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Former Green Scorpions head in court showdown with government
Green Scorpions removing samples from nearby water source. Image: Daily Maverik Website.
Bid to force national and provincial departments to uphold environmental laws investigations and prosecutions
MIKE LOEWE
Wild Coast conservationist and ex-Green Scorpions head Dr Div de Villiers is taking the government on in court over an alleged illegal government order to halt environmental investigations and prosecutions
on the Wild Coast.
The two departments accused of being behind the instruction are minerals & resources, and the Eastern Cape department of economic development, environmental affairs & tourism (Dedeat).
The Mthatha-based office of the Eastern Cape public prosecutions division is accused of failing to prosecute cases. De Villiers, 61, with leaders of the anti-mining Amadiba Crisis Committee and the Umgundlovu and Tsweleni communities on the coast, altogether making up 46 applicants, are asking the high court to place the national and provincial departments under strict supervision to uphold environmental laws.
The eight respondents, ranked in order, are:
- The minister of forestry, fisheries & the environment and the department’s director-general;
- The minister of mineral resources & energy and his director-general;
- The Eastern Cape MEC of economic development, environmental affairs & tourism and the head of department;
- The director of public prosecutions in the NPA’s Eastern Cape division; and
- The minister of land reform & rural development.
All eight have given notice to oppose but have yet to submit papers. The applicants are setting before the Gauteng high court a picture of widespread, unlawful environmental destruction in which, they say, government officials have played a role. This recent environmental history of the rapid environmental decline on the internationally recognised stretch of coastal wilderness is set out in detail in De Villiers’s 90-page founding affidavit.
The papers were lodged in the Gauteng high court and served on the respondents by the sheriffs of the courts in Pretoria in December and in Bhisho this year. Officially, De Villiers is representing the Wild Coast Development Forum, which he chairs, but much of the content of his founding affidavit is drawn from a 40-year career in nature conservation, where he rose to serve as director of compliance & enforcement in the Eastern Cape environmental affairs department.
He was the leader of the department’s Green Scorpions at the time of his retirement in 2023. In his affidavit, De Villiers lists the following:
- Illegal sand mining for building;
- Destruction of indigenous coastal forests;
- Illegal cutting of roads into the coastal conservation area, causing extensive damage; and
- Unplanned and unauthorised spread of settlements and illegal structures in the coastal conservation area and other areas of high environmental importance and sensitivity.
He blames the failure to uphold the law on a fragmented, unco-ordinated government approach to coastal planning and management, as well as an inadequate number of skilledenough personnel and resources; lack of capacity for environmental policing and management; lack of clear, decisive decision-making; confusion among different organs of state; lengthy procedures and poor response times; and ever-diminishing budgets.
De Villiers said all previous attempts, both legal and political, have failed to prevent the widespread and extensive destruction of the Wild Coast, adding it would take more than a mandamus (a court order that commands a state official or entity to perform an act they are legally required to perform).
This was because a number of laws and judgments protecting the Wild Coast environment had been largely ignored, and though there was a Wild Coast Environmental Management Plan, it had only been signed into policy by Dedeat in July 2015, but not gazetted.
“The applicants submit this is an appropriate case for a supervisory order be made, in addition to the mandamus for the [government] to report on what has been and will be done.” He said reports, and other papers to the court, would have to be followed up with officials returning to court for the court to determine whether they have complied with their obligations in a way that nurtures the democratic process. This court ruling is known as a structural interdict.
De Villiers said that in a meeting on July 27 2023, with officials from national and provincial environment departments, police, the Eastern Cape parks & tourism agency and members of the marine & ocean priority committee, the forum’s attorney had asked the government officials to address alleged political interference in the enforcement of environmental laws, specifically from the provincial department [Dedeat] and the department of mineral resources.
In that meeting, he alleges the national department requested clarity on whether the instruction was still in force and that the provincial department declined to comment.
In the affidavit, De Villiers states: “Other officials confirmed knowledge of the provincial instruction and indicated that the provincial department [Dedeat] was now participating in Operation Phakisa.”
He alleges that hundreds of crimes reported on the Wild Coast were never finalised or prosecuted, and that from 2013 the office of the director of public prosecutions (DPP) in Mthatha was pivotal in failing
to assist or prosecute dozens of police dockets.
“Since 2013, the enforcement and implementation of the legislative framework to protect the Wild Coast diminished considerably, ” he wrote.
“As a result of the major decline in prosecutions, increasing environmental lawlessness along the Wild Coast, including illegal developments, unlawful sand mines and deforestation, continue unabated to this
day. ”
In 2011, there were 247 admission of guilt fines paid, worth R262,200, but from 2020 to 2022 none were issued. De Villiers accused the DPP’s Mthatha office of being reluctant to prosecute illegal sand miners and development in the Wild Coast conservation area. Similarly, after the extensive destruction of natural forest near Port St Johns, which sparked a meeting of national and provincial environment departments, the police, the EC parks & tourism agency and the marine & ocean priority committee,
a forestry official said the prosecution led by the Mthatha NPA left much to be desired.
Wild Coast conservationist and ex-Green Scorpions head Dr Div de Villiers is taking the government on in court over an alleged illegal government order to halt environmental investigations and prosecutions
on the Wild Coast.
The two departments accused of being behind the instruction are minerals & resources, and the Eastern Cape department of economic development, environmental affairs & tourism (Dedeat).
The Mthatha-based office of the Eastern Cape public prosecutions division is accused of failing to prosecute cases. De Villiers, 61, with leaders of the anti-mining Amadiba Crisis Committee and the Umgundlovu and Tsweleni communities on the coast, altogether making up 46 applicants, are asking the high court to place the national and provincial departments under strict supervision to uphold environmental laws.
