Questioning the Merit of Streamlining the Regulation of Activities in the Kruger National Park Through the Use of Environmental Management Instruments and Environmental Impact Assessment Exclusions
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/2522-6800/16743Keywords:
EIA streamlining, environmental impact assessment (EIA), environmental management instruments, exclusion, Kruger National Park, management plans, protected areas, public trustAbstract
The South African government has recently proposed a streamlined environmental impact assessment (EIA) process to fast-track decision-making and expedite a broad range of activities linked to the construction and upgrading of tourism infrastructure, maintenance, conservation and rehabilitation in the Kruger National Park (KNP). This proposal is founded on the adoption of the KNP’s Management Plan and a Generic Environmental Management Programme as environmental management instruments (EMIs) under the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998. The intention is to exclude South African National Parks (SANParks), the management authority for the KNP, from having to undertake any form of EIA and from having to secure an environmental authorisation from the competent authority prior to undertaking these activities. This article critically explores the merits of implementing such an approach in a state-owned national park established to protect the area’s sensitive and vulnerable ecosystem and species, viewscapes and sense of place. It highlights an array of issues and risks associated with the proposal which, if implemented, hold the potential to undermine the effective management and conservation of the KNP. These risks include a perceived fundamental misunderstanding of the role of management plans, EMIs and EIAs; the potential broad scope of the exclusion; the extent to which the exclusion potentially undermines key constitutionally entrenched principles of administrative justice; and anomalies in the array of proposed conditions built into the exclusion that may undermine the operation of these conditions as satisfactory safeguards.
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