Golf

You miss a bit of marching and everything changes. We now have a few new marchers with us: Geoff and Kate from South Africa, and Dwijen from Bangladesh. It was good to start getting to know them on the suburban walk out of Birmingham to Halesowen on Wednesday 29 August.

As we entered Halesowen I was talking to Kate as we passed through a golf course, one of many on our travels. I commented about the number of golf courses and Kate said "Terrible aren't they."

Kate told me that there has been huge golf course development in South Africa in recent years, primarily for tourists. The golf courses often prevent local fishing communities from having access to the sea. Golf courses also take large amounts of irrigation, stealing valuable groundwater from local people.

Golf course developments are justified because they bring economic growth, but economic growth is not a measure of quality of life. Another example of the global economy acting in the interests of money, and against the rights and livelihoods of people.