Environmentalists take government to task

According to the Endangered Wildlife Trust, BirdLife South Africa, Botanical Society of SA, Wilderness Foundation South Africa, Wildlife and Environment Society of SA and WWF South Africa, the government has been sitting on the two reports for nearly three and two years respectively, reports the Cape Argus. The NGOs have called on government to release the reports as these studies represent independent, objective reviews of the opportunities and constraints to development, based on the country’s natural resource base, reports the Sunday Tribune. In the absence of these reports, plans are being made which assume our natural resources are infinite. The lack of access to information contained in the two reports often inhibited NGOs and officials from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism from achieving their reasonable goals. The NGOs also demanded reasons for the delay, a time frame and written commitment for the release of the reports. The department has responded by saying the sustainable development framework will be publicly released after a final set of stakeholder consultations, probably by end of July, and the outlook report by the end of June. Full Cape Argus report Full Sunday Tribune report