The environmental governance sphere in South Africa is fragmented. This
fragmentation is exacerbated in the provinces. Fragmentation manifests in various
ways, including, inter alia, structural fragmentation between the various spheres and
line functions of government, fragmented environmental legislation which is silo-based
and issue-specific, jurisdictional overlaps, and duplication of procedures and
processes. Fragmentation poses several disadvantages and may ultimately hamper
effective and sustainable service-delivery by government. The problem of
fragmentation forms the crux of this study. The principal objective of this thesis is
accordingly to investigate possible solutions to address fragmentation and to propose
a more sustainable strategy to achieve integration of currently fragmented
environmental governance efforts in South Africa and the North-West Province
(NWP). The NWP has specifically been chosen as a case study in this regard since
problems of fragmentation are exacerbated in the provinces.
The first step in this thesis is to analyse the theoretical concept of sustainability in
order to establish the eventual objective of what integrated environmental governance
efforts should achieve. The concept of fragmented governance and possible generic
reasons for fragmentation, including unco-operative and unsustainable organisational
behaviour, are also investigated to highlight the nature and disadvantages of
fragmentation and other factors that may contribute to it. A further component of the
theoretical analysis includes an investigation of the concepts of integrated, or holistic
governance, and an investigation of the concepts integrated environmental
management (IEM), co-operative environmental governance (CEG), and integrated
pollution prevention and control (IPPC). These concepts are investigated in order to
ascertain the possible solutions for integration that they may pose.
Secondly, this thesis investigates the current state of the fragmented environmental
governance regime in South Africa and the NWP. The extent and reasons for
fragmentation are discussed; and unco-operative organisational behaviour patterns in
the national, provincial and local spheres of government are investigated. The
concepts of IEM, CEG and IPPC, as they are established in South African law, are
also discussed.
Thirdly, this study investigates integrated approaches to environmental governance in
the international sphere by way of a comparative study. For this purpose, the relevant
provisions of the European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Directive,
1996 are discussed. The comparative study is concluded with an investigation of the
provisions of the Directive as they are applied in national legal frameworks in the EU,
with specific reference to Finland and the Netherlands. The main objective of this
part of the study is to ascertain whether established solutions for integration of
governance efforts are available in practice, and if so, to what extent they are
employed to address fragmentation.
This study concludes with recommendations on how the fragmented environmental
governance sphere in South Africa may be integrated. These include short-, medium-and
long-term scenarios, namely: a less radical strategy which must aim to optimise
the current environmental governance regime by employing established concepts such
as IEM, CEG and IPPC; a more radical strategy, which aims to establish a single act
to regulate all procedural aspects relating to environmental governance and
authorisations, and a single authority that is responsible for all procedural aspects in
terms of the act; and an extremely radical strategy, which aims to establish a one-stop
environmental governance shop, with a single act regulating all procedural and
substantive aspects, and a single lead agent responsible for regulation in terms of this
act. / Thesis (LL.D. (Estate Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/965 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Kotzé, Louis Jacobus |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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