Eco Minuute 13:30

BULLETIN 5 June 1:30 pm

Good afternoon, here is your Eco Minute:

# The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management says teams are monitoring high-risk areas, and determining the need for humanitarian and engineering relief where impacts have been reported. There have been reports of flooding in Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Wallacedene, Macassar, Sir Lowry’s Pass Village and Nomzamo in Strand. Spokesperson Charlotte Powell says the South African Weather Service has also issued a warning for Level 2 damaging winds between Cape Point and Cape Agulhas today:

Up north, a climatologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, professor Francois Engelbrecht, says the biggest threat to Gauteng’s economy is a Day Zero drought. Climate models predict dire conditions that mostly include drier and warmer conditions threatening biodiversity, agriculture, water security and livelihoods. Although dams in the province remain full, the City of Johannesburg has struggled with infrastructure and supply challenges caused by mismanagement. Engelbrecht emphasises the urgency of preparing for unprecedented risks as global temperatures continue to rise.

# And the minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Ms Barbara Creecy, is calling on all South Africans to combine local actions and land restoration techniques in the fight against land degradation, desertification (desert-tification), and drought impacts, as the country commemorates World Environment Day. The department’s spokesperson, Peter Mbelengwa, says these include planting trees, rotating crops, using water retention techniques such as building retention ditches and cut-off drains, and applying organic manures and mineral fertilisers, among other methods:

Stay tuned for more news………….