Dennis Laidler's
Environment Page
Last updated
13/04/05
The main focus of this environmental section is to set up a comprehensive set of links that I use in my daily work.
I don’t intend to duplicate all the links I know of but will try to link to sites that have their own comprehensive sets of environmental links.
Our Departmental Web page is pretty pathetic so let’s see if I can do better myself!
I am Deputy Director: Biodiversity Management in the Western Cape Provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning. I obtained a BSc in Zoology and Botany from the University of Cape Town in 1975 and began my career as Zoologist at Johannesburg Zoological Gardens in 1977. I obtained a BSc (Hons) Zoology from the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) in 1980.
I joined Cape Nature Conservation as a researcher, in 1981. There I progressed from botanical research to specializing in conservation data management, establishing Cape Nature Conservation’s computerized information systems for threatened flora and fauna. I was appointed as Assistant Director in Port Elizabeth in 1992 where I was responsible for Cape Nature Conservation’s Integrated Environmental Management function as well as CNC’s pilot Geographic Information Systems (GIS) programme.
I was appointed as Assistant Director of Cape Nature Conservation’s Environmental Impact Management Unit in Cape Town at the end of 1996 and was promoted to Deputy Director of the Unit in 1999.
In April 2000 Cape Nature Conservation became a Statutory Board and 5 colleagues and I remained in provincial service to form the embryo of what became the Chief Directorate of Environmental Management of the Department of Environmental and Cultural Affairs and Sport. The Chief Directorate now comprises two Directorates totaling some 104 officials.
In 2001 I moved from Deputy Director: Integrated Environmental Management to Deputy Director Environmental Policy and Planning. In August 2002 the Chief Directorate was amalgamated with the Chief Directorate of Development Planning to become the Western Cape Provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning.
Recently, on the 1st of April 2004, taking advantage of a major departmental restructuring I took on the post of Deputy Director: Biodiversity Management. This post has two major functions. Firstly Biodiversity Policy and Planning and secondly People and Biodiversity. I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge of resurrecting what was essentially a defunct sub-directorate and re-establishing Biodiversity issues at the core of the Department.
To contact me officially:
Phone: +27 21 483 3925
Email: dlaidler@pgwc.gov.za
PBag X9086
Cape Town
8000
South Africa
Departmental
team building
outing at
Anysberg
Nature Reserve
2001
I have the great fortune to live and work in the Fynbos Biome.
To appreciate the significance of this I have included the a quote by the father of botanical taxonomy, Carolus Linne (Carl Lineaus) below:
Carolus Linne maintained an active correspondence with the world at large, but most especially with the source of botanical material and knowledge. Among his important contacts in the Cape, to which he had dispatched Thunberg in 1773, was Ryk Tulbagh, Governor of the Dutch East India Company's settlement at Cape Town. Linneaus was overwhelmed by the richness and beauty of the Cape flora, writing to Tulbagh:
"May you be fully aware of your fortunate lot in being permitted by the Supreme Disposer of events to inhabit" and, "also to enjoy the sovereign control of that Paradise on Earth, the Cape of Good Hope, which the beneficent Creator has enriched with his choicest wonders. Certainly if I were at liberty to change my fortune for that of Alexander the Great or of Solomon, Croesus or Tulbagh, I should without hesitation prefer the latter."