Draft Status Quo Report for the Pixley Ka Seme ... - SRK Consulting

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Pixley Ka Seme Local Municipality EMF – Draft Status Quo Report Page 14
2 Approach and
methodology
The approach adopted for this EMF is one based on a
broad conception of sustainable development as
embodied within South Africa’s Constitution, policy
and legislative framework, and recently reinforced by
the National Framework for Sustainable Development
(NFSD) (DEAT, 2006). This was adopted by Cabinet in
July 2008. The section that follows defines the concepts
of sustainable development, focusing on EMFs as a tool
for promoting sustainable decision-making. It also
outlines the EMF process indicating where the status
quo assessment fits into the process.
2.1 Sustainable development
NEMA defines sustainable development as “the
integration of social, economic and environmental 1
factors into planning, implementation and decisionmaking
so as to ensure that development serves present
and future generations”.
Sustainable development recognises the
interdependencies between the natural environment,
economic stability and social well-being. South Africa’s
draft NFSD (DEAT, 2006a) adopts an embedded model
of sustainability that sets socio-economic development
within its environmental resource base, with the
relationships between the components underpinned and
regulated by a governance framework (see Figure 2-1).
Ecosystem
integrity
People’s
well-being
Society
Economic
viability
2.2 EMF – a tool for sustainable
management
A range of environmental tools, including the EMF,
assist in integrating “social, economic and
environmental factors into planning and decision
making in order to ensure that development serves
present and future generations” (NEMA, 1998).
The EMF is a management and decision support tool
that provides authorities with information about the
‘state of environment’ and the planning parameters. Its
purpose is to identify and spatially represent areas of
potential conflict between sensitive environments and
development proposals thereof. Using a Geographic
Information System (GIS) platform, the EMF enables
its application at various scales. The final stage in the
development of the EMF is the integration of base data
sets into a single facet coverage depicting and spatially
delineating the potential environmental sensitivity of
the area. This in turn forms the basis for a holistic
environmental development framework that guides
development and conservation priorities.
These elements are incorporated in the EMF
methodology presented in Section 2.3.
2.3 Project phasing
Informed by the Guideline Document for EMF (DEAT,
2005), the process of developing the PKSLM EMF has
been phased as described below.
2.3.1 Project inception (Phase 1)
The inception phase of the project was principally
involved in setting up a Project Steering Committee
(PSC), clarifying project scope and communication
strategy, collecting available and up-to-date literature
and spatial data, undertaking site visits and
commissioning specialist investigation.
Good Governance
Figure 2-1: An integrated conceptual model of
sustainable development
Source: DEAT (2006)
1
In this paper, the term ‘environmental’ refers to biophysical
components.
2.3.2 Status quo assessment (Phase 2)
The draft environmental Status Quo report defines and
spatially represents the current state of the environment
of the local municipality’s environment, as derived
from the literature review, specialist studies and
stakeholder consultation. This will be Volume 1 of the
EMF process deliverables. As part of the status quo
KILI/BEAT G:\404946_PIXLEY EMF\7REPORTS\Status Quo report\Draft report\Draft status quo report, July 2010.docx July 2010