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Zandvlei Trust Peninsula Paddle Expedition on 23rd May 2010. Introduction. Transformations in the watershed: environmental change and the people of the Cape. In partnership with Educo Africa, Gravity Adventures, University of Cape Town, City of Cape Town, Environmental Monitoring Group, National Botanical Institute, and others. Never before has anyone paddled across the Cape Peninsula, from Sunrise Beach, on the Indian Ocean to Milnerton Beach, on the Atlantic. The Peninsula Paddle of 2010 will navigate the canals and rivers of the Cape Peninsula to draw attention to the need for transformation in our waterways: environmentally, socially and politically. Environmental action is urgently needed in both human and non-human communities to bring canals and rivers back into the centre of city life. They are the vital arteries that can help make Cape Town a healthy city. Such transformation requires individuals, communities, industry and politicians to take on the rivers – as an urgent responsibility. Taking place on 23 May 2010, the Peninsula Paddle team will navigate upstream, following the canalised rivers of the Cape Flats that have their mouth in False Bay. Reaching the apex of the watershed, the team will then paddle downstream, following the Black River as it exits into the Atlantic Ocean. The expedition will follow waterways that flow through the most affected watersheds: those that have been canalised, their water quality compromised, and whose communities are most affected by poverty and the effects of a rising water table. The Peninsula Paddle aims to raise awareness of four major social and environmental concerns that affect the Cape Peninsula. Each of these concerns has global significance as environmental and economic crises deepen. These twin forces have their most dramatic expression in poor communities living in environmentally compromised areas, magnifying inequality in an historically divided city. We will address four concerns with direct action that will catalyse the transformation of waterways in our city: 1. Urban water quality: urban rivers contend with a number of degrading impacts. The combination of canalised river beds, hardened urban surfaces, industrial effluent, and storm-dependent sewage flows place huge pressure on the rivers of the Western Cape. While most potable water in Cape Town is supplied by expensive storage schemes in the mountains to the north of the city, the rivers continue to play a vital function in the human and natural communities that comprise the Cape Floral Kingdom and the urban environment of the city of Cape Town. 2. Communities on the Cape Flats live on poor sandy soil with a high water table. The Cape Flats Aquifer that underlies most of the poorest communities in the north east of the city is subject to rising sea levels, more frequent and more extreme storm events, and a growing population of the informal urban poor. The twin effects that environmental change have on this geomorphological situation - less total rainfall annually and more frequent and more severe storm events in winter - mean that the devastating floods that displace thousands of people annually in Cape Town will have an increasingly severe impact on these communities. Action: Environmental youth clubs in affected areas will participate in a number of activities (clean-up, leadership development, re-cycling etc) that will support the appeal to be made to city officials and business leaders to create healthier urban environments around rivers. Media coverage of the event that will lend strength to the appeal includes newspaper, television, radio and internet. 3. Rising sea level affects not only the poorest people of Cape Town on the sandy Cape Flats
- it encroaches on all areas of the peninsula. As sea levels rise, low-lying areas, water-ways, aquifers, sewage works, and all human and natural systems affected by the hydrology of the Western Cape’s aquatic environment will be placed under pressure. Woodbridge Island, in Milnerton, is the most explicit demonstration of the combined effects of sea level rise, the canalisation of rivers, the undermining of the Cape peninsula’s sand transport system, and the encroachment of urban development on coastal ecosystems. 4. The urban interface with water in Cape Town is highly differentiated along lines of class and race
- an historical legacy not only of the grand social engineering that so deeply structures the experience of the urban environment for many people, but also of architectural and landscaping norms that have shaped the public articulation of water in the city. Rivers and coasts are beautiful public spaces for the wealthy in the city
- Houtbay, Noordhoek, Camps Bay, Table View - and are enjoyed as places to gather in leisure and worship. Alternatively, rivers and coasts are dangerous and toxic for the poor
- Khayelitsha, Hanover Park, Rugby, Salt River. Whether they are used as waste dumps by poor communities, for rape and assault by the violent, or convenient effluent disposal by industry, they are a product of the social and political systems that shape the whole city. Background. The Peninsula Paddle will involve a small team of intrepid social activists and outdoor adventurers from diverse backgrounds as they paddle the fresh waterways that join the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. They will connect with community organisations at as many points as possible, highlighting the social and environmental challenges that confront the interface between human and aquatic communities. At key points in each waterway, a series of activities will be undertaken:
Who is involved?
After the peninsula paddle. Educo Africa is a key Peninsula Paddle partner in ensuring that transformation continues. As a non-profit organisation, they have been running out-door environmental and experiential leadership training for youth and NGOs around South Africa since 1994. The expedition seeks to raise funds for eight youth environmental leadership programmes that will be run in partnership with Yabonga, Mamelani, Positive Muslims, James House, Zanempilo Trust, Western Cape Street Children Forum, RAPCAN, Western Cape Network for Community Peace and Development, in the Partners for Possibility school-based, community-building programme. Each of the ninety six youth will participate in a transformational programme that seeks to develop their inter- and intra-personal leadership skills using environmental action as the key tool for transformation. The programme will run from June 2010 to March 2011 with youth from eight communities in Cape Town. Each seven day leadership course will be based at Educo Africa’s Grootwinterhoek Wilderness Outdoor Leadership School outside Cape Town. It will be followed up by a two day environmental workshop held with participating communities to look at practical ways that youth, their family and community can positively transform their local environments, with a particular focus on healthy rivers. Sponsorship is being sought from key industries, companies and organisations for three aspects of the Peninsula Paddle:
Key logistical concerns:
Other organisations and businesses being approached:
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