Being Green

It is just a few days before the United States elections. With Democrat candidate Kamala Harris pretty much neck-and-neck with the Republican’s Donald Trump, the outcome could go either way. But what impact will it have on the global fight against climate change? Harris describes global warming an “existential threat” while Trump has dismissed it as a “hoax”. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to former US diplomat and Associate Editor of the Daily Maverick, Brooks Spector.

The World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF’s) latest Living Planet Index shows that the average size of monitored wildlife populations has declined by 73 per cent in the 50 years from 1970 to 2020. A decline in wildlife populations is like an early warning system for the loss of healthy ecosystems. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to WWF South Africa programme head, Dr Deon Nel, about possible solutions and the need to live in harmony with nature.

Cape Nature says the illegal trade in succulent plants is the most pervasive wildlife crime in the Western Cape, pushing many unique species to the brink of extinction. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Leon Muller, a conservation manager for Cape Nature in the West Coast area, about the problem.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to freelance botanist and fynbos specialist, Rupert Koopman, about the critically endangered Cape Flats Sand Fynbos and efforts to revive it.

Vergenoegd Löw is one of the oldest farms in the Cape and makes award-winning wines, but it is also a beacon of sustainable agriculture and eco-friendly practices. And it just happens to have a very cute flock of ducks running about the vineyards. They act as chief “pest control officers”, making sure the farm is free of snails, slugs, and other damaging insects. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to the farm’s managing director, Corius Visser.

Conservationists are questioning Namibia’s plan to cull over 700 wild animals, including hippos, impalas, wildebeest, zebras, and 83 elephants. The environment ministry says the plan is to distribute the meat to people struggling to feed their families amid one of the country’s worst droughts in recent history. But critics suggest the cull is largely a political decision - coming ahead of the November elections - and that the logic behind it is flawed. Glynis Crook discusses the plan with wildlife investigative journalist and academic, Adam Cruise, in this week’s edition of Being Green.

Spring officially arrives this weekend and for many, this time of the year means a reaction to the increased pollen in the air. Some bad news from researchers and doctors is that climate change is not only worsening the symptoms of seasonal allergies, but also making them last longer. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to allergist, Dr Adrian Morris. You can find more on his website: www.allergyclinic.co.za

While we spent the past few months shivering in our boots here in Cape Town, the northern hemisphere was experiencing its hottest summer since records began, increasing the likelihood that 2024 will be the Earth’s warmest year yet. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Prof Guy Midgley, Director of Stellenbosch University’s School for Climate Studies, about the Copernicus Climate Change Service report.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Tracey Gilmore, CEO of Taking Care of Business. This non-profit social enterprise runs three 2-year programmes training budding entrepreneurs to resell, repair, and remake retail waste items, most of which would otherwise have been sent to landfill. To find out more, or if you want to donate items, go to: www.tcb.org.za or call the Cape Town number: 021-531 2134

Sunday will see the start of the annual National Arbor Week, a time to celebrate trees. Over the seven-day period, people are encouraged to take part in "greening" events to make our communities healthier and more beautiful. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Clare Burgess, chair of Treekeepers Cape Town, about preserving our urban forests and its guided heritage tree walk in Newlands next Friday. To find out more, visit: https://treekeeperscapetown.org.za. Treekeepers

As the Cape Leopard Trust marks its 20th year of working to ensure the survival of this apex predator, Glynis Crook speaks to its CEO, Helen Turnbull, about these highly elusive and resilient animals that survive in the fynbos biome of the Cape Fold Mountains. Find out more at: www.capeleopard.org.za.

Countries around the world marked World Elephant Day on Monday, which aims to bring attention to the plight of the animals in Africa and Asia. On both continents, they are facing increasing threats, including an escalation in poaching, habitat loss, and human-elephant conflict. The Worldwide Fund for Nature says there are only about 415,000 African elephants left in the wild in Africa. In Being Green this week, Glynis Crook speaks to conservationist, Sean Hensman, who is manager of Adventures with Elephants

South Africa’s Marion Island is being overrun by more than a million house mice. And as the growing population runs out of their normal food, they’re increasingly turning to the island’s seabirds as an alternative source of nourishment. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Dr Anton Wolfaardt of Mouse-Free Marion about its project to rid the island of the rodents.

Scientists and officials gathered in Cape Town last week to discuss what they know about the rabies outbreak in Cape Fur Seals and what to do about it. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to one of the delegates, Dr Tess Gridley, co-director of Sea Search, which is a collective of marine mammal scientists, who told her that selective vaccination of seals got underway on Thursday. The City of Cape Town has warned people to steer clear from any seal behaving unusually or aggressively and to report such cases to the authorities on:

As the Olympic Games get underway in Paris on 26 July, the Worldwide Fund for Nature has launched a video campaign urging people to focus on the world records we don’t want to break. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to James Reeler, Senior Manager: Climate Action at the WWF South Africa about what it hopes to achieve with the campaign.

Trees and plants make life better in a city, including improving air quality, providing homes to birds and insects, and cooling our streets. A recent heat-mapping campaign as part of the World Bank’s City Resilience Programme and the National Treasury’s Cities Support Programme found large temperature differences in parts of the city with densely-packed buildings and no trees, compared to leafier areas. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to atmospheric scientist Professor Roelof Burger about why this is and what needs to be done to improve the situation.

An urban greening trend that is gaining momentum around the world for its environmental benefits is something called a Miyawaki pocket forest. The concept was developed in the 1970s by Japanese botanist, Dr Akira Miyawaki. Now Aghmad Gamieldien, founder of Mzanzi Organics, has created five of them in Cape Town. He joins Glynis Crook on this week’s edition of Being Green.

In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Prof Peter Ryan, emeritus professor at UCT’s FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, who co-authored a study which found that colourful plastics degrade to form microplastics faster than those with plain colours.

Electronic waste is the fastest-growing solid waste stream in the world. In 2022, a record 62 million tonnes were produced globally, up 82% from 2010. But less than one quarter of the year’s e-waste mass was documented as having been properly collected and recycled. In this week’s edition of Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Keith Anderson, CEO of the e-Waste Association of South Africa (e-WASA) about the growing problem. UNITAR · EWASA

In this week’s Being Green, Glynis Crook speaks to Pavs Pillay, behaviour change lead and WWF-SASSI manager, about the initiative’s new report, “The hidden costs of your seafood”, which focuses on the crucial role played by retailers and suppliers of seafood in ensuring responsible and sustainable fishing practices are implemented.