BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: INPUT SOUGHT ON DRAFT REPLACEMENT LEGISLATION

BIODIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: INPUT SOUGHT ON DRAFT REPLACEMENT LEGISLATION

• 24 May 2024
• Environmental Law
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment has gazetted a draft National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Bill for public comment by 23 July 2024. Intended to replace and repeal the 2004 Act, the draft Bill is underpinned by the White Paper on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s Biodiversity, 2023. It also seeks to address ‘a number of implementation challenges’ apparently identified since the Act’s commencement in January 2005.

According to a covering Government Gazette notice, once operationalised the proposed new piece of legislation will, among other things:

• introduce a ‘revised regulatory approach’ towards protecting species and ecosystems by way of:
  • additional listings provisions
  • alignment with international agreements (including more effectively regulating international trade in vulnerable species)
  • restrictions on wildlife trafficking, and
  • measures for managing the impact of invasive species
• facilitate the ‘more effective achievement’ of:
  • economic benefits across the biodiversity sector, and
  • beneficiation from indigenous biological resource bioprospecting
• introduce more ‘appropriate measures in response to climate change’, and
• accelerate sector transformation and equity.

At the time of writing, a memorandum on the draft Bill’s objects had yet to be posted on the department website.

• draft Bill
• White Paper
• 2004 Act, with separate amending legislation 

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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