Pulp and participation: Assessing the legitimacy of participatory environmental governance in Umkomaas, South Africa
Introduction
South Durban in KwaZulu Natal (KZN) province is one of South Africa's most important industrial sites. Second only to the Coega Industrial Zone, (Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition, 2020), the region is home to major producers of petro-chemicals and plastics, metal and motor industries, and pulp and paper production, making it one of the most polluted areas in Africa (Department of Environmental Affairs, 2016). High levels of persistent organic pollutants and other carcinogens have led to the area being dubbed “cancer valley” by mainstream media (Kings, 2014; The South African, 2020). Respiratory disease is also commonplace, with approximately 50% of schoolchildren suffering from asthma (Kistnasamy et al., 2008; Naidoo et al., 2013; Masekela et al., 2018).
The roots of contamination in South Durban are deeply historical, originating in the urban planning practices of British colonisers. In the 1930s these early ‘modernisers' used forced relocations to create racially segregated pools of cheap labour within easy reach of polluting industry (Scott, 1992, Scott, 2003). Such patterns continued unabated throughout apartheid as the increasingly isolated nationalist government sought to become economically self-reliant, subsidising the production of commodities (including metals, synthetic fuels, and chemicals) that were previously imported (Altman and Mayer, 2003; Majozi and Veldhuizen, 2015). By 1994, South Durban hosted 100+ polluting industries (Niranjan, 2005). Emissions from heavy transport routes, channelled by local topography through residential areas, saw air pollution/toxicity reach critical levels by the dawn of democracy (Diab et al., 2002).
Umkomaas, a small coastal town approximately 50 km South of the city of Durban (Fig. 1), is home to the Saiccor mill (Fig. 2), one of five owned by South African Pulp and Paper Industries Limited (Sappi). According to the corporate website,1 Sappi's assets are owned by a number of South African (70%) and international (30%) investment houses, with a significant proportion resting in the hands of the state-owned Public Investment Corporation (PIC), represented by the South African Minister of Finance.2 The mill is optimally situated with access to roads and ports (Durban and Richard's Bay), land (including eucalyptus woods), water (the nearby uMkomazi River), and plentiful cheap labour. As a “global diversified wood fibre company providing chemical cellulose (dissolving wood pulp), speciality and packaging paper, printing and writing paper, as well as biomaterials and biochemicals” (Sappi, 2017a), Sappi is the second-largest exporter via Durban harbour, contributing 4% of national foreign revenue (Sappi, 2018a). It Is also a major source noxious gasses, toxic liquid, solid waste, and effluent. For decades these pollutants have contaminated environments of predominantly poor Black, Indian and Coloured communities (Christov, 1998; Moodley et al., 2012; Van der Schyff and Bouwman, 2015), provoking protest in surrounding communities.
Over this period Saiccor management has made a variety of attempts to address Umkomaas residents' concerns. The company maintains its commitment to governance based on principles of “performance and value creation, adequate and effective controls and trust, as well as reputation and legitimacy and ethics” (Sappi, 2021a: 23), and recognition of its embeddedness in local communities, and the interdependence of community with company wellbeing and prosperity. Activists however dispute claims made by Saiccor around its commitment to environmental and social responsibility and support for long-term, transparent, and proactive forms of community engagement (Sappi, 2018b, Sappi, 2021a). Instead, community representatives complain that problems with emissions and effluent persist, and that community engagement processes are dominated by ‘rubberstamping’ exercises carried out by complicit officials. They also assert efforts to engage meaningfully with mill and municipal authorities on risk governance have been dismissed (B. Mthembu, personal communication, 05 March 2021; D. Naicker, personal communication, 11 November 2021). In this context, this article investigates the extent to which measures for participatory environmental governance deployed by Saiccor can be seen as legitimate, and on what terms.
This qualitative study adopts narrative enquiry as its method of analysis. It draws from verbal and written stories, both important sources of data and powerful tools by which people make and share sense of their experience (Berry, 2016), to create chronological accounts of events (Czarniawska, 2009: 652). These stories then become the focus of analysis, a foundation for interpreting information and events, enabling the de- and re-construction of meaning, and comparisons / juxtapositions of different versions of events. The value of narrative enquiry thus rests not in the understanding it generates of individuals' experiences, but in the insights created in terms of the wider, social, cultural, and institutional narratives within which individuals' experiences are constituted, shaped, expressed, and enacted” (Clandinin and Rosiek, 2007, pp. 42–43).
The stories that serve as sources of data come from a variety of primary and secondary sources. Primary data was gathered throughout 2020–2022 via remote interviews and personal communication (email and Whatsapp calls and messages) with representatives of Sappi Saiccor, community organisations, local authorities and facilitators of participatory governance processes (Table 1). These stories are interwoven with others from secondary sources, including peer reviewed journals, government reports, policy documents and press releases, corporate press releases and sustainability reports, consultancy reports, national and local news sources, and legal documents. The narratives are then combined, reconfigured and superimposed with chronological structure, ‘membership categorization’, and emplotment (Czarniawska, 2009). Reconstructed details of when, who, how and why thus give rise to socially significant themes (Berry, 2016). It is within these themes that the analysis of significant patterns of interaction over time and across the different “social worlds” (Pidgeon and Henwood, 2009: 626) of corporate pulp and paper, policy and decision-making, and local communities, is conducted, revealing answers to questions around the legitimacy of participatory environmental governance processes in Umkomaas.
The value of this analysis stems from insights generated around how political structures and corporate governance systems interact with community concerns to shape approaches to participatory environmental governance over time, and their perceived value. The participatory governance turn adopted after apartheid to redress inequality and improve the well-being of marginalised populations, particularly in the South Durban area, has been studied in detail (Scott, 1992; Scott et al., 2002; Scott and Oelofse, 2005; Hoosen, 2010; Leonard, 2014; Leonard and Lidskog, 2021). Micro-level studies of the workings of participatory environmental governance in specific industrial sectors remain rare however, and where they do exist, tend to focus on discreet initiatives such as environmental/social impact assessments.3 The novelty of this article's contribution thus lies in its scrutiny of a key player in a major industry, and its strategies for participatory governance deployed over time, and in an evolving political context - one in which imperatives for empowerment have grown while capacities for implementing them have declined.
Following this introduction, the article outlines its conceptual framework, examining thinking around what constitutes legitimacy in participatory environmental governance. The next section provides vital background to the study, illuminating the complex institutional context within which Saiccor's public engagement processes have been implemented. This foregrounding is followed by a chronological narrative of key events and actions as Saiccor has worked to be seen to be a champion of participatory governance of industrial risk in Umkomaas. The article concludes by emphasising the role of civil society in expanding discourses on environmental governance beyond techno-centric, instrumental approaches, and putting ideas of power, agency, and social justice at the forefront of public/policy debate. In arriving at its conclusion, the article adopts a necessarily decolonial stance, rooted in an ambition to disrupt the hegemony of modernising approaches to environmental governance, and reflecting a practical desire to support historically marginalised communities whose efforts at obtaining justice continue to be dismissed by a polluting company and the state.
Section snippets
Legitimacy in participatory environmental governance
The rise of discourse and practice around participatory environmental governance has roots in the global ascendancy of thinking around “ecological modernization.” A key tenet of this theory of social change was that decision-making processes were increasingly being informed by market-based approaches, positivist science and industrial self-regulation, putting movements and civil society organisations in a position of closer cooperation with economic and state actors in a new era of
Institutional context – participatory environmental governance in South Africa and Durban
On paper, South Africa appears hard-wired for excellence in participatory governance processes. The Constitution of 1996 guarantees ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources for present and future generations (Chapter 2), cooperation at all levels to ensure “effective, transparent, accountable and coherent government” (Chapter 3), and a leading role for communities in local government and decision making on social, economic and environmental issues (Chapter 7). These
Participatory governance in Umkomaas: from consensus to conflict
Complaints about contamination from Sappi's Saiccor mill have a long history. In the 1960s, effluent from the mill became known as the ‘purple death’, when commercial and subsistence fishermen attributed the demise of marine life to the mill's toxic emissions (Rycroft et al., 1998: 88). Saiccor's polluting activities carried on without much impediment until the arrival of democracy in the mid-1990s, when anger over effluent flowing into the sea was reignited. Key to intensified dissent were
Discussion and conclusions: toward participatory environmental governance?
Over the years Saiccor management has sought to reconcile corporate imperatives of value creation for shareholders, with obligations of environmental safeguarding and maintaining positive, pro-active community relations. Central to these aims have been repeated iterations of the importance of mutual respect and trust as the basis of legitimate engagement processes. Yet a review of Saiccor's interactions with surrounding communities over time reveals a record that is less than impressive,
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge assistance from SERI Germany and ICTA UAB, for support in developing this case for the EJAtlas.
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