| Opportunity Lost |
| Monday, 24 May 2010 20:50 |
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Source: www.businessday.co.za Johannesburg SA is said to be a world leader in environmental legislation, and the country is widely respected for the conditions it has created for the establishment of sustainable industries based on biodiversity. Yet habitat degradation, particularly destruction of wetlands, is accelerating towards disaster as human development and the environment come increasingly into conflict. It is hoped the National Environment Laws Amendment Bill now before Parliament will change that with a range of mainly punitive measures to give the state's good intentions greater substance and authority. That must be welcomed as existing provisions for retribution are so out of touch with the consequences of crimes against the environment that they invite transgression. The problem is the bill would tackle only half the issue. It may satisfy a sense of justice among some, but it does not amend what environmentalists regard as a fundamental flaw in SA's conservation legislation. Specifically, the approach reflected in the National Environmental Management Biodiversity Act (Nemba) disregards habitat degradation, which is the greater threat to biodiversity, in favour of a list of threatened species. Abhorrent as the idea may seem, the protection of a single species, no matter how attractive and how critically endangered it may be, must be secondary to the interests of biodiversity and the health of the system. No environmental authority likes to preside over the extinction of species, no matter how insignificant, but even the most fervent of activists must acknowledge that environmental health must ultimately be about human development and human life. Nemba perpetuates the illusion that the conservation of headline species contributes meaningfully to the preservation of biodiversity and the conservation of habitats. And the proposed bill will bring us no closer to reconciling human needs with that of biodiversity. The promoters of the bill have lost an opportunity to remedy that. Source: www.businessday.co.za |
