines of Working for Water. This could be co-financed by central government along with a portion of the rates from land taxes and private organizations such as conservancies^*.
4. Local Government could outsource many important environmental functions to local groups such as conservancies, water user associations or Fire protection associations.

If we recognise that in-situ conservation by local government is a crucial component of any National Sustainability Strategy or Biodiversity estate, and make provision for this in the Systems Bill and Related Financial Legislation, we will have achieved what many developed countries are still striving for. It does not need to cost us the earth, and we can create significant rural economies and community management structures. The principles we should aim for are:

1. Voluntary compliance and good land management
2. Species, environmental and resource protection
3. Eliminate ignorant actions resulting in biodiversity loss.
4. Greater efficiency from agricultural land

We should avoid at all costs:

1. Environmental degradation
2. Inequitable pressure on different landowners and farmers
3. Over-burdening sensitive sectors
4. Decreasing agricultural efficiency
5. "improvement" of wild lands for dubious reasons
6. Creating perverse economies leading to habitat loss

We trust that you will keep this in mind when debating the Municipal Systems Bill and thank you for the opportunity to make this submission.

Mark Botha- Incentives Project Co-ordinator