BACKGROUND
South Africa has taken its first step
in developing an integrated State of the Environment (SOE)
reporting system by releasing the first national State of the
Environment report in 1999. The Department of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) then worked closely with the cities
of Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria to produce
their initial city SOE reports.
If there is a single message
that comes through from the national and city SOE
reports, it is that we require improved information
on the impacts of our activities on the environment. A
great deal of information is presently collected
across South Africa. Central government departments,
provincial governments, local authorities, research
institutes, businesses and NGO's all collect information
to assist environmental decision-making and to
satisfy different international reporting requirements.
However, this plethora of information does not
necessarily tell us all we need to know about our
environment and whether we are achieving sustainable
development or not. There are significant gaps
in the coverage of certain environmental issues,
and spatial and temporal gaps also exist. Much
of the information that is collected is inaccessible
or not available in a useful form. In some cases
the information that is collected is not relevant
to policy or legislative priorities. Information
is often inconsistent and cannot always be compared
across administrative boundaries, for example.
The information that is currently collected should
be well coordinated if we are to derive any value
from it for state of the environment reporting.
It is evident that in order
to report in an integrated manner on the condition
of our environment, from national through to local
level, we need access to improved environmental
information. The Department of Environmental
Affairs and Tourism has initiated a process to
address this need by developing a core set of environmental
indicators for state of the environment reporting.
This initiative forms the next step in the evolution
of an integrated state of the environment reporting
system. |
