by Rachael Millson
This last month has seen a huge community effort in our community, here at the Southern tip of South Africa. We’ve been collaborating with Poison-free Peninsula, national organisation Unpoison SA, and numerous other communities who have been working to counter the City of Cape Town’s plans to spray chemical herbicides onto streets and sidewalks across the City. In order to control the ‘weeds’ on roadsides, the City has contracted for the use of KleenUp, whose main ingredient is glyphosate. Glyphosate, most commonly known to be the main ingredient in Monsanto (now Bayer’s) product RoundUp has been under scrutiny since 2015 when the International Agency on Research on Cancer found glyphosate to ‘probably’ cause cancer. Since then many countries have restricted use, with some looking to ban it completely.
Not only is glyphosate dangerous for human health, it negatively impacts soil health and biodiversity. Glyphosate binds tightly to soil. It can persist in soil for up to 6 months depending on the climate and the type of soil it is in and has been found to kill populations of micro-organisms and fungi, changing the balance of soil ecosystems, in turn affecting longer-term plant health.
Here where we live in the iconic Cape Peninsula, there is a concentration of unique and rich biodiversity and eco-system diversity, found no where else in the world, and in Scarborough we are also guardians of a critically endangered wetland that supports precious populations of plants, amphibians and birds. Spraying glyphosate had to be stopped!
We are delighted that through a huge community effort of demonstrating the lack of support for chemical spray, and willingness within the Community to take over the responsibility for weed control on roads, Scarborough and Misty Cliffs are two suburbs that have been added to the City’s spray exemption schedule. It’s a huge local win, and at the same time, there’s lots more work to be done to remove glyphosate and other chemical herbicides entirely from South Africa. It’s still being used prolifically by the City on roads, in school grounds, on golf courses and within our food systems.
If you are interested in joining in the campaign to Unpoison South Africa, get in touch with Anna at unpoisonsa@gmail.com.
Gaia Speaking 