Durban - The Department of Mineral Resources cannot effectively regulate and mitigate the negative environmental impacts of mining, while having to encourage and promote mineral development.
This is according to the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER), which recommended that the responsibility for the environmental regulation of mines be removed from the department and that this be governed by environmental authorities.
It was part of the non-profit organisation’s submissions made before the South African Human Right’s Council’s national hearings on Underlying Socio-economic Challenges of Mining-Affected Communities in the country.
Held in Johannesburg on Wednesday the hearings were in response to numerous complaints received by the Commission about the negative consequences of mining.
Announcing the hearings, the commission stated that the mining industry faced various social, economic, cultural and political challenges.
“Despite the progressive and extensive regulatory mechanisms in place – aimed at promoting equitable access of resources to all the people of South Africa – significant levels of poverty, inequality and poor service delivery persist in mining-affected communities.”
In the run up to the hearings, the commission had held consultations with affected communities in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.
The centre’s activist lawyers, who help communities and civil society organisations realise their constitutional right to a healthy environment by advocating and litigating for environmental justice, had also conducted research in these provinces.
They found that there was poor environmental governance of mining. This caused violation of environmental rights in the mining sector.
“Some governance problems are related to the regulatory regime itself, and others to failure to implement the law.”
They found a lack of capacity within the Departments of Mineral Resources and Water and Sanitation had a severe impact on the efficacy of monitor and enforcement of the law.