Abstract
This note explores the interrelationship between ecologically sustainable development (the green environmental agenda) and pro-poor urban development and environmental health (the brown environmental agenda) in relation to local government in South Africa. The meaning and relevance of the brown agenda versus the green agenda in environmental governance are discussed in general. This discussion subsequently feeds into the argument that South Africa's constitutional environmental right also foresees the advancement of the brown environmental agenda, which has implications for the interpretation and enforcement of local government's service delivery mandate. This link between municipal service delivery and the environmental right further informs understanding of what is required of government to fulfill this right. This paper is thus devoted to an introductory conceptual framing of South Africa's environmental right that goes beyond the green agenda. This impacts on how the constitutional duties of municipalities are interpreted and executed.
Highlights
AA Du Plessis*Cities are the locus of critical social, economic and environmental problems, as well as comprising unique opportunities for a more sustainable future.[1]
During the same period the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (Rio Declaration)[7] and especially Agenda 21 came to change our understanding of environmental governance to the extent that these instruments conceive ecological and other
The notion that local authorities have a significant function in the world's transition to an inclusively perceived sustainable future culminated in the development of Local Agenda 21.11 Still, twenty odd years down the line domestic law and policy as well as decisionmakers themselves continue to grapple with the details of the role of local authorities in this pursuit.[12]
Summary
Interest in the position and role of cities and local governments in environmental governance is growing.[2]. Access to clean water, air and electricity as characterized by the research subjects are brown agenda issues form part of the service-delivery mandate of local government.[92] The Local Government: Municipal Systems Act 32 of 200093 and the White Paper on Local Government (1998)[94] among other laws and policies, acknowledge that those particular amenities form a core part of social / urban development, the improvement of urban human livelihoods and the reduction of direct threats to human health in South Africa. Velverde states in this vein that: "in regulating space and looking after the "public welfare", municipalities can sometimes wield legal tools that have no equivalent in higher levels of government".105
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