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SAEON’s role in the Green Economy: Does it include YOU?
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The month of June is Environment Month in South African and this year's theme is Green Economy: Does it include you?
Well, it certainly includes SAEON … in more than one way, but that should of course not surprise anyone. The Department of Environmental Affairs has the following to say about the concept of a Green Economy:
“Practically speaking, a green economy is one whose growth in income and employment is driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
“These investments need to be catalysed and supported by targeted public expenditure, policy reforms and regulation changes. This development path should maintain, enhance and, where necessary, rebuild natural capital as a critical economic asset and source of public benefits, especially for poor people whose livelihoods and security depend strongly on nature.”
SAEON’s contribution towards a green economy would therefore largely resort under the theme of preventing the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. We do this by collecting and working with long-term environmental data, primarily sourced through in situ observations.
We manage our data, archive it, analyse it, serve it online and interpret it for its scientific meaning. Our data is governed by a data policy and is often expanded through the acquisition of data donations or access rights. In one instance we also support external data through the South African Data Centre for Oceanography .
SAEON renders a key environmental data-related service
SAEON renders a key environmental data-related service to both local and international organisations through the development of data portals that are interoperable. These data portals allow the user to access metadata and data from distributed data servers. Data portals have been developed for the South African Earth Observation System, the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas and, since very recently, also the South African BioEnergy Atlas.
Internationally, SAEON contributes to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, the World Data System, GEO-BON and initiatives working towards improvement of open standards.
SAEON promotes the expansion of knowledge and scientific understanding
Our researchers contribute scientific papers and other scientific outputs that promote the expansion of knowledge and scientific understanding. We support the wider research community through the provision of research platforms consisting of an array of long-term observation sites which are equipped with scientific instruments and for which long-term data is accessible. We have revived and restored such sites where necessary.
SAEON builds vital scientific capacity
We consult our stakeholders and we collaborate with many partners; in this way ensuring that our research and observation programmes remain relevant and able to contribute scientific evidence for policy development. Our support for research students, science schools and science networks contributes to the development of future scientists, a critical component of human development in South Africa.
Our growing direct contribution to the environmental knowledge base is a driver of environmental policy-making, and is in support of our government’s emphasis on evidence-based policy-making. Improvement of environmental policies eventually contributes to reduced loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Our contribution to the Green Economy is further enhanced by our support and provision of data to the wider research system as well as by our contribution to human development and capacity.
SAEON is gearing up to offer an environmental monitoring service to business, government and civil society
We would like to expand our contribution to the Green Economy by offering an environmental monitoring service to private business, government and civil society alongside our standard environmental research business. We believe that the need for national environmental monitoring services is established and growing.
Private companies often affect the environment and are affected by environmental conditions such as climate change and environmental degradation. This could be detrimental to their reputations and a risk to profitability. They need to continuously measure the environment in order to develop a knowledge base on which to assess business risks and devise management strategies. Although they employ environmental managers, environmental monitoring is not their key competency and can be expensive due to seasonality, therefore many businesses would rather outsource the work.
Government has a mandate from the constitution to guarantee a quality environment. Outcome 10 pertains to a sustainable environment. Government therefore needs to continuously measure and understand the environment in order to assess the effectiveness of policies and to create new evidence-based policies. Government sometimes fails to implement environmental monitoring appropriately and may therefore choose to outsource such programmes.
Concerned citizens often establish non-government organisations to lobby for and incentivise better environmental protection and justice. They need long-term environmental data to support their cases and programmes but do not have the internal capacity to collate the data. Environmental consultants employ highly skilled and expensive specialists and therefore aim for the top end of the environmental services supply chain. They seldom work with primary or quality data and produce rapid assessments.
The capital outlay and the transactional costs of having to establish monitoring capacity are barriers to entry into the environmental data market. Consequently one finds a disconnect in the market between the long-term environmental data needs of many organisations and the capacity of consultants to serve them. Even consultants have a need for an environmental monitoring service!
SAEON has the know-how to meet the growing needs of business, government and society for long-term environmental data through monitoring programmes. Our plan is influenced by the existence of freelance environmental monitoring teams in the USA and the Extended Public Works programmes. Traditionally environmental monitoring has been, and is, performed by trained scientists with tertiary qualifications. We hope to demonstrate that this may well be done more cost-effectively and efficiently by para-ecologists without tertiary qualifications.
Worldwide the drive towards a Green Economy and Sustainable Development is rising. Governments and companies acknowledge the social and economic imperatives of adaptation and mitigation with regard to climate change and environmental degradation. The role that an environmental monitoring service can play in South Africa is of political and economic importance.
Measure and manage your environment
The Constitution and many national strategies implore the government to measure and manage the environment nationally on behalf of society. In turn, society is increasingly insisting that businesses act socially responsible by limiting their environmental impact. The monitoring service will also be useful to municipalities, environmental research organisations, conservation bodies, environmental consultants and environmental activists.
