Integrating South African systems for environmental management

Abstract

It is widely accepted that government should strive to “promote sustainable development" and that one of the important instruments to achieve this aim is “integrated environmental management" (taken as all systems that impact on the shaping of the total environment natural and human). To this end many new laws and regulations have recently been promulgated. The evolution of systems for promoting sustainable development and environmental management theory is briefly sketched, from the early philanthropists, through modernism and post-modernism to today’s reactive neo­modernism. Present South African systems are tested against these various theories. The conclusion is drawn that, in spite of the accent in integration, present systems are overlapping and non-integrated. Finally, suggestions are made for the adaptationf extant systems to allow a greater degree of integration and for a more proactive approach, with the Planning and Development Act of the Western Cape Province (Act 7 o f 1999) as a model.