Chitungwiza Town Council (Environmental and Natural Resources Conservation) By-laws, 2024

Chitungwiza Town Council has new environmental and natural resources by-laws, approved by the Minister of Local Government and Public Works. They are long — forty sections plus a schedule of invasive alien species — and cover grazing and cultivation areas, wetlands, tree cutting, sand and gravel extraction, brick making, air pollution, landfills, littering, hazardous substances, mining and panning, and waste management.

The council must prepare an environmental action plan for its area under the Environmental Management Act. The process is prescribed: put the draft on public exhibition, advertise where and when it can be inspected, invite objections within thirty days, and consult stakeholders. Advice must be sought from the provincial planning officer, the provincial agriculture officer, the provincial environmental officer, the provincial warden, the Mining Commissioner and anyone with relevant expertise. If council departs from that advice it must tell the Provincial Council why. The Provincial Council then has thirty days to approve, or approve with amendments, and council may appeal to Cabinet through the Minister within thirty days.

Developers carry real new obligations. Anyone whose project needs an environmental impact assessment must consult the council during the process, involve it in public consultation meetings, give it the name, contact details, qualifications and EMA registration of any consultant engaged, and submit both the EIA report and the approved EIA certificate. Starting operations without submitting the report, the certificate or the annual environmental management plan is an offence. EIA reports must be open for public inspection at council offices free of charge, with copies at a fee set in council orders.

Extractive projects — mining and resource extraction that damages or degrades the environment — must lodge a rehabilitation plan with council covering the work to be done before abandonment or closure, and must actually rehabilitate. Failing to do so is an offence.

On grazing and cultivation, council may set stocking limits by area and by owner, say who may cultivate where, prescribe crops and rotation, require contour ridging and set the date cultivation must stop until conservation measures are in place. Livestock found grazing outside a designated area is presumed to have been allowed there by its owner, unless the owner proves reasonable precautions. First offenders may be given a written warning instead of a fine.

Two important cautions. First, this summary is written from roughly the first third of the instrument — the extract stops partway through section 12, so the provisions on tree cutting, forest produce, sand and gravel, brick making, water sources, biodiversity, timber logging, wildlife, air pollution, waste management, landfills, littering, hazardous substances, mining and the offences and penalties section (40) are not covered here. Anyone relying on those must read the gazette. Second, no penalty amount appears anywhere in the extracted text: every offence is punishable by "a fine prescribed by council" in an order, so the fines are not fixed in the by-laws and have to be obtained from the council itself. The by-laws are also headed [CAP. 29:13], the Rural District Councils Act, while being made under section 227 of the Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15], and the grazing-area definition refers to a "Rural District Council" — boilerplate carried over from a rural by-law into a town council instrument.