HIGHVELD PRIORITY AREA: REVISED AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN GAZETTED

HIGHVELD PRIORITY AREA: REVISED AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN GAZETTED

• 26 March 2025
• Environmental Law
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment has gazetted a ‘second generation’ air quality management plan for implementation across the Highveld priority area (HPA).

Released in draft form in July 2024 for public comment, the revised plan follows a review of its 2012 iteration and associated studies on the negative health impact of poor ambient air quality in the HPA. This is noting that, according to the new plan’s executive summary, air quality in the area:

• ‘has consistently exceeded national ambient air quality standards’, and that
• the HPA is one of the world’s ‘major’ nitrogen oxides ‘hotspots’.

Among other things, because of ‘population characteristics and socio-economic conditions’ Ekurhuleni city and the Govan Mbeki local municipality were identified as the HPA’S most vulnerable areas.

There are now 49 monitoring stations in the HPA, an increase of 26 since the first plan was published. The executive summary nevertheless notes an apparently ongoing need for ‘capacity building’ in the Mpumalanga and Gauteng provincial departments concerned.

• revised plan

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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