‘One environmental system’: aligning the laws on the environmental management of mining in South Africa

Abstract

The South African Parliament recently enacted laws that give effect to ‘one environmental system’ for the environmental management of mining. The single environmental system will replace the fragmented, contradictory and ineffective model constituted by rules and institutional arrangements that developed in separate mineral development and environmental laws. The single environmental system, framed by the overarching concept of cooperative government in the South African Constitution, shifts the statutory authority for environmental management of mining to the environmental laws, but gives effect to a unique splitting of implementing authority between the authorities responsible for mineral resources and environment respectively. Concerns however remain over whether the new system adequately honors the constitutional environmental right and respects the original legislative and executive authority of the provincial sphere of government.