North West MEC for Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism, Ms Motlalepula Rosho
Free State MEC for Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Ms Mamiki Qabathe
Honourable Mayors and Councillors
The most important partners in today’s event, the landowners of the Vredefort Dome World Heritage Site
Learners from the neighbouring schools
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
We are gathered here today in celebration of the beginning of a formal partnership between government and the landowners of the Vredefort Dome World Heritage Site aimed at ensuring that the integrity and Outstanding Universal Value of the site will be maintained in perpetuity. Today marks an outcome of four years of engagement and negotiations between officials of my department, relevant provincial and local government institutions and the landowners of the area towards the formal proclamation of this breath-taking landscape as South Africa’s eighth World Heritage Site.
This will give the area a formal status like other sites such as Robben Island, iSimangaliso, Mapungubwe, Cape Floral Region, Richtersveld, uKhahlamba Drakensberg, and the fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa (encompassing the Cradle of Humankind, Taung Skull and Makapan Valley).
The Vredefort Dome was inscribed on the prestigious United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage list in 2005 on the basis of having fulfilled selection criteria for being of Outstanding Universal Value to humankind. The Vredefort Dome is the oldest, largest, and most deeply eroded complex meteorite impact structure in the world. It is unarguably the world's greatest single, known energy release event. It contains high quality of and accessible outcrop sites which demonstrate a range of geological evidences of a complex meteorite impact structure.
A comprehensive comparative analysis with other complex meteorite impact structures demonstrated that it is the only example on earth providing a full geological profile of an astrobleme (impact structure or “star wound”) below the crater floor, thereby enabling research into the genesis and development of an astrobleme immediately post impact. This makes the Vredefort dome an excellent research site, it is therefore no wonder that the area has been and continues to be extensively studied by earth scientists from South Africa, Africa and the rest of the world since 1937.
Apart from its natural heritage values, the Vredefort Dome is also rich in ancient art forms. Evidence of early human occupation can be seen in the caves, rock shelters, pottery, rock engravings and rock art. The late Iron Age Stone Walled settlements built by Sotho and Tswana speakers form part of the rich cultural heritage of the Dome.
In the words of Dr Pallo Jordan, former Minister of Arts and Culture after the inscription of the site: “Vredefort is rich in the symbolic representation of our culture – it demonstrates the meeting between scientific and cultural philosophy and practice. At Vredefort, opportunities exist to engage in geological research through studying the existing rock art, explore and understand the rich culture of the Basotho, Batswana and Khoi San, and early evidence of human cognitive and artistic endeavour that their cultures boast – demonstrating that heritage can be a tool for nation-building”.
The rural and natural landscape of this property help to portray the magnitude of the ring structures (concentric rings) resulting from the rebound of the rock from the impact. This has resulted in the beautiful range of hills and the rich array of plants and animals. The area is considered important for birding, with over 450 identified bird species. It is also good habitat for rare animals such as rooikat, aardwolf, leopard, etc., making it a real tourist destination – with a huge potential for socio-economic development.
This ceremony could therefore not have come at a more opportune time as the State Parties to the 1972 United Nations Convention for the protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage are celebrating 40 years of the Convention’s existence. The theme for the anniversary is “World Heritage and Sustainable Development: the role of local communities”.
The theme calls upon all of us to ensure that our world heritage sites are not just established and preserved as “islands of plenty in a sea of poverty”, but claim their rightful place as reservoirs of our heritage that contribute immensely to local economic development. This is critically important more so this year in the context of the Rio+20 Conference which will take place in Rio de Janeiro next month, where the world will be assessing progress made in implementing sustainable development and redefining a new paradigm.
The African Continent has much to celebrate, having recorded several successes since the adoption of the 1st Cycle Periodic Report for Africa in 2002 by the World Heritage Committee. Since then, a further eight African States have ratified the Convention increasing the number of African States to forty five.
The Second Cycle Periodic Report for Africa in 2011 indicated that involvement of local industries, commercial actors and landowners can enhance the socio-economic conditions of local populations and might also improve management of the sites.
The African Continent still remains under-represented on the World Heritage List with less than 9% of all world heritage properties.
Therefore, challenges related to managing and conserving world heritage properties in the face of development pressures in the region need to be urgently addressed at policy and operational levels.
South Africa is proud to have spearheaded the establishment of the African World Heritage Fund through the Department of Arts and Culture as an initiative of the African Union and the African member States of UNESCO. The Fund is geared towards increasing the number of sites and preserving the heritage of existing ones on the African continent through supporting maintenance of national inventories of existing sites, their conservation, rehabilitation of properties in danger as well as support in preparing nomination dossiers for inscription onto the World Heritage List.
South African government was the first State to pledge R20 million towards this course and I am happy to report that, as from March 2012, the fund accumulated R88 million from various countries, with an additional R25 million in pending pledges.
Therefore, the sustainability of sites like the Vredefort Dome depends on the establishment of effective governance arrangements, development of appropriate management systems and provision of financial and human resources to support socio-economic development.
Hence the Department of Environmental Affairs is working with management authorities and relevant role players throughout the country in developing and implementing systems that will ensure continued and effective management of the World Heritage Sites and other protected area systems for the benefit of the present and future generations.
It is for this reason that as parties to this agreement with landowners, I will be embarking on a consultation process towards final proclamation of this area as a World Heritage Site. The Management Authority will be given full powers and resources to manage the area in terms of relevant policies in order to maintain the highest management standards in terms of an integrated management system and ensure full compliance with UNESCO World Heritage prescripts and South Africa’s World Heritage Convention Act of 1999.
The management system must address issues relating to preservation of archaeological sites, land use management and zoning, pollution and waste management, water resource and fire management.
As part of this management system, tourism development will be ensured in order to support local economic development. Effective partnerships will therefore be sought with relevant institutions and departments such as National Department of Tourism and Research Institutions, in order to ensure that this area is not only preserved, but presented to South Africans, Africa and the World for both present and future generations.
The signing of this Memorandum of Agreement will pave a way for the proclamation of the area and appointment of Management Authority which will serve as a precursor for the development of an Integrated Management Plan. I am informed that the process of developing an Environmental Management Framework has already commenced with a Project Inception Meeting held on 30 March 2012 and is due to be completed by 30 June 2013. The Centre for Environmental Management of the North West University will assist government and landowners in this project once facilitation is completed at the end of June.
We plan to report all these achievements to the World Heritage Centre through the State of Conservation report which is due in February 2013. This will include progress on implementation of the priority actions identified by the World Heritage Centre and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) during the 2008 and 2010 Reactive Monitoring Missions. Such report will be examined by the World Heritage Committee at its 37th session in 2013.
The Vredefort Dome Steering Committee, comprised of government and landowners, that was established in 2008 will ensure that this work is done and completed within the limited timeframes the State Party has. All this will also realise involvement of local communities in world heritage conservation and sustainable development activities and also achieve one of our government’s priorities of creating jobs for our communities and subsequent contribution to the economy of the provinces and that of the country in general.
The signing of the Vredefort Dome Memorandum of Agreement is a tangible expression of government’s commitment to working with all South Africans. This, therefore, means that:
“Working Together, we can do More”.
“Bo Mme le bo Ntate, “A re direng mmogo, re tswele pele” Mabogo dinku a thebana bagaetsho.
Dames en Here, “Deur saam te werk, kan ons meer uitring”
Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been an honour talking to you.
