Day Zero

Our most southerly city Cape Town, is sitting on the edge of disaster, by being the first major city to reach Day Zero for having no water, well not quite the first major city as I remember Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, a few times running out of water. With the City of Cape Town declaring Level 6B Water restrictions after consecutive years of drought in the region, another city Port Elizabeth is not far behind. Didn't someone predict that the next major war will be over water?

Although we are having rain in Johannesburg where I live, we are sitting on Level 1 Water Restrictions and hopefully we won't get as bad as where Cape Town is today, there by the grace of God go I. Let it rain, let it rain.

Anyway why is my post about Day Zero? Well I had a board meeting this morning at the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Gardens, and afterwards I took a stroll up to the waterfall and took a few photos of the Witpoortjie waterfall for ARMOUR, the group Action for Responsible Management of Our Rivers, as they requested some from me a few weeks back. It got me thinking, it is raining now and it seems that we have plenty of water but what are we doing to save water? For example not even 6 months back there was raw sewerage flowing down this very waterfall. How quickly can things change. We are living in this false bubble where we believe that it can't happen to us.

In all the toilets at the Bot Gardens, SANBI, the South African National Biodiversity Institute, has put up Water Savers' signs but I hear that at V&A Waterfront in the very heart of the Cape Town, they have not even one sign telling visitors to use water sparely, not one. Shame on the V&A Waterfront and its owners Growthpoint and the Public Investment Corporation, the South African government's pension fund company looked after by the ANC's appointed Finance Minister. Does that mean the national government of South Africa want to see Cape Town reach Day Zero?

So it seems that it is business as usual for the Western Cape's tourism industry while the Cape Townonians face a disaster of note. Surely the City of Cape Town can at least balance the big business interests with their own citizens who pay their taxes. This is something that only together we can beat.

Sigh, enough ranting about water, here in a wet Bot Gardens, the animal life enjoying the rain, such as this damselfly sunning itself during a break in the clouds.