Miss Earth or misadventure?
The new Miss Earth SA is a beauty with big plans, but is the pageant simply an exercise in “greenwashing”?
NAMED Miss Earth SA at Montecasino, Joburg, in midAugust, 24-year-old Ashanti Mbanga believes her desire to turn South Africa’s transport system into a mean, green traffic machine clinched this year’s crown. “The judges wanted to give me a chance to see what I would do in the area of creating sustainable transportation,” said the finalyear transport economics student.
Miss Earth SA calls itself a “national leadership programme” that has been grooming ambitious eco-angels like Mbanga for the past decade. It claims to have planted 22 000 trees over the past 10 years. This year’s initiatives include handing out stationery and bags made from recycled billboards to disadvantaged Gauteng schools, planting 30 000 beans and installing low-cost solar lighting in Duduza in Ekurhuleni.
In March, the programme won the young entrepreneur category in the Department of Trade and Industry’s SA Premier Business Awards. The SA winner goes on to represent South Africa at the international Miss Earth gala, an annual event that draws green beauty queens from across the world.
Launched in 2003 by glamorous Joburg “ecopreneur” Catherine Constantinides, the Miss Earth SA programme has guided around 200 women finalists between the ages of 18 and 28 through various green educational projects. After being chosen through a nationwide interview process, finalists are put through a seven-month bootcamp that involves conservation volunteer work, raising environmental awareness in communities and organising charity drives. The education project is led by Constantinides’s sister and pageant choreographer Ella Bella.
Despite all this preparation, the reigning queen was hesitant on some key environmental issues. She said she had not been “exposed to” acid-mine drainage, a threat to Gauteng water security, and could not comment on the issue.
“I’m not someone who was very environmentally conscious before I started this programme,” Mbanga said. “I know fracking is the extraction of natural gas from shale rock, but I’m not sure how much harm it does to our environment.” Her focus is on sustainable public transport. Were she made transport minister, she said she would use countries that are “doing much better than we are as a benchmark, such as the Netherlands”.
But she had not heard of the government’s new electric vehicle pilot project, which, according to Environment Minister Edna Molewa, was launched in February to “enable a significant uptake . . . of electric cars in the country”. In May, the government announced a national road map to boost electric vehicle production. Mbanga thought the government was “not in support of the electric car”, but said, “I am still learning and going through a couple more educational workshops.”
As an organisation that claims to produce environmental role models, the Miss Earth SA programme tries to align itself with exemplary green products. Mbanga has won a range of credible green clothes and products, such as the use of a Toyota Prius for a year, but the organisers could not explain what was eco-friendly about several designers sponsoring her clothes, how the air-conditioning she won would enable “a greener lifestyle”, nor how her prize jewellery would make her “glamorous and green”.
Mbanga said her prizes included beauty products from Miss Earth SA sponsor Garnier, and claimed these had been approved by animal-rights certification organisation Beauty Without Cruelty. But BWC denied this and a Garnier spokesperson admitted a “few new” ingredients are tested on rats and mice, but said “this represents less than 1% of all safety assessments”.
Ella Bella, who signs off her e-mails with “green kisses”, distanced the programme from conventional beauty pageants. She called it a credible leadership programme that produced empowered young women. “Some would say these ladies are not the typical beauty,” she said. “Catherine [Constantinides] said let us not just have one night of glamour, like other pageants, let’s create more work in communities.” Yet a recent Miss Earth SA press release reads: “What better role model than a beautiful and intelligent young South African woman?” The mission statement for the international event reads: “The pageant is a search for the most beautiful women of the Earth to serve as role models.”
“The skills, experience and passion for the environment that we ignite within them will never dissipate,” said Ella Bella. Yet only two of the 11 winners of the crown so far appear to have pursued full-time environmental careers: Kayan Leung, an environmental lawyer employed by Lawyers for Human Rights, and Constantinides herself, who won the first Miss Earth SA title in 2003 shortly before acquiring the rights to manage the South African leg of
The organisers could not explain how the air-conditioning she won would enable ‘a greener lifestyle’, nor how her prize jewellery would make her ‘glamorous and green’
the global event. Programme directors could not say what several former Miss Earth SAs were currently doing. TELL US: Is Miss Earth SA a green swindle, or an important leadership programme that has touched lives through green education? E-mail walterst@sundaytimes.co.za