EMA holds meetings on by-laws amendments

Chronicle Reporters
THE Environment Management Agency (EMA) is holding meetings with local authorities in the country to formulate environmentally friendly by-laws that are in line with the new constitution. Local authorities from the Southern Region yesterday converged on Bulawayo for a two-day stakeholder workshop to give input into the proposed amendments of by-laws.
Stakeholders noted with concern that most Rural District Councils did not have adequate by-laws to protect the environment.
“Besides preserving the environment, revising the by-laws would result in our natural resources being sustainable and provide a source of revenue for local authorities.

“We need to regulate how timber is harvested, how businesses like mining that destroy the environment are treated. In fact, operators of a business that harms the environment should provide a rehabilitation plan for the environment before they are allowed to operate. Mechanisms should also be put in place to enforce the by-laws,” said a participant.

Participants agreed to study a document of proposed reforms and debate on them before another meeting is held with the local authorities in the Northern Region to consolidate findings and come up with a final draft.

Meanwhile, at a similar workshop in Shurugwi, a legal officer with EMA, Mr Farai Nyahwa expressed concern over the continued exportation of harmful substances to Zimbabwe and the rest of the continent by international companies.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr Nyahwa said some developed countries were deliberately breaching International Trade Laws by exporting harmful substances to developing nations, putting the lives of millions of people at risk.

“At one time, a local company bought what it believed to be cyanide from Asia. We intercepted the containers. The substance was corroding the containers and further investigations proved that the substance was not even cyanide. We don’t know what it was but we eventually ordered the container back to its country of origin. The suppliers asked us if we could not just dispose the substance ourselves but we refused. We told them it was not our duty as a country to dispose such dangerous substances from foreign lands,” he said.

Harmful substances, according to the EMA Bulletin, are toxic substances. which can cause or contribute to an increase in mortality or irreversible illness.

They pose a potential hazard to human health or the environment when improperly treated, stored, transported disposed or managed. The substances present an immediate or long term human health risk.

The substances can present short term acute hazards such as acute toxicity by ingestion, inhalation or skin absorption.
They also have the potential to pollute underground and surface water.

The EMA Bulletin further reads that the substances are corrosive to skin, pose eye contact hazards and there is high risk of fire explosion or long term environmental hazard, including chronic toxicity upon repeated exposure.

Some of the hazardous substances are carcinogenic which cause cancer.
Mr Nyahwa said stakeholders needed to work together in safeguarding the environment from powerful nations bent on turning Africa into a dumping site of such harmful substances.

He said the workshop’s objectives was to give a summarisation of the environmental act, give guiding principles of the act as well as highlight the provisions that empower EMA to carry out its binding duties.

“We prefer people of this province to come up with their own solutions to the environmental challenges they face here. The idea was to give a local flavour to the meeting so that stakeholders can come up with local solutions to environmental challenges,” said Mr Nyahwa.

He said they invited traditional leaders to help them safeguard the environment in their respective areas, since they are the custodians of the land, forests and other natural resources in the countryside.

Hazardous substances regulations are provided for through the Environment Management Act Chapter 20:27, Section 72 to 78, Statutory Instrument 12 of 2007 together with Statutory Instrument 5 of 2011.

Hazardous substances are classified into categories which depend on their potential adverse effects to the environment, their toxicity, corrosiveness, explosiveness and flammability, among other things. Green category is less hazardous and these include fertiliser and cooking oil in tankers. The amber category include fuel, boric or acid while the red category, which highly dangerous, has concentrated and sulphuric acids.