WEDNESDAY, 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 9 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 3 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 3
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 60-105 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 (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, amongst 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 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 of our Department and all
organisations, institutions and individuals who
have 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.”
