Network
of Earthkeeping Christian Communities in South Africa
NECCSA
Update: August 2003
A
monthly newsletter on Church and Environment in South Africa
1. Pebble Bed Modular Nuclear Reactor
There
is still an opportunity to express your opposition to the development of nuclear
power. One has until 25 August to
appeal to the minister. Forms for this appeal can be obtained from the Earthlife
Africa website: HYPERLINK
"http://www. www.earthlife-ct.org.za.
Further details may be obtained
from: Liz McDaid Spokesperson Earthlife Africa, Cape Town 082 731 5643 0r 021
683 5182.
The
proposed nuclear energy development raises serious concerns about its economic
viability, the health impacts of low dose radiation, and the storage of waste -
radioactive nuclear waste remains toxic for at least 250 000 years.
2.
Genetically Modified Organisms
The
following church statements on GMO’s have recently been added to the NECCSA
website:
3)
A New Church Environmental Organisation
A Rocha - Taking Flight in South Africa (submitted by
Allen Goddard)
In the closing weeks of my 3 year stay in Canada, in 2001, I had
the joy of meeting Peter and Miranda Harris, International Team Leaders of A
Rocha International (ARI). Joyann and I returned from Regent College,
Vancouver, in May that year to Pietermaritzburg, and a ministry with the
Students’ Christian Organization, training staff interns for student ministry
in the Short Term Experience in Ministry (STEM) Programme. I invited Kelly
Brown, a Masters student in Zoology at UNP, Geoff Gould, an outdoor educationist
and John Roff, director of nature interpretation for the National Botanical
Institute to help me put together a Creation Stewardship and Outdoor Leadership
Course for part of the STEM training. When I mentioned the course to Peter and
Miranda Harris they offered STEM initial funding for it, and encouraged me to
use the experience to initiate an A Rocha network in South Africa. Two
years later I find myself chairing the South African A Rocha Initiative
with provincial committees in KZN and the Western Cape. A dedicated group of
conservationists and scientists have joined hands with me and local community
leaders in Sobantu township in a re-greening project which is about to be
registered officially with ARI in Portugal this July.
The A Rocha Trust was first set up by a group of friends in
the U.K. in 1983. The result of their prayers and work was the establishment of
a research and education centre at Cruzinha on the ecologically sensitive Alvor
Estuary in Southern Portugal in 1986. By 1995, A Rocha Portugal had been
established as a national NGO, with a diverse mission statement including
research, education and community development. Peter and Miranda Harris then
answered requests from Christian groups in Lebanon, France, Kenya, Canada and
the U.K. to assist them to establish A Rocha projects. Since 2000 the
number of National A Rocha movements has risen to 12 countries. ARI has
established its international office in Cambridge with David Payne as Managing
Director. John Stott, Vinoth Ramachandra and Martin Goldsmith are among its
international referees and trustees. And right now Ghana, South Africa, Peru and
Romania are applying to ARI for recognition of their conservation projects, with
a view to becoming fully fledged NGOs in the near future. A Rocha is the
Portuguese word for “The Rock”. ARI encourages national projects to foster
partnerships between scientists, lay people, and community and conservation
organisations to make the conservation of local biospheres become a reality to
ordinary communities and local churches. The aim of encounter with Jesus Christ
as sustainer and redeemer of Creation, in the challenges of real conservation
projects, is the heart of the A Rocha vision.
A Rocha South
Africa is a fledgling group of Christians from many backgrounds with a vision
for involving the churches and local communities in creation care, sustainable
development and environmental education. The Sobantu project will re-establish
indigenous vegetation after 5 years of exotic tree felling, in response to
health hazards caused by nesting egrets and herons. STEM’s Creation
Stewardship course has trained three young men and four young women to initiate
outdoor learning activities and plan creation interpretation events for young
people, mostly in township contexts. In the process these STEM interns have
spoken about their own personal transformation and healing as they have spent
time alone and together in the mist-belt grasslands and forests of the KZN
Midlands. This kind of formative encounter with the Creator in creation is what
the initiative committee hopes A Rocha South Africa will facilitate more
widely in future, in addition to community development work, research, and real
conservation of South Africa’s shrinking yet, globally significant biomes.
A Rocha South
Africa’s first three national trustees are Rt. Rev. Philip Le Feuvre of
Limpopo, Mrs. Joan Houston of U.N.P. and Prof. Les Underhill of the Avian
Demography Unit at U.C.T. And then, Mark Brown, of the School of Botany and
Zoology at UNP, and Chairman of Birdlife KZN Midlands, Mr. Cain Mbense, Ward
Committee member for Sobantu Township, Christian Tham, Environmental Officer in
the KZN Department of Environment and Agriculture, Brent Corcoran, Conservation
Planner for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, the provincial conservation agency in KwaZulu-Natal,
Dalton Gibbs of Rondevlei Nature Reserve, and Barry Wiesner, an environmental
consultant in Cape Town, are the committee members who are leading the A
Rocha South Africa process.
For more news of South Africa’s progress in the registration
process watch this space in TBP or visit ARI’s website at HYPERLINK
"ht www.arocha.org
To get involved locally contact me in KZN at helleljoy@sco.za.org
or Barry Wiesner in Cape Town at HYPERLINK
"mailto:barr" barrywiesner@mweb.co.za
NECCSA website
address: HYPERLINK
"http: www.neccsa.org.za
where membership details could also be found. You are invited to accept
ownership of this website in order to use it to share information on
Christianity and earthkeeping practices. Please send any information to the
email address below.
You are welcome
to distribute this NECCSA Update electronically to any other interested person.
You are also welcome to send news to be included in the next NECCSA update to
HYPERLINK "mailto:%20andrew.war andrew.warmback@diakonia.org.za
by 15 September. You may send such contributions in the language of your choice.
Distributed by AE
Warmback 22/08/2003