Cape Town Green Map's blog

The City of Cape Town, through its Air Quality Managment Plan (AQMP), aims to be "the city with the cleanest air in Africa" and underpinning this plan are eleven key aims, one of which is the control of vehicle emissions.

Brown haze

The brown haze that appears on certain windless winter days when a temperature inversion layer traps pollutants has become a depressingly familiar sight.

pic: Bruce Sutherland

February 2nd marks the celebration of World Wetlands Day, the date of the signing of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 1971. It is so named as it took place in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The convention is an intergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources.

Turtle SA

With the recent suspension of Big Bay's Blue Flag status we thought we'd take a closer look at what all the fuss is about a Blue Flag Beach.

What is a Blue Flag beach?

The Blue Flag is a voluntary eco-label awarded to over 3450 beaches and marinas in 41 countries across Europe, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada and the Caribbean.

Until recently it has been nearly impossible for a South African household earning below R10 000 to buy a home of their own, let alone a home that is friendlier for the environment and the owners' pockets. The City of Cape Town, in partnership with Standard Bank and Bitol Developments, recently won a South African Housing Foundation Merit Award for its new "gap" housing project called Leo Mews situated in Leonsdale, Elsies River.

Consultancies in the environmental or earth science fields provide services that are often used to minimise the impact on the environment for new developments. But how much consideration is given to the fact that these companies activities have an ecological footprint themselves?

Energy efficiency has become increasingly important to property owners because of rising electricity tariffs and the medium-term shortage of South Africa’s electricity supply. The economic recession, forthcoming legislation and the need to reduce our carbon emissions all add up to the need for a concerted effort to find solutions to improve energy efficiency – particularly large energy users.

pic: Bruce Sutherland

The UN has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB), and South Africa, with its wealth of natural treasures, is set to mark the event along with the rest of the world.
 
The year-long celebration of the variety of life on earth is driven by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), under the slogan Biodiversity is life, Biodiversity is our life.
 

pic: Alastair Rae

Our environment is changing fast as a result of changes in the global climate and also because of land-transforming human activities. Our ability to weather these changes depends on our capacity to detect the first signs of them.

A 150-turbine wind farm capable of generating 300MW of electricity is planned for near Caledon.

The Caledon Wind Farm would span 15 farms covering an area of 3500 hectares within the Theewaterskloof Muncipality approximately 16km west of Caledon and 7km east of Botrivier.

Each turbine will be able to generate between 2 and 3.6 MW, stand 80 metres tall to the hub and have a 40m blade. Additional infrastructure required will include powerlines, access roads and a new electricity substation.

It's already a week into 2010 and about time to check in on those New Years resolutions...

The tradition to make resolutions at the start of the year goes back a long way - all the way to the time of the Babylonians around 2000 BC when festivals were held at the time of the spring and autumn equinoxes. Back then spring heralded the beginning of a new year as it was the time to begin the annual cycle of sowing crops once again. The beginning of the Babylonian New Year was also marked by paying off debts and returning borrowed goods.