Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
landscapes and from which flow natural goods and services (Costanza and Daly 1992;
Millennium Assessment 2005). From an economic perspective, RNC builds on the
idea that natural capital is a stock variable that operates like all other stock variables, in-
cluding financial, manufactured, social, and human capital stock. RNC is, therefore,
any investment in maintaining and augmenting the stock of natural capital that pro-
duces flows of goods and services. Just as governments express economic development
through investment in the built environment and the development of built infrastruc-
ture, so too should an investment in natural infrastructure be seen as an investment to
further economic development and well-being for present and future generations
(Blignaut 2009). This could provide a paradigm shift in an era where natural capital
limits economic development (see also chap. 14, this volume; Costanza and Daly
1992; Daly and Farley 2005; Aronson et al. 2006; Dresp 2006; Farley and Daly 2006).
Restoring natural capital focuses on achieving both the replenishment of natural
capital stocks and the improvement in human welfare, and is, therefore, a broader
concept than ecological restoration, which is defined as “the process of assisting the
recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed” (SER 2004,
3). Ecological restoration can bring about economic growth in the sense of an in-
crease in financial or in-kind income since replenishment of natural capital stocks
will increase the flow of goods and services that accrue from it. From here on we focus
on the ARISE program as a restoration project.
The ARISE Program
ARISE (http://eoi.co.za/) was conceived in 1999 as a program consisting of a multi-
tude of site-specific projects with the purpose of investing in natural capital restoration
on communal land. The program was intended to contribute to (1) job creation, (2)
economic empowerment of rural Africans, and (3) ecological restoration of degraded
landscapes. It was seen as an opportunity to facilitate the transition from the “second”
(informal) to the “first” (formal) economy (Jahed et al. 2006) by providing alternative
energy, improving land management, inducing ecological restoration, maintaining
restored areas, creating labor-based infrastructure, and inducing nature-based tourism
(Jahed et al. 2006). Of these only the ecological restoration component was initiated
through an implementing agency under contract to the Department of Environmen-
tal Affairs and Tourism (DEAT). Under the terms of the contract, the company that
won the bid had to report on its activities every three months. One of the main crite-
ria for evaluation was the number of jobs created by the project. Other criteria in-
cluded whether standard financial procedures had been followed, whether the ad-
ministration was informed about progress, and whether such progress was in line with
the stated business plan. Since ARISE was considered a poverty-alleviation program,
strict procedures had to be followed, including allocation of 70 percent of the pro-
gram budget to wages for the villagers.
The ARISE program commenced in November 2004 with two pilot projects that
lasted until March 2007, one in the greater Giyani area in the northeastern part of the
Limpopo Province (South Africa's northernmost province) adjacent to Kruger Na-
