Section 24 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 Everyone has the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being; and to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation; promote conservation; and secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.

Programmes

The Board has approved a Work Programme for the Centre for 2010-11, which you can view here.

Pursuant to stakeholder consultation through workshops and a questionnaire, the Centre has four broad programmes of work:

  1. Promoting Participation:  A programme focused on assisting NGOs and CBOs in effective participation in environmental licensing and other decision-making processes, particularly environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes.
  2. Exercising Environmental Rights: A programme of legal services available to communities and civil society organisations to support the assertion of environmental rights in prioritised cases, including high quality legal advice on rights and remedies available in terms of environmental law; the pre-litigious assertion of rights, negotiation and dispute resolution; effective and streamlined reporting of non-compliance to competent authorities; and institution of legal proceedings on behalf of clients, as public interest litigant and as friend of the court.
  3. Environmental Law Information Hub: A knowledge management, information distribution and training programme focused on collating and making available environmental legal information and resources (a gap analysis has confirmed that no such central database of environmental legal resources currently exists). Features of this programme include a Virtual Environmental Law Library, made available to civil society through a website for the Centre at www.cer.org.za (the website you are looking at); and a monthly digital and hardcopy flyer on the latest environmental law developments, and (in due course) training and awareness-raising on environmental rights (future project).
  4. Internship Programme: The Centre will prioritise training and capacity-building within the NGO sector through an internship programme, in partnerships with NGO stakeholders, professional associations, local universities and international institutions.

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