CHAPTERS
Each chapter is a collection of stories arranged by place, region, or theme. Some chapters’ stories are published in a bundle at one time, others will be published ad hoc as the project unfolds.
Ch 1 DUST BOWL
The recent years-long drought may have tipped parts of the Northern Cape towards an irreversible dust bowl, following decades of heavy grazing and mining. Dust Bowl investigates the recent desertification trends in Namaqualand: the causes; the consequences to conservation and livelihoods; and who holds the power to make the region’s development decisions. Plant poaching also emerges as a grave new threat to the region’s rare succulent diversity.
Ch 2 GOLDEN THREADS
Lives depend on keeping Africa’s old-growth grasslands healthy. They feed our herds, they’re water factories, and they mop up carbon pollution from the atmosphere, which stabilises the climate around the globe. Protecting them from overuse, invasive trees, and increasingly volatile weather extremes calls for collaborations that straddle national borders, private fence lines and the boundaries of over-burdened commonages.
Ch 3 OIL SPILL
It’s like an oil spill, only it’s alive. It breathes, it thirsts, it eats, it breeds. It replicates itself over and over and over again. When pine, gum or wattle trees escape the domesticity of a mono crop timber plantation, they can easily run feral. Many have. Through the decades, these species have spilled over grasslands, clogged up wetlands, and collected in thick eddies in streams and along river banks.
Ch 4 RED ALERT
Of all the dangerous weather events driven by global temperature increase, extreme heat is the most stealthy and lethal.
Red Alert investigates what extreme heat means for people living and working in informal contexts in South Africa. Stories are told through the experiences of families living in informal homes, minibus taxi drivers, first responders working in disaster preparedness, domestic workers and construction crews, and waste collectors.
Ch 5 MOTHER LODE
South Africa has a kind of gold that's more precious than the noble metal that helped make us the continental powerhouse that we are: its soils.
Ch 6 SMOKERS’ LOUNGE
(Text to come…)
Ch 5 MOTHER LODE
South Africa has a kind of gold that's more precious than the noble metal that helped make us the continental powerhouse that we are: its soils.
Ch 6 ‘WE, THE PEOPLE’
The opening lines of South Africa’s constitution — ‘We, the people’ — are the marrow in the bones of a sturdy democracy. The people will govern society collectively, by appointing an elected government. The democratic process calls for active, daily participation, not just showing up at the poling stations every five years. Here’s how citizens are doing it.
Ch 8 BE THE CHANGE
How can each of us act to change a system that’s so powerful and has so much momentum? What can one individual do?
In the words of Bill McKibben: stop being an individual. Yuval Noah Harari says the same: join a movement, or start a movement. Here’s how.
Ch 9 LIPPY WOMAN
Op eds and thought pieces in which the author gets lippy.