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 Department’s branding exercise and buzzwords fail the environment – AfriForum

Soundbite: Marais de Vaal (English)

Klankgreep: Marais de Vaal (Afrikaans)

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s (DFFE) new five-year strategic plan to address a range of environmental priorities is little more than a branding strategy to polish South Africa’s image ahead of the G20 summit in November. AfriForum says that in reality, it offers no concrete solutions to the country’s deepening environmental crisis.

The plan that was recently presented to Parliament’s Select Committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Mineral Resources, sets out ambitious priorities, from the Regulatory Efficiency Strategy for Environmental Turbocharge (RESET) programme to streamline environmental regulation, to plans to elevate iconic parks under the so-called KISS initiative, and promote ethical and sustainable wildlife management under the Fair Industry for Lions, Leopards and Rhinos (FILLER) initiative.

“These glossy acronyms and international buzzwords may align with the African Unions’ (AU) Agenda 2063 and the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, but they only highlight how out of touch the DFFE is with reality,” says Marais de Vaal, AfriForum’s Advisor for Environmental Affairs.

“Communities across the country continue to suffer from polluted air, collapsing water systems and ecosystems degraded by uncontrolled mining. The Department deftly steers clear of confronting these failures head-on. The new strategy shows little political will to tackle the structural problems at the heart of our failing environmental governance.”

AfriForum argues that by focusing on speeding up environmental assessments under the banner of efficiency, the DFFE sets a dangerous precedent to streamline approval processes over rigorous scrutiny. Furthermore, the Department has no clear strategy to bolster compliance and enforcement, expand the Green Scorpions’ capacity or hold major polluters, notably failing municipalities and industrial giants like Eskom, accountable.

It is also clear that the Department makes no attempt to reform the regulatory framework that allows the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE), the very department that promotes mining, to decide on environmental authorisations for mining projects. Meanwhile, the Department is not even paying attention to the fact that South Africa continues to miss its own air quality and waste diversion targets.

“AfriForum would like to see the Department take its role as watchdog and regulator seriously, but instead it chooses to downplay the country’s environmental crises for the sake of political palatability,” says De Vaal.

The DFFE’s constitutional mandate is to prevent pollution and ecological degradation, to promote conservation and to ensure ecologically sustainable development. AfriForum will continue to push for accountability and use all available channels to ensure that constitutional environmental rights are not reduced to empty promises. Citizens deserve a regulator willing to fearlessly uphold its mandate and protect the country’s natural heritage for current and future generations.

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