News

Today we are marking World Environment Day, and the global theme for WED 2025 is “Beat Plastic Pollution”. Plastic pollution is worsening what the United Nations calls the ‘triple planetary crisis’, comprising climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Globally, over 400 million tons of plastic waste enter ecosystems each year, harming rivers, soils, and biodiversity. This distressing situation demands urgent action to combat plastic pollution and its detrimental impacts on human health, the economy and the environment.

Local and rural communities are located near waste sites or find themselves without waste infrastructure and consequently bear the brunt of this pollution. A large number of national parks under SANParks’ management are mainly located in rural areas. For this reason, with this year’s WED SANParks specifically highlighted the link between plastic pollution, negative impact of climate change and communities adjacent to its national parks.

SANParks is working to ensure that communities are not only included in WED events but positioned as leaders in environmental stewardship. This includes co-management models, youth-led cleanup initiatives, education in traditional zero-waste practices, and access to ancestral lands for ceremonial and ecological restoration activities. This also means that the communities will become leading figures in the fight against environmental nuisances like plastic pollution and its related consequences.

The SANParks Vision 2040, which advocates for an inclusive, people-centred conservation-driven network that balances biodiversity protection, social justice, and economic empowerment will also ensure that push backs against ills like plastic pollution becomes common course across communities.

SANParks also adopted a plan to incrementally phase out problematic waste streams (like plastic) in all its national parks’ operations. This is intended to result in a circular economy targeted at benefitting communities adjacent to national parks. In turn a practice of sustainable and environmentally friendly means will be promoted within SANParks.

Environmental protection cannot be separated from social justice. For many communities, land is not just a physical space. It is a living, sacred system. When plastic invades that space, it violates both nature and culture. To beat plastic pollution and protect our environment, we must work alongside communities who have always been original stewards of the land we all live on.