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Environmental
management involves protecting the resources that maintain our quality of life, and using them
wisely to maximise opportunities for sustainable growth and
development. Good environmental management is possible with proper governance and
the right people to do the work.
The National Environmental Management Act
(NEMA), guided by the South African Constitution, describes the essential requirements
for effective environmental governance and proposes steps to
achieve co-operative and co-ordinated governance. The Act sets
principles for management of the environment to which all organs of
State must comply with in decision making.
Indicators for environmental management are
generally integrated indicators that reflect aspects of the
political, economic, social and biophysical environments.
These indicators are extremely important as they will assist the
Northern Cape in understanding the drivers of environmental change.
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| Budget and expenditure |
The reality within which the Northern Cape's
budget is planned takes into account the national priorities in the
areas of health, welfare and education. Secondly, it focuses on
specific interventions aimed at economic growth, e.g. in rural
infrastructure and poverty alleviation. Given these priorities,
the budget allocated to environmental management will indicate the
importance placed on the environmental agenda for
the Northern Cape.
The provision of adequate resources for
environmental management, research, education and awareness shows
political commitment to these issues. Many of the policy
failures for environmental management relate to the constraints of
implementation. These constraints tend to be rooted in a lack of
financial resources and political commitment. The
indicator selected is:
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| Capacity |
Capacity for environmental management
is the availability of adequately trained personnel who are
able to fulfil their designated functions within the
Province. In many instances lack of capacity makes it difficult
to manage environmental challenges or implement and monitor
environmental management policies,
plans and programmes.
Capacity problems will place serious
constraints on provincial government in meeting their
responsibilities. In order to carry out the functions of
government efficiently, capacity constraints need
to be reduced.
The filling of all government posts does not
completely reflect the ability of the Province to meet environmental
management needs. Other factors such as over-utilisation and
inequitable distribution of staff and inadequately trained
personnel are critical. Whilst these issues are important
they are fairly
difficult to monitor.
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| Consideration of environment in strategic
initiatives |
The Municipal Systems Act requires all
municipalities to undertake a planning process to produce an
Integrated Development Plan (IDP), to ensure that the quality of
life of their citizens is improved. The new role for local
government includes the provision of basic services, creation of
jobs, promoting democracy and accountability and eradication of
poverty. Local government is required to fulfil several legislative
planning and development processes which can have an impact
on the environment.
A significant amount of financial resources
for the implementation of projects within an IDP lie within National
and Provincial sector departments. The analysis of the IDP
provides guidance to the departments as to where to allocate
resources. The commitment to environmental management can therefore
be measured through the integration of environmental
considerations in IDPs:
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| Integrated Environmental Management
(IEM) tools and systems |
Activities that potentially have an impact
on the environment, socio-economic conditions or on cultural
heritage should, by law, obtain authorisation from the provincial,
or in some cases the national, government department dealing with
environmental management, before the activity can be
implemented. There are a number of IEM tools that can be
used in the assessment of such activities, e.g. health impact
assessment,
cumulative effects assessment.
The use of two IEM
tools is reviewed within the Northern Cape:
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).
While EIA aims to assess the impacts of a proposed activity or
development on the environment, SEA aims to identify the
environmental opportunities and constraints to development within a
region. SEA can therefore strengthen and streamline the
EIA process. The
indicator selected is:
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| Co-operative governance |
The South African Constitution creates three
spheres of government: national, provincial and local. Each
has legislative and executive powers, although most are exercised
concurrently between national and provincial government or devolved
to local government. The principles of co-operative governance
enable these three spheres to co-operate e.g. ensuring
co-ordination, sharing of resources, and involvement
of local communities.
Co-operative governance seeks to achieve
unity of vision, destiny and purpose between people with a range of
interests and opinions. This can be made possible through
having agreements, partnerships and fora for environmental management issues.
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| Disaster management |
As part of meeting its responsiblities, the Northern Cape
Province should be capable of managing disasters (natural and human
induced). Disaster management in South Africa is co-ordinated by the
National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC), which currently resides
with the Department of Provincial and Local Government.
The Disaster Management Act makes provision for a National
Disaster Management Framework. A disaster management plan has
not been completed at the national and provincial level. At the
local level municipalities are required to integrate development
planning and disaster management in their IDPs. This indicator
measures:
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