Goldman Environmental Prize laureate dies in South Africa crash

In South Africa, 70-year-old environmental activist Desmond D’Sa, co-founder of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) and a 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize laureate, died in a car crash. The accident occurred on October 29 on the southern coast of KwaZulu-Natal province while he was travelling to the organisation’s office. Daily Maverick reports.

Fight for clean air

D’Sa helped establish SDCEA about 30 years ago. The organisation primarily defended the right of residents in southern Durban to clean and safe air. The activist was born in Cato Manor, and in the mid-1960s his family was relocated to Wentworth, an area surrounded by oil refineries, chemical plants and a paper mill.

In the 1980s, D’Sa was involved in creating the Wentworth Development Forum. In 1995, he and his SDCEA associates addressed Nelson Mandela during the president’s visit to Wentworth for the opening of an expansion at the Engen fuel oil refinery. They raised the issue of high rates of leukaemia, cancer and asthma in Wentworth, Merebank and Bluff.

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Following the protests, an intergovernmental plan was developed that provided for proper air pollution monitoring and a gradual reduction of industrial emissions in residential areas of southern Durban.

Farewell in Durban

At memorial events at Austerville Hall and Christ the King Catholic Church in Wentworth, colleagues described D’Sa as a principled and persistent defender of communities. SDCEA chairperson Verushka Memdatt said that he knew every street in Wentworth and Austerville and listened to local residents’ complaints.

groundWork co-founder Bobby Peek said that D’Sa’s campaigns extended beyond Durban and helped build solidarity with environmental activists in other polluted regions of South Africa, as well as in the Niger Delta and on the banks of the Mississippi River. D’Sa also took part in protests against plans for offshore oil and gas exploration off the coast of KwaZulu-Natal.

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