Orthosuchus stormbergi was an early ancestor of today’s crocodiles, according to the GENUS: DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences, and offers unique insight into their evolution.  

Unlike its modern relatives, known for their large size, this crocodile  was distinctive for its slow growth and being diminutive. 

Orthosuchus “paints a fascinating picture of ancient ecosystems and crocodilian history”, the study said.

The team’s research, published in The Journal of Anatomy, was led by PhD student Bailey Weiss from the Evolutionary Studies Institute and School of Geosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.  

Orthosuchus grew relatively slowly, Weiss said. 

“This research also confirms that it was a small-bodied adult — the smallest known archosaur [the group that contains birds and crocodiles] from the Early Jurassic in South Africa, about 200 million years ago. It took three to four years to reach maximum body size and the specimens we examined were eight and nine years old.”

To explore the inner workings of Orthosuchus’s bones, the scientists used synchrotron radiation microcomputed tomography, a powerful imaging technique that “acts like a supercharged CT scan”. 

This allowed them to examine the bone’s microscopic structures in extraordinary detail without damaging the rare fossils.

The experiment was conducted at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble in France. 

“This institution produces some of the most powerful X-rays in the world, allowing for high-quality imaging at high resolutions,” Weiss said. 

“The method allowed us to study the inner bone structure without destroying the specimen, which is the classical osteo-histological method.” 

South Africa is a scientific associate of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and the partnership enables local researchers and students to use this world-class technology at no cost to their institutions. 

“Going through international security with priceless national heritage in a very conspicuous briefcase was a little nerve-wracking,” Weiss said. “However, seeing the specimen scanned on the airport security X-ray machine was exciting.”

On why it matters that Orthosuchus grew slowly, Weiss added: “Modern crocodiles are slow-growing reptiles, however, their ancestors were fast-growing. 

“It’s important to understand why, how and when this transition from fast to slow growth occurred. This helps us learn what makes modern crocodiles the apex predators they are today and how they survived multiple mass extinctions.”

The team’s findings suggest that the evolutionary shift to slow growth may have begun earlier than previously thought, offering clues about how these ancient reptiles adapted to changing environments.

The scans show Orthosuchus’s bones were compact and thick-walled, traits typically seen in aquatic animals. But it lacked other features common to water-dwelling creatures, such as a flattened tail. 

This suggests Orthosuchus might have had a semi-aquatic lifestyle, navigating between land and water.

Intriguingly, some of its bones bore characteristics often found in digging animals. 

Today’s crocodiles dig burrows to escape extreme temperatures and it is possible that Orthosuchus did the same. However, without specialised adaptations, such as thick claws, the researchers stopped short of labelling it a true digger.

Weiss wants to continue investigating the growth patterns of early crocodilians. “This research will help us understand if growth strategies allowed specific groups of animals to survive mass extinctions, such as the End-Triassic Extinction.”

“If we neglect what happened in the past, then it will be difficult for us to predict the future,” he said. 

“It’s important to go back in time and see how we ended up where we are because you can only connect the dots by looking back.”

Matlhaga is the lead author of research that has unveiled a new species of biarmosuchian therapsid, Impumlophantsi boonstrai. The discovery marks a significant development in palaeontology from the South African Karoo Basin. 

This middle Permian species, dating back about 260 million years, adds a new piece to the evolutionary puzzle of therapsids, the long extinct group of vertebrates that eventually gave rise to modern mammals and were “mammal-like reptiles”.

The new description of the 100mm-long skull was published in the journal Palaeontologia africana by Matlhaga; his supervisor and co-author Julien Benoit and Bruce Rubidge, a distinguished professor at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University. 

The authors said that their findings filled a gap in the understanding of the early evolutionary history of biarmosuchians, “one of the most basal branches of the therapsid lineage”.

“This research is important because biarmosuchians are the most basal therapsids and are represented by relatively few specimens,” said Matlhaga. 

“Impumlophantsi boonstrai is of importance as very few biarmosuchian fossils are known from the middle Permian Tapinocephalus Assemblage Zone deposits of the Karoo Basin.”

The newly described species helps illuminate a lesser-understood chapter in this group’s evolution. 

This zone is part of the fossil-rich Beaufort Group and is crucial for understanding a period of evolutionary change among early therapsids.

The researchers said that burnetiamorphs, the sub-group of biarmosuchians to which Impumlophantsi belongs, are notable for their distinctive and “often bizarre” cranial ornamentation. 

Many species sported ridges, knobs and other bony structures that probably played a role in species recognition or social signalling. But Impumlophantsi stands apart with a more subdued nasal crest, which earned it its name — “impumlophantsi” means “low nose” in isiXhosa.

The species was named in honour of Lieuwe D Boonstra, a pioneering South African palaeontologist who initially discovered the specimen but “did not appreciate its significance”. 

What makes Impumlophantsi particularly important is its place in time. The fossil skull comes from the middle Permian, a period in which burnetiamorph fossils are relatively scarce. Before this discovery, most known burnetiamorph fossils came from the late Permian, leaving a gap in the record. 

Impumlophantsi helps fill that gap: “This specimen indicates that mid-Permian biarmosuchian diversity has been underestimated and helps to fill in a major ghost lineage in the evolution of this group,” Matlhaga noted. 

“The presence of such a basal species in the middle Permian suggests that the diversification of biarmosuchians began earlier than previously documented, reshaping our understanding of their evolutionary timeline.”

While burnetiamorphs are primarily known to be from the Karoo, their evolutionary history extends across much of what was once the supercontinent Pangaea. 

The researchers said this finding raised the possibility that there are undiscovered fossils in other regions of Pangaea, particularly in places where middle Permian rocks remain under-explored. 

It also underscores the importance of revisiting historical fossil collections, because Impumlophantsi was found decades ago but was only recently identified as a new species through Matlhaga’s modern preparation and analytical techniques, which the 25-year-old ascribed to his curiosity and dedication.

The specimen of Impumlophantsi was described in the Sixties but misclassified as a gorgonopsian. Only through Matlhaga’s re-examination with updated methodologies and technology was its true nature as a burnetiamorph revealed.

“These animals were rare and they are still even rare in the fossil record,” he said. “Even when you go into the field, you hardly find them — around the world, they are not that abundant.”

There is still much to unravel, Matlhaga added. “Expanding our knowledge of biarmosuchians during the middle Permian opens new avenues of research into how these creatures responded to the environmental pressures of the time, including climate fluctuations and competition with other emerging species. 

“We would like to discover more biarmosuchians and basal therapsids in future fieldwork as that will give us an insight about the diversity of these distant ancestors of mammals,” he said.

This illegal trade, which occurs through online platforms such as social media, has severely affected biodiversity in the Succulent Karoo Biome, according to a new report by Traffic — an NGO working to ensure that trade in wild species is legal and sustainable. 

“It is thought that single episodes of illegal harvesting have resulted in whole species extinctions,” said the report, which delves into the complexities of the illicit succulent trade. 

“Their loss degrades ecosystems, deprives South Africa of unique natural resources and criminalises those drawn into illegal harvesting for financial gain.”

The rampant illegal trade of the region’s endangered succulent plants is pushing some of the world’s rarest botanical treasures toward extinction. These iconic plants, some of which have survived for thousands of years in harsh desert climates, are now under threat from the surging global demand for exotic houseplants.

The shadowy trade has boomed since the Covid-19 pandemic, with the rise of social media and online marketplaces further worsening the crisis by enabling traffickers to target plant enthusiasts in the UK, Europe, Asia, and the US. 

In one high-profile case, a South Korean, Byungsu Kim, dubbed the “world’s most notorious succulent thief”, was arrested in Cape Town with 60 000 rare Conophytum succulents, some of which were centuries old.

“These plants are part of the soul and heritage of South Africa,” said Dominique Prinsloo, Traffic’s project manager in South Africa. 

“We urgently need a better understanding of succulent plant crime, enhanced tools for detection and enforcement and new online trading policies to combat this crime and protect these plants for the people and ecosystems that rely on them.”

Thriving trade

In 1998, Traffic published a study reporting that South Africa had a thriving international trade in succulent plants, based largely on artificially propagated plants produced by the country’s well-established nursery community, with exports forming the bulk of this trade. 

That study noted that South Africa became known as an exporter of illegal wild-collected succulents during the Seventies when commercial collectors documented the destruction of specific Lithops populations.

“It was a concern at the time of the study’s publication that some plants offered for export as ‘artificially propagated’ were wild-collected, and this concern is still relevant today,” the report said.

About 3 500 species and infraspecific taxa (for example, subspecies, variety, cultivar or form) of succulent plants occur throughout South Africa and Namibia. 

These plants reach their greatest abundance and diversity in the semiarid, winter-rainfall climate of the southern and western parts of South Africa, where they are often the dominant life form. 

“Given that many of these succulent species are endemic to South Africa and Namibia and occur in small populations, illegal harvesting (picking indigenous/protected/specially protected flora that is listed in the provincial and national legislation without a permit) is a severe threat to the survival of these plants in the wild,” the report said.

In South Africa, the illegal harvesting of succulent flora is “now rife” in both private reserves and in state-protected areas in the Succulent Karoo Biome, which spans Namaqualand, the Hantam, Tanqua  and Roggeveld regions as well as the Little Karoo in the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape. 

About 16% (1 589 species) of the world’s estimated 10 000 succulent species occur in the Succulent Karoo Biome. 

Illegal supply chain

Interviewees described the demographics of roleplayers in the illegal succulent supply chain as illicit harvesters, intermediaries, exporters, organisers, syndicate leaders and financiers. 

“The interviewees believed that consumers range from naive online purchasers who lack awareness of the consequences of their purchasing behaviours to specialist collectors who knowingly seek rare, novel or ‘authentic’ wild specimens.” 

Most of the demand is believed to be coming from the US, Europe and Asia. However, some interviewees believe that there are consumers within South Africa, “but to a far lesser extent”. 

Dwarf succulents were mentioned most often as being traded illegally. 

“It was suggested that caudex plants, variegated/crested species, specific bulb species and other ornamental plants have become more popular in recent years.”

On how the prices of the plants are determined, nursery owners said that it was based on numerous factors, including size, age, cultivar, variety, special mutations, colour morphs, scarcity and market prices. 

For the illegal trade, most illegally harvested succulents are sourced from outside protected areas in the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Northern Cape and Namibia and Madagascar. 

Mozambique, Tanzania and Malawi have been implicated as transit countries in the illegal trade from South Africa and Namibia. 

Illegally harvested succulents are believed to be destined for Asia, specifically China, South Korea and Japan, as well as Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Czechia, Hungary, the UK, the US and Saudi Arabia. 

For legal trade, based on trade data between 1995 and 2021 from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), most commodities reported by number were wild-sourced (55%) or artificially propagated (44%). 

Three importers — Belgium, Germany, and the US — accounted for more than 85% of all legal direct imports of live specimens from listed succulents from South Africa between 1995 and 2021.

“Rare succulents are seen as a status symbol. Additionally, consumers living in small apartment buildings with limited space demand portable, durable, long-lived, low-maintenance ‘natural elements’ to add beauty to their apartments.”

Largely opportunistic

Financial reasons were cited as the biggest motivator for taking part in the illegal succulent trade. Many succulents are “easily accessible”, while collection trips can occur quickly and are very profitable. 

Some interviewees viewed illegal succulent harvesting among locals in South Africa as largely opportunistic because of economic circumstances, the report said. 

“Based on the information gathered from interviewees, it is evident that the modus operandi of illegal harvesting is very systematic. Illegal harvesters had prior knowledge of the area and targeted specific sites. Coastal roads are being used more often, as opposed to major routes.”

Plants were transported to designated depots or warehouses for sorting, organising, packing and exporting. 

“The poached succulents are neatly wrapped in cotton or toilet/tissue paper for protection and packed into boxes. In the past, plants were concealed as or within toys, dried fruit, ornaments or household goods.” 

The packaged plants are exported via a postal service or private courier companies. Payments across the value chain are made using cash, electronic bank transfers, gift vouchers or drugs. 

“Interviewees mentioned the convergence between the illegal trade in succulents and other commodities, including abalone, rhino horn, ivory and reptiles.” 

Drought, Covid-19

While the demand for South African succulent plants has existed since the Nineties, the interviewees mentioned two key events or periods that might have increased demand. 

“The 2015-2016 El Niño-induced drought increased domestic demand for succulents as these plants require minimal water for domestic gardens. 

“The Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 saw a major shift in the role of players involved in the succulent trade,” the report said.

Before the pandemic, people from China, South Korea, Japan and the Czech Republic would visit South Africa to remove plants and smuggle them back to their countries. 

“During the pandemic, it has been suggested that foreign nationals opted to recruit locals to poach succulents on their behalf due to lockdown restrictions and have continued to do it this way ever since,” the report said, noting that the number of succulent seizures in South Africa drastically increased in the years following the pandemic.

Recommendations

The past five years have seen significant developments in protection mechanisms for the country’s succulent flora through the implementation of provincial and national legislation; precedents set by court cases; the development and implementation of the National Response Strategy and Action Plan to Address the Illegal Trade in South African Succulent Flora and international treaties.

This includes the listing of 17 species and the entire Conophytum genus on Cites Appendix III. This is a list of species included at the request of a party that already regulates trade in the species and that needs the cooperation of other countries to prevent unsustainable or illegal exploitation.

However, several challenges hamper enforcement efforts to combat succulent plant trafficking and prevent a legal, sustainable trade in these plants from which South Africans could benefit, Traffic’s research found.

Some enforcement agencies lack awareness of the dynamics and severity of the illegal succulent trade stemming from South Africa and other African countries such as Namibia and Madagascar.

Research into illegal succulent trade dynamics, especially the consequences, such as heritage loss, habitat destruction and the irreplaceable nature of succulents, should be disseminated through information-sharing sessions or awareness interventions with these officials. 

The influx of confiscated plants is unmanageable, the report said. 

“The sheer volume of plants that require potting and care is resource-intensive, and most agencies do not have the capacity and funds to care for these plants in the short and long term,” it said.

The government needs to allocate a budget to support the implementation of the national strategy, including the care of confiscated plants. 

The public is generally unaware of the illegal trade in succulent plants and campaigns should be run to raise awareness of the ecological consequences of these biodiversity crimes, especially for local communities and young people. 

Many local nurseries cannot legally trade in indigenous flora. Interviewees explained the difficulties in obtaining permits. 

“To create livelihood opportunities and support local businesses, many challenges must be addressed regarding acquiring permits to sell and export protected and specially protected flora,” the authors said.

The dam is at 24.9% capacity, compared with 66.8% during the same period last year, according to the department of water and sanitation’s provincial state of dams report issued on 16 December.

The levels of dams in the Vaal catchment are much lower than is usual in the middle of December, according to water governance adviser Carin Bosman.

“Our rainy season started very late. Our first rain was only on 14 October [and] then it wasn’t a lot of rain, and up to this week Monday and Tuesday, we only had a couple of showers. We didn’t get any proper rain yet; it’s a dry year.”

Bosman said the low inflows into the Vaal Dam as a result of closing the LHWP’s tunnel for planned maintenance work has obviously had an effect on dam levels. But she pointed out that it has to follow a specific maintenance programme: a one-day quick check once a month, a week-long check once a year and then a closure for a month every five years. Then there is a tunnel closure for three months every 10 years and for six months every 20 years. 

“This is planned maintenance that is essential. If you don’t maintain the channel for the water project, it all fails and you have nothing. You have to do maintenance. We’re halfway through the maintenance planned to end in March, before the dry season, so that during the dry season, it will be online again,” Bosman said.

Another reason for low water levels is that municipalities are not reducing their water consumption. 

The department’s water level scorecard recording average consumption from the Vaal Dam by municipalities shows that the City of Johannesburg had “quite a jump in consumption” mostly caused by leaking infrastructure and poor maintenance. 

“Tshwane and Emfuleni do not show similar increases,” said Bosman.

Consumption of water from the Vaal Dam does not necessarily mean the water reaches the consumers, she said, pointing out that if maintenance is not undertaken, the increased leakages mean abstraction from the dam increases. 

“If you have leaks, then you have to keep pumping more and that has had an impact on the availability of water in the Vaal. 

“Drought, heatwaves, which increase evaporation, lack of maintenance by the municipalities — which leads to increased abstraction from the Vaal Dam — all of those factors contributed to the lower levels that we see now.”

 Bosman referred to a graph of the Integrated Vaal River System ­— which consists of 14 dams feeding Mpumalanga, Gauteng, the Free State and Northern Cape ­— which showed that the system’s surface water storage stood at 72.2% on 25  November. 

“We are on the upper edge of the ‘low supplies’ line. The last time we were at the same level was in July/August 2020 — the end of the dry season for that year,” she said. 

“We have not seen the regular increases that are associated with the start of the rainy season in November/December, and there is a small gap before we hit the danger zone red peak at the end of January.” 

Bosman said this meant everything possible had to be done to use water sparingly to have enough water until March next year. 

“We are relying on good rains now to March to keep the levels to such a level that we’re okay.”

There is a backup plan: the Sterkfontein Dam, the level of which was 97.6% this week.

“The operational plan is when the Vaal Dam reaches 18%, then we release water from Sterkfontein. Sterkfontein contains about the same volume as the Vaal Dam; it’s a big dam, but it’s deeper and it’s got a smaller surface area, which means less evaporation. And it is almost full,” said Bosman. 

“I don’t think people should panic because we do have this backup system.”

 But there is uncertainty about whether there will be good rains from January to March, which means that people should remain vigilant and apply water-saving techniques.

“Every drop counts, save every drop that you can,” Bosman said.

This includes only flushing the toilet when it is really necessary; ensuring there are no leaky taps; taking five-minute showers; putting a bucket in the shower to collect water with which to flush the toilet; turning off irrigation sprinkler systems and only watering essential garden plants with a hand-held hose between 6pm and 6am because the water will evaporate at other times.

Further water-saving measures include not washing pets or vehicles with a running tap and instead using a bucket; not cleaning driveways and other hard surfaces with a hosepipe and not filling swimming pools, she said.

Residents should also put pressure on municipalities to fix leaks wherever they are spotted.

“Ask your municipality to set up a leak hotline so that leaks can be fixed as soon as they are identified. The best thing we can do is to keep the pressure on the municipalities, keep holding their feet to the fire so that they can do what they’re supposed to do,” Bosman said.

“In the medium to long term, we have to ensure that we hold municipalities accountable for their infrastructure maintenance and management, and we have to start considering alternatives such as non-waterborne sanitation.”

The department’s spokesperson Wisane Mavasa said the level of the Vaal Dam has been decreasing by 1.5% to 2% weekly. 

She said this is primarily caused by low inflows to the dam because of low rainfall in the Vaal catchment area and elevated temperatures, which have led to increased evaporation losses. 

The surface area of the Vaal Dam is wide and shallow and “therefore susceptible to high evaporation losses”, Mavasa said. 

Another cause for the drop in the water level is the low inflow from the LHWP tunnel closure. The tunnel usually transfers 780 million cubic metres of water a year into the Integrated Vaal River System, but there was a shortfall of 80 million cubic metres this year because of the shutdown.

Mavasa said the primary objective for the augmentation of the Vaal Dam is to ensure that it does not go below the minimum operating level of 18% of full supply capacity, Mavasa said. 

“This is to ensure that the water requirements of water users that depend on the Vaal Dam are met as stipulated in the operating rules,” she said.

Low water levels can cause erosion of the exposed areas of the dam that were once filled with water, she added. As a result, reduced dam levels can diminish the variety of habitats for a range of animals and plants.

“Furthermore, lower dam levels can prevent fish from migrating to spawn and reproduce, which can affect fish populations and other species in the food chain,” Mavasa said.

The department has not imposed restrictions on water use from a water resources perspective so the effect will be minimal regarding water supply for domestic, industrial and agricultural use. 

“All users abstracting water from the dam continue to do so within their authorised allocation. [But] our water availability resilience is affected in the medium term when we start using our strategic reserves. 

“To determine the extent of the use of these reserves requires a detailed economic impact assessment,” said Mavasa.

Kathy Manten, the owner of Manten Marina in Deneysville in the Free State, said the harbour on the Vaal Dam is dry. 

“We had beautiful rains this week, which were really good up at Grootdraai Dam, which is in the catchment area, so hopefully we’ll be getting water coming through from the system,” she said.

“With the Katse Dam tunnel closed from the beginning of October to the end of March, we’re not getting any water from that system, and we get the bulk of our water from there,” Manten said. 

“We’re really dependent on rain and, up until now, we’ve had very little rain in the catchment areas. Hopefully this is the turning point — you never know though.”

Relatives have expressed frustration with the lack of action from police and the department of mineral and petroleum resources, saying they have not shown “firm commitment” to rescue efforts.

The families and other locals have tried to locate and rescue the miners, but have faced numerous difficulties in the past three weeks, including rising water levels in the shaft. 

Earlier this month, the Mail & Guardian reported that a large group were trapped in the abandoned shaft in Luipaardsvlei. 

Witnesses reported hearing tapping and knocking sounds from the 10 miners, indicating that they may still be alive.

“I understand that there were 17 who went underground and then from the 17, 10 tried to dig themselves out and went to another tunnel to find an exit, but somehow they can’t get back,” a relative of one of the trapped men, who declined to be named, said on Monday.

“They are still trying to dig their way out.”

From the seven who remained, two swam through the flooded shaft and resurfaced early last week. 

“Four of them drowned and the one who remained was waiting for the water level to go down. Then, late last week, he came out and then he gave the information that there are 10 other guys and they are still stuck.” 

On Sunday, Gauteng police said they had been called to a scene where five decomposed bodies “that seem to be of zama zamas” were recovered at the old abandoned mine, situated at the corner of the N14 and R28 in Krugersdorp/Kagiso.

The police said they were notified by a member of the public who noticed the bodies as he was walking past.

“The scene where these bodies were recovered is the boundary of Krugersdorp and Kagiso precinct area. It appears that the bodies were taken out from underground and dumped at the scene to be discovered,” the statement said, adding that two inquest cases would be registered in Kagiso for two bodies and Krugersdorp for three bodies.

The relative said three of those bodies were of four of the trapped illegal artisanal miners, who had drowned underground and whose bodies were retrieved by other illegal miners last week. A fourth body is missing.

“Not far from that shaft, there is a dumping site, two other guys went inside a tunnel there and rocks and rubble fell down on them and they died instantly,” the relative said.

A resident, who requested anonymity, said relatives did not want the bodies of the drowned men to be dropped off at the roadside because they would “not be connected” to the other men that needed to be rescued. 

“They drowned in that shaft and we need to remind everyone that there are still men alive down there. How can we get more help if there is no proof that people lost their lives down there.

The relative said he had gone into the shaft last week as the water level subsided. “These guys who are used to underground, they wanted to check the water level. We saw some dead bodies inside the water and then they said they would report it [to the authorities].

“We were crawling, we were walking inside water, it was very tough and it took me almost three hours going inside and coming back. Now the water level has risen again. 

He said the police were “just arresting people, instead of helping us”.

He said his nephew is probably among the group of 10 men who remain trapped. “He’s still stuck on the other side, because I understand that they were trying to dig to find another exit to go up, but that guy who came out on Thursday, he was saying he last heard their hammer three days back, which means by [last] Monday they were still alive.

“We are stuck as a family, there’s nothing we can do. For three weeks nothing has been done. If there is something that can be done, maybe we can get them back … if that guy came out on Thursday, then it might be possible, they are still alive.”

The resident added: “We’ve now got three people who know exactly where these [10] guys are. They feel that if the water level drops again, they could dig them out. These guys have been tapping and knocking with a hammer or a rock to indicate that they are alive.

“Now, I’m sitting with the knowledge that there are people down there and to the world, there is nothing happening there.”

The day in early September when Coert Steynberg became severely ill after accidentally ingesting water from the sewage-polluted Hennops River had started out like any other.

He enjoyed his usual full breakfast that his wife, Ria, had cooked. The couple danced a little in their farm home in the scenic Hennops River Valley, as they did most mornings. They shared a few laughs.

Then Coert — who, at 76, was still active and in good health — drove with one of his employees to a friend’s farm to fill bottles with water from the nearby Hennops River, about a kilometre away, to flush their toilets.

Their water troubles had begun in August when their borehole ran dry during a heatwave. For drinking water, Coert filled bottles of clean water from a neighbour’s borehole. 

“He didn’t want to waste their clean water so he and one of our workers filled up several bottles full of water from the Hennops River for the toilets so that we don’t waste the good borehole water in this severe drought,” Ria said. 

They also ordered water every five days from Rand Water and from another water supply company, forking out R1 800 for 10 000 litres each time. This was used to fill several of the farm’s water tanks for their tenants and their livestock and to irrigate the fruits and vegetables Coert grew.

The Steynberg family had lived and farmed in the Hennops River Valley, a provincial nature reserve, for many generations. 

Coera, the name Coert was called by his community, had lived in the area all his life, mainly growing vegetables next to the river.

 “On that day [when they both fell ill], I wanted to make us some tea,” said Ria, who broke into tears as she recalled the sequence of events that led to her husband’s untimely death. 

“I asked Coert to please pick up one of the bottles, which are very heavy, so that I can make us some tea, which he did right away. He poured it into the kettle and I boiled it. 

“And when I tasted the tea, I said to him, ‘But it smells bad.’ I just took one sip. It didn’t taste good. I asked him if there is something wrong with the [neighbours’] borehole water but he said that the borehole has fresh water and it’s very good. He said that it is okay to drink, because he thought it was the water from the borehole.” 

Coert took one sip and then another. Ria saw him grimace. 

“He looked into the cup and he said: ‘Ja, there’s something wrong with it,’ and he picked up the bottle from which he poured the water into the kettle. I said that there’s something black at the bottom of the bottle and he looked at it, and as he poured it out into the sink, he said, ‘There’s something wrong with the water.’”

The couple determined that somehow one of the bottles filled with the polluted river water to flush their toilets was accidentally switched. Unwittingly, Ria had used this contaminated water to make them tea. 

“I got sick and Coert got sick,” she said. “My stomach started running as well as Coert’s. 

“We had two bottles of water for the toilet in our bathroom downstairs and we could not keep up with the water for the toilets as his stomach was running completely, as was mine. It just kept on running for more than a week; it was terrible.”

Coert had taken only two sips of the tea; Ria a single sip. 

“You can’t imagine the whole outcome of that,” she said. 

“That shows you the terrible condition of that water [in the Hennops River].”

After a week of severe stomach problems, Coert spent a weekend in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, with his daughter and her husband. 

Ria, who was also still sick, had travelled to Kleinmond in the Western Cape for her son’s birthday. 

“During the night [in Kleinmond] — and it’s sad and bad to say it as I’m a very proud kind of person, like Coert was — I woke up and found that my stomach just flooded onto all the bedding.

“It was terrible, it was just pouring from my body.”

But, in the few days that she was there, her son medicated her and gradually, she started to feel better. 

But Coert remained severely ill, so his daughter took him to the Groenkloof Hospital in Pretoria when he returned from Middelburg. 

He was isolated in a ward and put on an intravenous drip and released after three days. 

Ria said: “While I was in Cape Town, I had this call from one of our sons. ‘Ma, I think you must rather come home, Dad is not feeling so well.’”

She flew home immediately, and fetched Coert, who was “so happy” to be discharged from the hospital. They returned to the farm. 

“He was well for a day after being on the drip but his stomach was not cured. It started all over again. And when we got home, for another week or two his stomach carried on running.

“It was so terrible. We had no water, only the bottles that we had to fill up,” said Ria. “I had a couple of full bottles for the kitchen just to make us some food for the stuff that we could keep inside us.”

But then Ria soon fell ill again. 

“My stomach started running again in the 10 days I looked after Coert at the farm after he was discharged from Groenkloof. I lost 15kg during this whole ordeal.”

Ria, who described herself as a “very young” 72-year-old, had medicine to stop the watery diarrhoea but it served only as a temporary relief for them both. They also took medicine to counter dehydration.

Coert could only eat a fresh beef broth that Ria cooked for him. 

“Our bedroom was on the top storey and we have our bathroom there and he would go to the toilet during the night, up to five times, it was just pouring out of his body. 

“As he walked to the bed, I had to wash the floors with that water.

Ria said she could not clean his clothes because the washing machine could not work without water. All that she could do was to stuff all of his soiled clothes into plastic bags. 

And because there was no water to properly bathe or shower, Ria could only give them both “bird baths” after heating a little water in the kettle or on the gas stove. 

On 23 September, their children intervened and Coert was admitted to the Netcare Unitas Hospital in Pretoria early the following day.

After inserting a catheter, doctors were stunned to see that Coert’s urine was black. He was immediately transferred to the multi-intensive care unit, where he was kept in a ward separately from the other patients. 

“It took the doctors a couple of days with Ampath [the private pathology laboratory] to decide whether it was a bacterial infection or a virus,” said Ria. 

Coert was eventually diagnosed with clostridium difficile infection (CDI), a virulent toxin-producing bacterial infection that is highly infectious. His organs were failing and he was put on a dialysis machine to try to help his kidneys. 

Ria recalled how she would sit at Coert’s bedside showing him photographs of the young peaches, pomegranates and the crystal grapes that he had grown for them on their farm.

“I said to him, ‘Look, you are going to come back to the farm this year and you are going to enjoy all the fruit of your hard work.’ He just smiled.”

His condition took a turn for the worse after a gastroscopy was performed to treat swelling in his stomach on 4 October. 

“My husband only managed to say to me, ‘I want to speak to you about us.’ I said to him: ‘My dear, what is it you mean to tell me?’ 

“He kept quiet but just kept looking at my face with his pure blue eyes. I said to him, ‘Why are you looking at me in such a strange way?’” 

Those were the last words that they would say to one another. 

“He turned his head around and he died. It was so sad. I never realised that Coert was dying,” said Ria. 

“I still cannot take this inside me and it’s all due to that filthy stupid water in the Hennops. All that water is so polluted and my husband died of that polluted waterr that people are using as a toilet. I will tell you that and I will stick to that.”

Coert was buried in the large family graveyard on the farm. 

“My husband should have been here with me, because he was a completely healthy person,” Ria said. “He was 76 but he was so strong and energetic.”

The couple walked daily, danced often and were planning a sea cruise with friends. 

“We still climbed that mountain [in the Hennops River Valley] — part of the mountain belonged to him and he regularly checked the fences and the wire — and also just for the sheer pleasure of having a wonderful view from there and checking for the wild kudus.”

As a qualified builder, Coert had also built many houses for people living along the Hennops River. 

“He would crunch the biscuits for the tarts I made and cut up vegetables for me when I was cooking. We did everything together. We never even went to town without each other,” said Ria. 

“He was my best friend. I’m not the Lord, but I know it was not his time to go. He was not sick, there was nothing on this Earth wrong with my husband.” 

Water activist Willem Snyman said the tragedy of the Hennops River — which is one of the few and largest waterways in Gauteng and which crosses Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni — is reflected in the “death of Coert Steynberg, going from a river that is supporting so much life to a river of death”.

“It’s ironic that Coert was farming vegetables on the river for so long, getting that life out of it and the water was actually the cause of his death.”

Snyman runs the Fountain River Environmental Sanctuary Hennops (Fresh), a nonprofit organisation working to restore the Hennops ecosystem. 

“It’s crazy that in the last 10 years, the river has gone from such a vast life-giving force to something that is taking lives now. And I think Coert’s death is one of the few that we do know about.”

He wonders if more people have become ill and lives have been lost because “it is difficult to trace the symptoms back to the sewage pollution”. 

Less than a decade ago, the Hennops was still crystal clear and many households used this water, said Snyman. 

“The pollution has now become so heavy that most aquatic life has been wiped out and contact with the water is avoided. 

“In the Mooiplaas area, groundwater has already been polluted by the sewage in the river. 

“The E. coli levels in the Hennops are in their millions. The pollution is of such a magnitude that it’s really threatening all life. If you think of how dependent we all are on our freshwater to give us life, I don’t really think that we’ve got much of a future.”

Snyman said the water poses a severe health hazard and flows straight into the Hartbeespoort Dam, from where it is used for the irrigation of edible crops feeding millions of people.

Large volumes of raw sewage are also dumped straight into the Hennops from illegal housing along its banks.

The river is also a repository for “massive plastic pollution”, which is being washed downstream. 

“This is what Gauteng is doing as the largest industrial centre — we’re just sending our waste down to the rest of the country, into the sea, without really seeing or caring about the consequences,” said Snyman. 

“It’s mostly the councils that are to blame; the sewage farms are run by the municipalities and the plastic is supposed to be collected by the municipalities.” 

These services have collapsed and “we’re sitting with these problems that won’t go away. This absolutely callous pollution will stay in the aquatic environment.”

Snyman said the bigger tragedy is that it’s not only the Hennops River that is contaminated. 

“Probably all the rivers in Gauteng are in this state,” he added. 

The Hennops River Valley is a provincial nature reserve for critical biodiversity. “Now we’ve got this river of death running through here. All of the animals are drinking this water and are also getting affected, so it’s actually a massive ecological impact. The river is about 100km long coming from Tembisa; it’s literally killing everything along that route.”

Pieter Nel, an ecologist at the North West Parks and Tourism Board, said its database showed that 80 elephants had died from starvation since August.

The drought and the uncontrolled growth of the elephant population were the main drivers of deaths in Madikwe, said the Madikwe Futures Company, a nonprofit contracted in to assist the parks and tourism board.

A longer-term plan for the next four months also involves the potential culling of some of the estimated 1 600 elephants in the reserve.

Nel said protocols were in place for identifying starving animals in bad shape. “As the field guides and the rangers go along, the animals are identified and then we’ve got a set of criteria that we’re going to use to determine whether an elephant needs to be put down or not.”

He said that at the instruction of the minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, a task team had been formed to deal with the situation at Madikwe and the Pilanesberg National Park in the short and long terms.

Managing the increase in the elephant population is difficult “because in terms of park expansion and translocation, there’s very limited options”, Nel said. “One of the issues that we may have to consider is culling.”

Having too many elephants in a reserve harms the entire ecosystem, Nel said. “I think Madikwe has shown what can happen if you pass that threshold.”

He noted that earlier in the year there were no signs of any stress among the elephants. “Then in August and September things escalated and we had these mortalities. It shows you that there’s a very fine balance and the moment you pass that threshold, everything collapses.”

The NSPCA said elephant deaths had increased exponentially since August, and “with an estimated 1600 elephants on the reserve, the situation is dire and urgent”.

The wildlife protection unit of the National Council of SPCAs visited the reserve and described the situation as a “wildlife tragedy”.

The NSPCA said its team observed signs of overgrazing and poor veld management. “Outside Madikwe’s fence line is an abundance of nutritional vegetation, a stark comparison to what Madikwe has to offer the animals within the confines of the reserve.”

“This is not ‘nature’ or ‘nature’s way’ as this is a man-made disaster, with years of inaction addressing the overpopulation and lack of vegetation, and increasing bush encroachment,” said NSPCA wildlife protection unit manager and chief inspector Douglas Wolhuter.

The NSPCA team encountered an elephant calf in such a weakened state that it was unable to move from the presence of humans. The calf was euthanised. 

During another inspection on 3 December, two more elephants were euthanised by the NSPCA’s veterinarian. A flight over the reserve showed more dead animals, including a giraffe lying in water. Two white rhinos in poor condition were also seen, it said.

“It is a travesty that this reserve cannot ensure the welfare and well-being of the animals,” said Wolhuter, adding that the reserve management “observed the suffering unfold before them and did nothing”.

Nel said it was expected that there would be ecological impacts from Madikwe’s elephants because there have never been elephants in or around the areas bordering the reserve. 

“Obviously, we drastically need to reduce the numbers to bring us back to a situation where the system can properly recover and we can have those big trees, all of those things, coming back,” he said.

He pointed out that there had been a conscious decision to use non-lethal methods of managing the elephant population, but “we have to admit it didn’t yield the desired results”. 

“There were real opportunities of expanding the park, there were some opportunities for translocation, which unfortunately never materialised and that brought us to the situation where we are now here. Now, we will have to look at other ways, including lethal options.”

He said the necessary documents had been completed and were on their way to the minister. “We’ll see how the process unfolds.”

The game reserve was created 30 years ago as a partnership between the government, private sector and local communities. The parks and tourism board manages the reserve and its conservation work. The lodge owners and the Madikwe Futures Company are not responsible for managing the elephant population. 

For the local communities, the reserve sustains more than 1 000 jobs.

The Madikwe Futures Company, which is contracted to assist with anti-poaching, roadwork, bush-clearing and community projects, said the reserve’s vegetation, like the vegetation of other reserves in Southern Africa, has been put under pressure by a growing elephant overpopulation. 

“Especially with the current drought, other reserves with elephants, including reserves in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Malawi and Zimbabwe, are in a similar situation,” said Hector Magome, the director of the Madikwe Futures Company. 

In recent weeks, Madikwe has received some rain and the vegetation is growing again, but “we are still waiting for substantial rains,” Magome said. “Despite the harsh conditions, nearly all wildlife, including elephants, are surviving … but that still does not resolve the underlying problem.”

Koos Potgieter, the managing director of the Madikwe Futures Company and a lodge owner, said: “This is the first time in the 30 years of the reserve’s existence that this has happened. It is a tipping point and urgent intervention is needed. However, we are extremely concerned that the way the issue is positioned in the press is too broadly condemning and will destroy the good that Madikwe has done and continues to do.”

Southern Africa faces a problem of too many elephants, he said. “Everybody is looking for an answer to this problem not [only] at the Madikwe level … This is a thing that has to be addressed and talked about” in Southern Africa and all the way to East Africa. 

“Everybody is finding little ways of trying to deal with the [elephant] population growth and there’s no clear answer except the one which is emotionally very charged.”

The minister must outlaw other highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) with a fixed six months for implementation, the African Centre for Biodiversity said in the 16-page letter.

Steenhuisen also “must ensure that there are no delays or loopholes created in any new regulatory framework that allow the ongoing use of chemicals in violation of our constitutional rights to an environment that is not harmful to health”.

The coalition noted that government toxicology results found that the Naledi children died from ingesting Terbufos, adding: “The deaths of more than 20 children who have been exposed to HHPs have been in the news lately, but poisoning from street pesticides is not a new occurrence.”

The Naledi poisonings culminated in an investigation that determined that the Terbufos granules in the children’s stomachs killed them. “Since then, the government has conflated these pesticide poisonings with food-borne/food safety-related issues and has scapegoated spaza shops,” the group said.

The signatories called on Steenhuisen to indicate his willingness to undertake the steps set out in their letter within 21 days of the date of receipt, “failing which we reserve our rights to bring legal action to compel the minister to take these steps”.

“Failure to do so will result in a constitutional violation of the right to life and an environment not harmful to health with particularly devastating consequences for children. We trust that it will not be necessary for us to approach the courts to compel the minister to honour, rather than continue to violate, his constitutional obligations,” they added.

The letter of was addressed to Steenhuisen on behalf of the Women on Farms Project, the Commercial Stevedoring, the Agricultural and Allied Workers Union, groundWork, Friends of the Earth SA, Khanyisa/Kouga Workers Forum Trust for Community Outreach and Education as well as academic experts in the field: Leslie London, Andrea Rother and Cindy Stephens. 

Highly hazardous

The EU has banned 57 of the 192 HHPs registered in South Africa because of their health and environmental risks, rights violations and harm to the health of farm workers and their families. 

The risks posed by HHPs was flagged in 2006 when the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Council requested specific attention for HHP risk reduction, including consideration of progressive bans. In 2016 the FAO and the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued specific guidelines to help countries address HHPs, including criteria for identification, steps of risk reduction and elements of an action plan to reduce the risks.

In South Africa, the pesticide management policy of 2010 took up the issue of reducing pesticides and banning or phasing out those that are particularly dangerous. According to the letter, since the 2010 policy was published, only 12 chemicals had been banned or restricted. 

In April 2022, the registrar promised to phase out 116 HHPs by June 2024. Ultimately, only 28 were identified for phasing out and the registrar published a derogation procedure for companies to apply to continue using these 28 under special circumstances.  

“Moving at this glacial space means that, on average, South Africa has taken regulatory action on less than one pesticide a year since the policy was published,” the letter said.

“Given the abundance of evidence regarding HHPs and South Africa’s commitment to complying with shifts in global environmental governance, we do not believe this to be sufficiently compliant with its policy direction.”

Extremely hazardous

Terbufos is classified by the WHO as an extremely hazardous class 1a organophosphate pesticide and cholinesterase inhibitor. “Terbufos has neurotoxic effects and is particularly dangerous to children and adolescents. It may be fatal if ingested, inhaled or had contact with the skin.” 

It has been banned for use in the EU since 2009, “although some countries in the EU apply double standards” and continue to allow the production and export of Terbufos, especially to developing countries. 

Terbufos has been banned in the Southern African Development Community by Angola, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, Tanzania and Zambia. Botswana’s ban came into effect on 1 December, while Zimbabwe no longer imports the chemical.

It is recognised and listed by the Rotterdam Convention as a hazardous chemical requiring prior informed consent from parties to the convention. This means that as of 21 July 2024, South Africa, as a party to the convention, had to consent to importing it.

Terbufos has been a “restricted pesticide” — considered to have a higher potential to harm public health, the environment, wildlife and crops compared to other pesticides — in South Africa since the end of 2023. 

It is widely available and can be bought in spaza shops and through street traders as a “street pesticide” – for domestic use in townships and informal settlements to control rats.

The coalition’s letter noted how two days before the government declared a national disaster, environmental health researchers at the University of Cape Town did a quick review of the labels online for Terbufos products being sold in South Africa. None indicated evidence of “restricted-use pesticide”, as required by law. 

“In any event, we contend that no amount of traceability and labelling will make a substance designed to kill safe and there is no ideal real-life situation where these toxins can be deployed safely,” it said.

Pest infestations

Street pesticides are poisonous substances that are legally registered for agricultural use but are decanted illegally into unlabelled beverage bottles or packets for home use. “Or, they might be illegally packaged pesticides imported into the country and not registered for use. Typically, they are acquired from agricultural cooperatives, garden shops and hardware stores.” 

Several research papers have been published, and evidence presented to the government, that children are dying from the ingestion of pesticides, including organophosphates, carbamates and pyrethroids. This “points to the reality that access to HHPs is a major problem” in the country. 

In 2023, experts published a paper showing that in one Cape Town mortuary, out of 50 children whose cause of death was suspected to be due to pesticides and for whom toxicological tests were conducted, 29 had died from Terbufos poisoning. 

Four others had died from the organophosphates, methamidophos and diazinon. Of these deaths, 42.6% were children under five years and 40.7% were adolescents between 15 and 18. 

“We also found that in South Africa, before the Naledi tragedy, access to comprehensive and quick toxicological results for pesticide deaths was limited. Pesticide mortuary data are not sought by those regulating agricultural pesticides when evaluating evidence in decision-making on pesticides.” 

Government laboratories are stretched and cannot quickly test the cause of these deaths. “This means we do not have a true picture of how many deaths have been linked to pesticides. It could well be in the thousands.”

There is increasing evidence that children surviving organophosphate poisoning suffer significant adverse neuro-developmental impacts that will be lifelong. 

Child deaths

Several factors are involved in child deaths from street pesticides. “First, people living in informal areas must contend with high levels of pest infestations — rats, bed bugs, flies and cockroaches.”

As commercially sold legal pesticides have been overused, “many pests are developing resistance and so these products are less effective”. 

This means that there is a market for killing pests with cheap and effective products. “Because of their high toxicity, street pesticides are appealing as there is money to be made for informal vendors who sell them.”

“Parents think they are protecting their families and food sources from pests when buying street pesticides. With no label or verbal warnings, people apply them not knowing how dangerous they are … Children touch a lot of surfaces, and often have their hands in their mouths, and with their small body size, a small quantity of an HHP can cause severe illness or death,” the letter pointed out.

Another organophosphate pesticide, Chlorpyrifos, was banned for domestic use in 2010 and for agricultural use on 7 October this year. The WHO categorises Chlorpyrifos as a moderately hazardous class I pesticide. It is “irrational” for the minister to allow a more toxic organophosphate, Terbufos, to continue to be unbanned, the coalition argued.

The banning of Terbufos and HHPs is the “most reasonable” and only measure that will stem the unlawful distribution of these substances and the exposure of farm workers and dwellers, children and the public to them. 

The coalition added: “The president has stated that the first intervention is to get hazardous pesticides off the street … This will not be possible without the banning of Terbufos and all other HHPs, as the banning of a single chemical will just result in it being replaced by another equally toxic chemical if such is legally available for sale in South Africa.”

The brief, recently released by the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (Veja), is a comprehensive analysis of the decarbonisation roadmap of ArcelorMittal South Africa (Amsa) and its implications for local communities. 

ArcelorMittal intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the operations of its Vanderbijlpark, Saldanha and Newcastle plants towards a net-zero goal by 2050. 

It also intends to reduce emissions by 25% by 2030, according to its roadmap published in January last year.

“The aim is to reduce its direct emissions from coke, iron, and steel production plants, as well as indirect emissions embedded in the electricity that Amsa uses from Eskom fossil-fired generators,” the policy brief said, noting that the roadmap is in line with ArcelorMittal’s global plans. 

Iron and steelmaking is a carbon-intensive process that produces about 8% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. 

Together with Hydrogen Watch (H2Watch), a loose civil society network, Veja said it called on ArcelorMittal to provide clarity on how it plans to compensate people for past environmental and health damage, prevent future harm and ensure meaningful discussions with those affected. 

“Additionally, Veja seeks transparency on the potential social and economic impacts of ArcelorMittal South Africa’s transition, particularly regarding job security, skills development and community well-being,” said the nonprofit, which focuses on air quality, waste, water pollution and climate change in the Vaal Triangle, known for being one of the most polluted areas in the country.

For years, Veja and the Centre for Environmental Rights have argued that emissions from ArcelorMittal’s plants cause severe health effects in nearby communities and that greenhouse gases from the company’s current steel-production process contribute to global warming and climate change.

The policy brief highlights hydrogen direct reduction of iron (DRI) technology as a viable solution for sustainable steel production. It leverages South Africa’s rich iron ore deposits and renewable energy resources and “offers an opportunity to revive the struggling steel sector while reducing its carbon footprint”, Veja said

“We’ve hosted dialogues in Vaal communities about the policy brief and ArcelorMittal South Africa’s decarbonisation plan. These discussions revealed both hopes and fears, particularly regarding job security, the need for new skills and the protection of vital resources like water,”  said Mduduzi Tshabalala, the programmes coordinator of Veja.

The company had not followed a public participation process in developing its decarbonisation roadmap, he said. “It’s quite difficult to trust the proposed plans because we don’t know how people are going to be affected in terms of the socio-economic benefits.”

He said Veja would continue to push for compliance with the National Environmental Management Act and “will continue monitoring ArcelorMittal South Africa’s environmental practices”.

Energy expert Hilton Trollip, who wrote the policy brief, highlighted the potential for South Africa to lead in zero-emission steel production by using hydrogen technology and renewable energy. 

“Communities have long endured the environmental costs of steel production while depending on it for their livelihoods,” he said. “Now, they are taking an active role in shaping the future of the industry, demonstrating that local voices can influence major industrial decisions.”

Steel is the world’s most important metal and the policy brief said its widespread use in buildings, cars, trains, and household appliances makes it central to the “modern way of living”.

It said national governments, often “shield companies” from competition, as well as subsidising steel multinationals. 

To phase out the use of fossil gas and coal in steelmaking, the global steel industry needs cooperative actions in the industry and between governments. “South Africa and individual steel companies cannot take these actions alone.”

The brief noted how, until now, making iron from iron ore has relied on fossil-gas or coal feedstock. Most carbon emissions result from these primary iron-making processes.

“Coal or gas are not only used as fuel, as the iron-making process needs the carbon in the coal or gas to react with the iron ore to transform it into raw iron. Primary steelmaking has thus been called a ‘hard-to-abate’ sector — an industry in which it is difficult to eliminate or significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” it said.

Producing steel has historically emitted a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2), about 2.2 tonnes for every tonne of steel. “Green hydrogen can be used instead of coal or fossil gas to make iron from iron ore. When this hydrogen reacts with the iron ore, it produces iron and water, with no CO2.” 

Green hydrogen is made by using renewable energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen in an electrolyser.

Using renewable energy in the electric arc furnace to produce secondary steel can virtually eliminate carbon dioxide emissions, because they are mainly from the electricity used. In South Africa these emissions, primarily from burning coal in power stations on the Eskom grid, amount to about 0.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of steel.  

“Although the technology exists to reduce CO2 emissions from blast furnaces/basic oxygen furnaces by capturing the CO2 and either using it in industry or storing it, this technology remains to be proven in industry,” the document said.

“Also, as it is not possible to capture all emissions from blast furnaces/basic oxygen furnaces, they cannot be employed for zero-emissions primary steelmaking, whereas DRI furnaces can.”

It’s crucial “to recover, maintain and grow the South African iron and steel industry”, the brief said.

“Maintaining production at Amsa Vanderbijlpark is very economically beneficial but pollution levels and the potential for full decarbonisation are concerns. If the low-carbon blast furnace doesn’t work out, they may need to consider more DRI furnaces at Saldanha and/or electric arc furnaces at both Vanderbijlpark and Saldanha to maintain and increase South African steel production levels.”

Investing in direct iron reduction, electric arc furnaces, blast furnaces and renewable energy at the Saldanha and Vanderbijlpark plants can benefit frontline communities. 

“Industries connected to steel production also have the potential to benefit frontline communities significantly. This includes industries making renewable energy equipment and fabricating metals (including structural metals), and the automobile industry.” 

The new generation electric arc furnace may result in fewer jobs compared to blast furnaces, but 

jobs in renewable energy will become more sustainable if components are locally manufactured, the document said, noting that Vanderbijlpark and Saldanha are suitable for manufacturing renewable energy equipment. 

“Even if the government doesn’t incentivise this, it could be part of the company’s just transition efforts.” 

There will be significant environmental benefits from replacing the blast furnace with an electric arc furnace, both at the blast furnace site and along the coal-supply chain. Green hydrogen direct iron reduction is the most promising technology (with minimal negative impact) for expanding primary iron manufacturing, and hence for primary steel and many linked industries, which “remain critical for South Africa’s development needs.”

“One of the things that Veja has been agitating for is the decarbonisation of Amsa so when Amsa announced its decarbonisation roadmap, we felt that it was important to commission the policy brief, which could be used as an educational tool by Veja in their engagements with ArcelorMittal,” said Dinga Sikwebu of H2Watch.

There are organisations in the civil society network that are highly critical of green hydrogen developments, he added. “They see this either as another form of greenwashing or extractivism, or that this is a way for the fossil-fuel industry to extend their lifespan. There are other groupings within H2Watch who feel that maybe there can be some role for the use of green hydrogen … in the so-called hard-to-abate sectors, such as steel, fertilisers and cement.”

“For those two reasons, we felt looking at Amsa’s decarbonisation roadmap may be a good thing, firstly to help an affiliate member of the network [Veja] but also to look at whether green hydrogen is an option to decarbonise.”

Jerry Dungu, ArcelorMittal’s principal specialist for product development, welcomed the opportunity to participate in the policy brief. 

“This platform allowed diverse stakeholders to provide valuable feedback on our plans and we are grateful that this critical issue is being highlighted in broader conversations about the just transition,”  he said in a statement.

This is an opportunity but potentially also a challenge to the continent’s development, said Achim Steiner, the under-secretary-general of the United Nations and administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

He was speaking to the Mail & Guardian in Johannesburg on the sidelines of the UNDP Global Leadership Retreat in Johannesburg, last week.

“This is a very interesting moment of the G20 and I think perhaps to many South Africans, there is a question of why should we care about what the G20 does,” Steiner said. “First of all, these 20 countries represent 80% of the world’s economy so any decision they take in their own interest is of immediate consequence to every other citizen on the planet.”

If those decisions are only taken from a narrow or national interest perspective and perhaps from the viewpoint of the world’s richest countries, they won’t address pervasive issues of inequality and the continent’s debt crisis, among others.

South Africa is the fourth consecutive G20 presidency from a developing or emerging economy. In 2026, the United States will take over. 

The vantage point that South Africa will bring to its 2025 presidency “will be a significantly different one than that of the American presidency”, Steiner pointed out.

“For South Africa, it is also an opportunity to put fundamental issues on the front-burner, whether it’s the global economy, financing and the debt crisis but also addressing climate change in the context of developing countries’ pathways becomes such a central topic.”

G20 ‘found wanting’

Globally, the UNDP estimates that 58 developing countries are spending more money on servicing loans on interest payments for their debt than they are investing in their health or education budgets. This is not a formula for investment development, Steiner said.

Finding a solution to the debt crisis has always had many drivers. “Frankly, it became a crisis on the back of an inflation and high interest rate set of monetary policies responses by the wealthiest nations, which has now turned into a financing and fiscal crisis for many countries on the continent.”

The international financial architecture has been very slow to respond. “The G20 has also been found wanting in the sense that it acknowledges that this is a problem for many countries but the bottom line is that it’s not material to the global financial system’s stability, so, ‘we all have problems, let’s in a sense see whether something can be done.’”

There have been attempts by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other institutions to address this crisis, he said. Reflecting on the narrative of the so-called “soft landing” of the global economy” in the past two years, the harsh truth is that for some countries — the wealthiest — the landing is softer, Steiner said. “For many countries, the hard landing is actually the reality right now.” 

Disabling Africa 

From the UNDP’s standpoint, the world has again moved into an era where development is heading into two distinct trajectories: the countries that are wealthy enough to take off and a group of countries that are stuck. 

“We have had economies go bankrupt in Sri Lanka, we have had defaults from Zambia and Ethiopia. These are catastrophic moments for a country’s economy because not only are you unable to import basic vital commodities … you also are not able to invest and investors will not come to an economy that is essentially junk rated on the financial markets.”

Here, Steiner cited an “extremely frustrating” phenomenon, particularly for Africa and one which the UNDP has tried to shine the spotlight on: the way in which credit rating agencies essentially enable — or disable — Africa from being a viable player in borrowing on the world’s capital markets. 

Many African countries “pay a kind of collective price” for the continent being viewed as a high-risk investment destination. “It’s fascinating that there are three or four ratings agencies in the world, and between them have only four offices on the African continent and yet they determine billions of dollars worth of higher interest rates because of the way they rate countries and the financial markets.

“They don’t know individual economies so they will take this off the shelf and this is why so much of Africa struggles to actually leverage that famous private investment capital for its own development.”

‘Not a paper tiger’

In November, the world met in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 29th annual conference on climate change (COP29). “Those in 1992 thought that a convention [the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] is a meaningless document, a paper tiger … that the UN helps the world to create every now and then.”

For almost 30 years, they had been proven wrong. “Even in the worst of moments, and perhaps we could describe the year 2024, in geopolitical and also geoeconomic terms, as one of the worst moments in recent history, all nations came to Baku and spent two weeks struggling to reach agreement.”

This was “perhaps unsurprising” because what COP29 was centrally about was whether the world could agree on a more ambitious, significantly higher target of how financing climate action would happen. 

“Not unexpectedly, those who were asked to bring more money to the table have great difficulties to have that accepted politically at home. For many developing countries, it’s increasingly a matter of you cannot ask us constantly to raise our levels of ambition and then not also step forward with financing … We just about managed to get an agreement.”

The Baku finance goal contains a core target for developed countries to take the lead on mobilising at least $300 billion a year by 2035 for climate action in developing countries, with the inclusion of a $1.3 trillion target by 2035. The Global South asked for $1.3 trillion a year towards climate action.

For Steiner, while the $300 billion figure is “not so much of a success story”, it is “not peanuts”, he noted. “Yet in terms of the overall energy transition that must be achieved over the next few years, it’s clearly far from where we need to be.”

The most important signal out of Baku was that the Paris Agreement is “alive”, he said. “[It] remains the only viable and credible platform on which a 193-plus nations can actually synchronise their action on climate change and mutually reinforce each other’s ability to confront climate change.”

What remains a constant source of frustration, however, is the inadequate efforts to finance climate adaptation in Africa, which faces disproportionate climate impacts.

“Africa is now having to divert billions of dollars simply to secure its development infrastructure, instead of being able to invest that money in expanding the digital infrastructure, the healthcare systems, the education systems … Again, since it is not the principal cause of carbon emissions and climate change historically, there is a deep level of frustration on the continent that not more financing is available.”

Energy transition

While many are “rightly frustrated” by the international climate negotiations, “what they sometimes don’t always realise is that it is the only place that has actually enabled a green transition agenda to emerge and ultimately for some remarkable things to happen over time”. 

“The Paris Agreement, in part, is reflected in what the International Energy Agency predicts for this year’s total investment in new electricity generating infrastructure. The number is mind boggling: the world will spend $3 trillion this year in building new electricity generating capacity.”

Of this figure, a staggering $2 trillion is in the renewables sector. “We are in the midst of an energy revolution already and obviously for an economy like South Africa, it’s been a bit of a stop and start, because South Africa has had a progressive view of having to address climate change because it already is experiencing climate change.”

Its energy infrastructure and economic history, in terms of power generation, were clearly heavily rooted at the time in the availability of coal, which was “unfortunately some of the dirtiest coal in terms of emissions”. 

“The question has always been, should South Africa simply continue to generate its power by using fossil fuels because we have it?” 

Two things have changed. “The world is already in the midst of an energy revolution but essentially the country is an export dependent economy. The markets of the world are not going to buy goods from a country that says ‘climate change is not my problem and I’m going to continue to produce the power that I need from my industry’, with a carbon footprint that is simply no longer going to be accepted.” 

South Africa, he said, has returned to an ambitious decarbonisation strategy because it recognises that it’s a fallacy to believe that the cost of a kilowatt hour produced with coal is significantly cheaper than one produced with solar or wind power. 

Social disruption

The greatest challenge for South Africa is two-fold. “One is to adapt the electricity infrastructure to a renewable energy powered economy, which has some challenges and costs. Second is also to deal with … local economies and livelihoods that have grown up around coal mines and coal-fired power stations … There are significant additional costs of this transition that are more in the realm of the social – the jobs and livelihoods that are disrupted.”

Ironically the biggest challenge perhaps for South Africa is no longer the economics of transition nor its capacity to evolve its power grid, “it’s now the social economic transition”, Steiner said.

Tackling this is not rocket science, though. “We have done it dozens of times through the industrial revolution, the digital revolution  … And the world is showing us all over how it can be overcome. Why should a country like Kenya be able to power 90% of its electricity needs with renewables or Uruguay … It is being done by small economies, large economies, and wealthy ones, by poor ones. There is no longer an argument that you can’t do it. It’s a matter of policy choice and to get it right.”

Nobody is suggesting that the country from one week to another switches off one power infrastructure and puts another on. 

“The question is should South Africa invest in an energy technology that is 200 years old in essence and will run out of essentially an opportunity continuing in the next few decades. Or should it invest every new kilowatt hour of generating capacity it now constructs into a 21st century energy infrastructure?”