Centre for Environmental Rights – Advancing Environmental Rights in South Africa

The end of February is the time of year when many taxpayers contemplate charitable donations. If you are thinking of making a donation to a worthy cause before the end of the tax year, please consider supporting the work of the Centre for Environmental Rights. We are a registered public benefit organisation, and issue Section 18A certificates to all donors on request.

In the past two years, CER attorneys have done the following:

• Exposed the failure of many prominent South African listed companies to disclose their non-compliance with environmental laws to shareholders in Full Disclosure: The Truth about Corporate Environmental Compliance in South Africa. By the time we published the second edition of Full Disclosure in 2016, six companies assessed in 2015 had improved their reporting and disclosure on environmental compliance in their annual reports.
• Successfully motivated for a new requirement in the King IV Report on Corporate Governance^TM for more detailed environmental compliance reporting. This means that when government inspectors find violations of environmental laws, companies will no longer be able to hide this from their shareholders.
• Published Zero Hour: Poor Governance of Mining and the Violation of Environmental Rights in Mpumalanga: a key report describing government’s failure to ensure that mining companies comply with the law, which is causing unprecedented environmental degradation and chronic health problems in Mpumalanga – with dire consequences for communities, food and water security, and for South Africa’s future prosperity.
• Working in close collaboration with our NGO and community partners, provided legal representation, support and training in environmental rights and remedies to activists and communities in various parts of the country.
• Achieved automatic access to environmental licences from both the Departments of Environmental Affairs and Water & Sanitation (DWS) without the need for requests in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act. In the case of the Department of Water & Sanitation, this includes compliance and audit reports.

In 2017, we are working on some of the following important matters:

• Taking South Africa’s first climate litigation to court. On 2-3 March 2017, the Pretoria High Court will hear a new case brought by Earthlife Africa Johannesburg, represented by CER, on whether climate impacts must be considered in an application for the environmental authorisation of a coal-fired power station.
• Challenging the multiple authorisations given to a coal mine in a declared protected area in the Mpumalanga grasslands, on behalf of eight NGOs and community organisations. This area outside Wakkerstroom is a strategic water source area that is the home of the headwaters of the Vaal, Tugela and Pongola rivers crucial for thousands of downstream water users.
• Working to defend the rights of several communities whose lives, health and well-being are being detrimentally impacted by poor air quality from Eskom’s coal power plants and other industrial facilities, and by mining.
• Continuing our defence of national parks and other protected areas from the threat of mining, as well as working for the protection of our oceans, and the welfare of our amazing wildlife.

Your donation, however small, can help us to continue with this crucial work. Visit our Support Us page for details.

For more detailed reports of our work over the past two years, visit:

2016: The Centre for Environmental Rights’ Year in Review

2015: The Centre for Environmental Rights’ Year in Review

And meet the team of amazing people working their hearts out for environmental rights and justice here at the CER.

The Centre for Environmental rights is a non-profit organisation of activist lawyers that helps communities and civil society organisations in South Africa realise our Constitutional right to a healthy environment by advocating and litigating for environmental justice.