We have noted minister Inge Zaamwani’s move to appeal the environmental commissioner’s decision to grant an environmental clearance certificate (ECC) for marine phosphate mining.
We understand why. The potential consequences for Namibia’s marine environment, fisheries industry and the livelihoods of the many Namibians who depend on a healthy ocean deserve to be seriously considered.
As two people representing communities and communal conservancies whose livelihoods depend on equally important natural resources, our wildlife and the conservation areas in which it survives, we have one question for the minister: who will hear your appeal?
We ask because we are waiting for the answer ourselves.
Section 50 of Namibia’s Environmental Management Act provides for anyone to appeal a decision by the environmental commissioner.
Importantly, section 50(4) says the minister must consider the appeal and may confirm, set aside or vary the commissioner’s decision. It sounds straightforward. It is not.
DEAFENING SILENCE
In 2021, the ||Huab Conservancy lodged an appeal against an ECC related to copper mining in an area of enormous conservation significance.
It is home to one of Namibia’s most important free-roaming black rhino populations, and conservation provides important employment and economic opportunities for people in the area.
The appeal was eventually heard by the environment minister in 2022. And then nothing.
To this day, there has been no adjudication.
The Doro !Nawas and Uibasen Twyfelfontein conservancies have had a similar experience.
In 2024, we lodged section 50 appeals against environmental clearances related to proposed tin mining in the Red Mountain Joint Management Area – another important conservation area.
We have not even had an acknowledgement that our appeals have been received let alone an opportunity to have them heard and determined.
THE WAITING ROOM
These matters do not exist in a vacuum.
When environmental decisions are challenged and the statutory appeal mechanism does not function, citizens are effectively left with one option: to go to the High Court.
Communities and organisations that don’t have the financial resources of mining companies or large commercial interests, are forced into expensive and protracted litigation simply because the appeal mechanism parliament created is not serving its purpose.
That cannot be what the Environmental Management Act intended.
Section 50 was created for a reason. It provides a relatively accessible mechanism through which environmental disputes can be considered by the responsible minister without every disagreement immediately becoming a costly High Court matter.
It should be a safety valve in our environmental governance system.
Instead, our experience is that it has become a waiting room.
And it seems minister Zaamwani has entered that waiting room.
We genuinely hope she is treated differently.
THE CHALLENGE
However, it raises another uncomfortable question: if the minister’s section 50 appeal is heard, what happens to ours?
Will the minister’s appeal be placed behind existing appeals?
Will the ||Huab Conservancy’s appeal, lodged in 2021, be dealt with first?
Will the Doro !Nawas and Uibasen appeals from 2024 be dealt with?
What about other Namibians who have exercised their statutory right to appeal and are still waiting?
Or will the appeal of a cabinet minister receive preferential treatment? We hope not.
If the minister’s appeal is heard promptly, it would demonstrate that the system can work.
But if it is heard while long-standing appeals from conservancies and ordinary citizens continue to gather dust, it would raise an even more serious question about equality before the law and equal access to environmental justice.
We are not suggesting that fisheries is more or less important than wildlife.
Both are national assets. Fisheries supports thousands of livelihoods.
So does conservation tourism. The black rhino, desert lions, desert elephants, leopards, hyenas and giraffe are national treasures. So are our marine resources.
Why should one be heard while the other waits?
This is not about fisheries versus rhinos. It is about whether Namibia has a fair environmental governance system.
We therefore welcome minister Zaamwani’s decision to use the mechanism that parliament created.
But we must also challenge the ministry and the minister responsible for deciding these appeals to use that mechanism properly and effectively.
PEOPLE’S VOICES MUST BE HEARD
Hear the appeals. Hear the ||Huab Conservancy. Hear Doro !Nawas. Hear Uibasen.
Hear the people who have been waiting.
And if there are other unresolved section 50 appeals, please publish them.
Tell Namibians how many there are, how old they are and when they will be heard.
The phosphate decision has thrown the national spotlight on section 50.
That may be a good thing.
Perhaps the most important question the appeal raises is not whether phosphate mining should proceed.
Rather, maybe it is about whether Namibians can rely on the environmental governance system that parliament gave them.
Our experience tells us they cannot. We sincerely hope we are wrong.
But if the minister’s appeal is heard while ours, and those of many others, continue to remain unheard, the question will no longer be whether Namibia has an environmental appeals system.
It will be about whether that system is available equally to everyone.
– Don Geiseb is the natural resources manager of the Doro !Nawas Conservancy and is an advocate of responsible, sustainable development. Jeffrey Hanadaob is chairperson of the ||Huab Conservancy and is a proponent of community conservation.
