Sven Peek interviewed by David Wiley May 7, 2006 Durban, South Africa.
"One of our goals in 1997 ... was that, in five years' time, when there is a pollution problem in South Africa ... people should be phoning SDCEA rather than government."
Peek talks about the need to build institutional capacity to address social issues over the long term and the successes of the South Durban community in accomplishing this on the issue of environmental justice.
Sven (Bobby) Peek grew up in the Coloured township of Wentworth in South Durban, an area surrounded by oil refineries and other chemical industries. He became active in the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), and he received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1998. He now directs Groundwork, a national South African environmental justice organization affiliated with Friends of the Earth.
