Mining contributes significantly to the economic development of South Africa,
contributes to pollution and other negative environmental impacts. Section 24 of the
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 (Constitution) places a duty on
government to, amongst others adopt legislative measures to protect the
environment, prevent pollution and degradation, and secure sustainable
development, while promoting justifiable economic and social development.
Government responded with the introduction of new acts or the amendment of
existing acts most of which require an authorisation process as a “command and
control” tool to enforce environmental governance within the mining sector. The
abovementioned legislative development will be discussed from a historical
perspective up to the current developments. The research aims to attempt to align
the authorisation process pertaining to mining. The mining life cycle will be illustrated
and the authorisation requirements for each of the mining life cycle processes will be
discussed alongside its challenges such as fragmentation, lack of capacity in
government sectors, lack of communication and cooperative governance within
government. The lack of focus within the authorisation requirements will be
deliberated. To avoid the negative consequences of the current authorisation
processes such as duplication, unnecessary time delays and the stifling of economic
growth, an investigation into how the various fragmented authorisation processes
can be aligned into a single streamlined authorisation process which will contribute to
the sustainable development within South Africa will be made. / MPhil (Environmental Law and Governance), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nwu/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/13960 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Oosthuizen, Wessel Johannes |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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