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Chapter 11 - Environmental Law

Sectoral laws relating to the environment

Certain environmental laws apply to specific environmental issues such as land-use planning and development, natural resources and pollution control and waste management.

When dealing with an environmental issue falling into one of these three categories, you must consider both the sectoral legislation relevant to the issue and the framework legislation.

So, for example, if you were looking for laws relating to the development of a steel mill, you would look under Land-use, Planning and Development because the law relating to planning would be important. On the other hand if you needed information about how to apply for a commercial fishing permit or commercial forestry permit, you would look at the laws dealing with Natural Resources because fish and forests are natural resources and there are specific laws that deal with the allocation of fishing and forestry quotas and licenses. You may also need to consider framework legislation such as the EIA provisions contained in NEMA. [delete] If your quota or license application was refused you could consider using the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act to obtain reasons for the decision or to challenge the decision.

All relevant sectoral legislation has been listed according to the above three categories in the checklist at the end of this chapter. It is not possible to deal with the details of each of the laws listed. The checklist can be used to help you find out the laws that will apply in a particular situation. Once it has been established which laws apply, you can then follow the steps set out in the section on Ways to resolve environmental disputes. We have also listed relevant draft laws called Bills which the government is currently developing. These will replace many of the current laws in the future.