IMBEWU Services

Biodiversity and Conservation Services

IMBEWU has considerable expertise in the developing legal regime for protected areas and biodiversity conservation in South Africa and has conducted an extensive review of the protected areas legislation in the context of proposed projects in such areas.

IMBEWU has also conducted research into the application of the protected areas and biodiversity conservation regimes with regard to the implementation of the biosphere reserve concept in South Africa, particularly in the Waterberg and the Magaliesburg.

Protected Areas Legal Register

IMBEWU Sustainability Legal Specialists (Pty) Ltd has developed a new electronic state-of-the-art Protected Areas Legal Register. The register has been developed as a tool to assist the personnel who work on-site at conservation based operations by linking their site specific activities to the relevant legal compliance requirements established by national, provincial and local legislation in order to improve the level of legal compliance at an operational level and to minimise risks due to non-compliance. Such activities are covered under four main headings:

Land Management;
Species Management – Fauna;
Legal appraisal of specific policy and regulatory instruments.
Species Management - Flora; and
Facilities Management

Operational conservation based activities are identified with the assistance of on-site personnel so that the register is as comprehensive and as site specific as possible. All legal requirements are linked to an all-inclusive legislation database which is updated regularly and contains a comprehensive range of protected areas / conservation based legislation. In addition to the linking of site specific activities to relevant legislation, the register also links to PDF copies of all national and provincial permit and licence application forms which forms can be printed and completed by the relevant personnel and submitted to the relevant government department for consideration. Any licences and permits that have already been issued by a government department to the operation are also included in the register in scanned PDF format which essentially results in the register performing the additional function of an on-site documentation storage or management tool. The registers are delivered to the relevant operations on a CD that can be downloaded onto a computer network as well as individual laptops thereby enabling the use of the register even when on-site personnel are out in the field.

By linking the on-site activities to the relevant legislation personnel will be able to establish the legislation that they have to comply with prior to undertaking any identified activity by simply clicking on the link to the activity that they wish to undertake and then reading through the various legal compliance requirements that have been summarised. Upon request, IMBEWU also develops and includes in the registers, activity checklists which the on-site personnel can inspect prior to undertaking an activity to ensure that they have complied with the relevant legislation.

Registers can be updated on a quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis and operations that have registers are, between such updates, kept informed of any new developments in conservation based legislation through a monthly IMBEWU newsletter. As and when a register is updated it will include all new relevant legislation that has been promulgated since the last update of the register and which legislation was highlighted in the monthly newsletters.