Biodiversity Law Centre

On WORLD WATER DAY, we focus on the importance of freshwater and the sustainable management of freshwater resources. 💧 South Africa has a suite of plans, policies and legislation, including the National Water Act, 1998, that prioritise equitable access, sustainability, and the protection of water as a public resource, ensuring that both human and ecological needs are met. However, effective water management requires implementation of this framework for it to mean anything more than words. 💧 South Africa is a water scarce country, and we are experiencing how our limited water resources are put further under pressure by climate change, which affects rainfall and temperatures, and causes flood-related damage. 💧 By challenging the overexploitation and pollution of freshwater resources, and pursuing the equitable allocation of these resources, the BLC is working to ensure that the laws and policies that aim to protect freshwater resources are implemented for the benefit of present and future generations. #water #biodiversity #lawfornature

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY 🍃 Today we celebrate Human Rights Day, a day which commemorates the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 and serves as a reminder of the nation’s struggle for freedom, equality, and dignity. 🍃 It highlights the importance of fundamental rights, including the right to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations. This right emphasises ecologically sustainable development, conservation, and pollution prevention, ensuring that economic progress does not come at the cost of environmental degradation. 🍃 The reality is that we are entirely dependent on biodiversity for clean air, water, food, medicine, and a stable climate, as it sustains the ecosystems that support all life on Earth. Biodiversity is the basis for livelihoods, and the inextricable cultural and spiritual link people have with the land, water, and oceans. 🍃 We work to protect and restore indigenous species and ecosystems in Southern Africa. We empower those who have faced barriers to accessing legal advice and support with the legal tools to change the trajectory of biodiversity loss safeguard the connections people have with the Earth. 🍃 On Human Rights Day, South Africans reflect not only on civil and political rights but also on the importance of environmental justice, as a clean and healthy environment is essential for the well-being and dignity of all people. #lawfornature #humanrights #biodiversity

HIGH COURT VICTORY FOR AFRICAN PENGUINS! 🐧 BirdLife South Africa and Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB), represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, today secured a historic victory for South Africa’s Critically Endangered African Penguin when a hard-won settlement agreement – reached by the conservation NGOs with commercial sardine and anchovy purse-seine fishers – was made an order of the Pretoria High Court. 🐧 The court order provides for the delineations of no-take zones – for the next ten years – for the commercial sardine and anchovy fishery around six key African Penguin breeding colonies that lie within coastal areas where this commercial fishery operates. Six closures work together to secure biologically meaningful foraging areas for African Penguins in each of the west coast, southern Cape and Algoa Bay regions to help bring the species back from the brink of extinction. 🐧 The imposition of scientifically-informed fishing closures, to limit commercial purse-seine anchovy and sardine fishing activities around key African Penguin breeding colonies, is a long-overdue step towards securing their survival in the wild. 🐧 We look to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and the Minister to ensure full implementation of this order, and to follow-through on taking all necessary steps to protect the African Penguin. Doing so is not only important for the wellbeing and survival of this iconic species but is critical to ensure that our ocean ecosystem is protected for the benefit of future generations. #lawfornature #conservation #litigation https://lnkd.in/dn_hTBCW

💧 International Day of Action for Rivers 💧 Rivers are vital to live on earth. They sustain freshwater biodiversity and provide a habitat for fish, amphibians, birds, and countless microorganisms that form the foundation of the food web. They also underpin human livelihoods and economy, supplying drinking water, irrigating crops, and generating hydroelectric power. South Africa's National Water Act, 1998, recognises that water is a scarce and unevenly distributed national resource, and that the protection of the quality of water resources is necessary to ensure sustainability of the nation’s water resources in the interests of all water users. The Act makes provision for the protection and ecologically sustainable use of rivers through measures that: 💧 regulate water use activities; 💧 and protect catchments (including through determination of resource quality objectives and the ecological reserve). We work to address threats to river systems by combatting polluting activities and unlawful development, advocating for the rationalisation of water use using the reserve, and driving formal protection of these precious resources. Protecting rivers is not just an environmental necessity. It is a commitment to securing water, food, and biodiversity for future generations. #rivers #lawfornature #biodiversity

WORLD WILDLIFE DAY 🐟 This year’s theme for World Wildlife Day is "Wildlife Conservation Finance: Investing in People and Planet“. 🐟 South Africa is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which in 2022 set Global Biodiversity Framework targets for 2030 including mobilising “$200 billion annually for Biodiversity, including $30 billion through International Finance”. 🐟 At last week’s reconvened 16th CBD COP, parties adopted a strategy for this finance mobilisation, identifying possible biodiversity finance sources like governments, private and philanthropic resources, multilateral development banks, and “other novel approaches”. 🐟 This financing strategy is crucial to unlocking the resources and capacity needed to achieve urgent GBF goals of halting human induced extinction of known threatened species, and, by 2050, reducing extinction rate and risk of all species tenfold and increasing the abundance of native wild species to healthy and resilient levels. 🐟 This World Wildlife Day, let's be as imaginative in our conception of what it means to “invest” in wildlife, as we are in our conception of how wildlife investment can be financed. #worldwildlifeday #wildlife #finance #lawfornature

Protecting our ecological infrastructure is critical to water security. 💧 Our Executive Director, Kate Handley, discusses the importance of government prioritising the protection and restoration of South Africa's critical water resources (including wetlands). 💧 Despite President Ramaphosa placing emphasis on "decisive actions" to address the water crisis through expanding built infrastructure in the recent SONA, attention on the need to protect, conserve and restore our water resources was absent. 💧 "Just as with built infrastructure, it is important to manage, invest in and maintain ecological infrastructure — the nature-based equivalent. Ecological infrastructure has the potential to complement and, in some cases, substitute built infrastructure solutions for water resource management." #lawfornature #biodiversity #ecologicalinfrastructure https://lnkd.in/dnK8T_7W

**COP16 RECONVENES** 🍃 This week, the #COP16 for the Convention on Biological Diversity continues in Rome, Italy – having ended without resolving the full agenda in November 2024. 🍃 Countries must finalise monitoring, financing, and tracking of the Kunming-Montreal GBF targets to meet 2030 biodiversity goals amid the triple planetary crisis of global biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution. 🍃 South Africa was active during COP16 Part 1 and its negotiating mandate reflects guidance on a number of matters which were finalised during that session. These include the questions of technical and scientific cooperation and technology transfer, synthetic biology, digital sequence information on genetic resources, and terminology pertaining to “indigenous peoples” in the text of COP16 resolutions.  🍃 Of the remaining agenda items, however, this negotiating mandate only addresses resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism and the matter of supporting synergies with other global agreements (particularly in relation to climate change). 🍃 The Biodiversity Law Centre has addressed correspondence to Deputy Minister Singh (DFFE) who has, to date, been South Africa’s head of delegation, asking for details of South Africa’s negotiating mandate around the monitoring, evaluation, review and reporting on progress towards GBF targets and South Africa’s readiness to take action towards meeting these goals. #transparency #lawfornature #COP16 #biodiversity

On World Whale Day, we are paying attention to the marine pollution threats facing these giants of the oceans. 🐳 As society engages in increasing development of the oceans through maritime trade, seismic exploration, oil & gas extraction, expanding ports and international moves towards deep-sea mining, the oceans are getting noisier – and noise simply cannot be contained. 🐳 Noise affects marine life physiologically as well as behaviourally. The South African courts have recognised this impact including on the humpback whales of South Africa’s west coast. 🐳 The Biodiversity Law Centre is working with its partners to combat noise pollution by ensuring effective and meaningful regulation. #biodiversity #conservation #lawfornature

Celebrating World Pangolin Day!   Surprisingly, this scaly creature is not a reptile – it’s a mammal! The pangolin is the world’s only mammal with scales (made from keratin – just like our nails), has a tongue as long as its body, and curls into a sharp, armoured ball to avoid danger. The eight pangolin species (four in Africa and four in Asia) range from vulnerable status to critically endangered, and face numerous threats to their survival in the wild, including –   ‼️ Wildlife trafficking, both domestically and internationally ‼️ Habitat loss ‼️ Electric fences ‼️ Road mortalities   They’ve survived for millions of years, but they might not survive us. This World Pangolin Day, let’s spread awareness about this unique species and work together towards safeguarding their future!    #biodiversity #conservation #lawfornature

WELCOME TO THE BIODIVERSITY LAW CENTRE We are excited to share that Kirsten Barratt has joined our growing team at the Biodiversity Law Centre. Kirsten is not only an admitted attorney, but holds a BSc in Marine Biology and Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, as well as an LLM in Environmental Law. Her professional journey was shaped by an early passion for marine conservation, sparked during her high school and university years as a volunteer on the Two Oceans’ Aquarium’s penguin team. This experience deepened her understanding of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, ultimately inspiring her to pursue a career where law and policy can drive significant change. WELCOME, KIRSTEN! #lawfornature #newhire #biodiversitylaw