regulations for South Africa
19 April 2006
"The South African experience continues to prove that the interests of
communities and the interests of the environment can never be separated and
that development and conservation need not be opposing end goals." This was how
Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism,
explained the approach of Government to the crafting of the new system of
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) for South Africa, which was launched by
the Minister in Pretoria on Wednesday morning.
"Since 1997, when we first introduced EIA regulations (under the Environment
Conservation Act of 1989), the 353 staff of National and Provincial Government
dealing with EIAs have received more than 43 600 separate applications, of
which about 4000 are still pending," said the Minister. "Our existing system of
EIAs has been of great value to the country helping authorities to make
informed decisions about development activities, allowing developers to ask the
right questions and often to save money, requiring that the voices of affected
communities be heard, and perhaps most crucially ensuring that negative impacts
on our environment and on human health are proactively identified, prevented,
or managed."
Addressing the need for the new regulations the Minister explained: "Almost
nine years of EIA experience has taught us some valuable lessons. We have seen,
for instance, that lack of clarity in the old regulations often led to
inconsistent application of the laws especially in different provinces. We have
also learned that the process itself is not as streamlined or flexible as it
could be often resulting in unjustified and unnecessary time and monetary
costs. The current public participation processes lacked proper guidance and
were often abused; there has been a growing need to align EIAs with our much
evolved environmental management law; and the content, quality, and
independence of EIA reports was sometimes problematic. We are continuing our
very constructive engagement with EIA practitioners on issues of self
regulation, quality, and independence but clearly the EIA system itself needed
a change."
"In planning the new regulations however, it has never been far from our
minds that the EIA system has a wide range of extremely involved and often
passionate stakeholders which is why our approach to changing the regulations
has been so extensively consultative," said the Minister. "Instead of the
single round of consultation prescribed for such changes, our Department has
undertaken two lengthy rounds of public comment, focus group workshops,
additional research, and extended discussions with other Departments,
institutions and practitioners. On the basis of these inputs from the public
there have been significant changes made to the draft of the regulations which
was published in January 2005. The new and final EIA regulations will therefore
be promulgated in the Government Gazette this Friday, 21 April 2006. This will
mean that the new regulations will come into effect on 1 July 2006, with the
exception of activities related to mining which will come into effect on 1
April 2007."
Pointing to some of the specific improvements that have been made the
Minister said: "Too often our existing EIA system has been bogged down by over
exhaustive work on relatively minor applications a good example is the more
than 2000 applications received last year by Gauteng alone for upgrades to
telecommunication masts. The list of activities requiring an EIA has been
thoroughly reworked into nine thematic areas like property development, energy
generation, and industrial activities. These have been further divided into two
schedules based on the nature and associated risk of the activity. Those in
schedule one, such as transformation of land to develop residential areas
larger than three hectares, will now be subject to only a Basic Assessment
process, whilst those in schedule two, like power stations, will require a
thorough assessment process (scoping and EIA). It is estimated that these
lists, and the introduction of development thresholds, will see the number of
EIA applications reduced by up to 20%."
"One of the most important features of the new regulations is the
introduction of compulsory timeframes to which our authorities must adhere,"
said the Minister. "Although to date 50% of EIA applications have been
finalised within half a year, almost 6.5% have taken more than two years with
some taking more than three years to finalise. These hold-ups have been the
result of a combination of both government and applicant delays, but under the
new regulations authorities will be obliged to deliver within 14 days for
purely administrative actions, within 45 days for review and decision making on
minor reports, and between 60 to 105 days for review and decision making on
complex reports. The result will be a faster and cheaper process, allowing
better concentration of our resources on the more complex and potentially
damaging activities something we consider critical in facilitating our
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA)."
A number of other important changes made by the new regulations were covered
in a more detailed presentation by officials of the Department. These include,
among others, provisions for class applications for multiple activities under
one process; the use of environmental management frameworks (EMFs) for
geographic areas and sector guidelines linked to exclusions; provisions
compelling the Minister or MECs to enter into agreements with other authorities
to avoid duplicate procedures; and the inclusion for the first time of mining
and related activities within the same system.
This detailed presentation and the regulations can be accessed on the
website of the Department at http://www.environment.gov.za. The Minister
also addressed the importance of transitional arrangements, explaining that all
applications lodged in terms of the old Environment Conservation Act
regulations would be finalised in terms of those regulations although
applicants would have the option of withdrawing and resubmitting under the new
regulations if they chose to do so.
Turning to the issue of government capacity the Minister said: "The revision
of these regulations has been done with great care, and following much research
to identify the biggest concerns. Precisely because this is a major step in a
complete system overhaul it is likely that it will take time for the full
benefits of the new regulations to be felt as we work to put into place the
necessary skills and capacity across the country. We will be holding one day
information seminars in all nine provinces and two national seminars in May and
June to help familiarise people with the new system. The end-result will be an
EIA system amongst the best in the world."
"There have been some who have implied that our re-examination of the EIA
system is somehow indicative of a weakened commitment to the EIA process," said
the Minister. "Nothing could be further from reality. The new EIA regulations
take the best of our old system, introduce new provisions to modernise and
streamline the processes, and will ensure that the application and
administration of our environmental laws is more efficient and effective. I
would like to take this opportunity to commend the staff members of our
Department and all organisations, institutions and individuals who has assisted
us in crafting these new regulations. Their outcome will be better for
conservation, better for communities, better for development and better for
South Africa."
Enquiries:
Riaan Aucamp
Cell: 083 778 9923
Issued by: Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
19 April 2006
