Marondera Municipal Council (Environmental and Natural Resources Conservation) By-laws, 2024

The Minister of Local Government and Public Works has approved environmental and natural resources conservation by-laws made by the Marondera Municipal Council, applying throughout the council area. They are made under section 229 of the Urban Councils Act.

The by-laws are anchored on a council plan. Once adopted, the plan can designate grazing areas, cultivation areas — specifying who may cultivate, permitted implements and crops, rotation, noxious weed control, contour ridging, woodlots and when cultivation must stop pending conservation works — natural resource conservation areas, and waste management sites, including the types of waste generated and how they are to be recycled or reused.

Enforcement in the early sections follows one pattern: deliberate non-compliance with the plan is an offence carrying a fine prescribed by the council, though a first offender may be given a written warning instead, with a fine on any repeat.

Developers have concrete obligations. A project needing an environmental impact assessment must involve the council in the consultation process and in public meetings, disclose the consultant's details and proof of EMA registration, and lodge the EIA report, the approved report and the EMA certificate with the council. Starting operations without lodging those documents or the annual environmental management plan is an offence. Any commercial natural resource extraction or mining project must lodge a rehabilitation plan and rehabilitate the site before abandonment or closure. EIA reports lodged with the council are open to free public inspection during working hours, with copies available on payment of a fee set in council orders.

The by-laws run to 40 sections plus a schedule of invasive alien species, and go on to cover burning of vegetation, wetland protection, the environment committee, sleighs, tree cutting, forest produce, collection of gravel, stones, river sand and pit sand, brick making, water source protection, biodiversity, commercial timber logging, wildlife and indigenous plants, fencing, air pollution, solid and effluent waste, waste management enterprises, refuse removal, receptacles, landfills, littering, hazardous substances and toxic chemicals, mining and mineral panning, and genetic resources.

Two caveats. The extracted text was cut off partway through section 12 of 40, so section 40 ("Offences and penalties") and the invasive alien species schedule were not available to read — the fine levels are not reproduced here and must be read in the instrument itself. And the by-laws carry a citation inconsistency: the header cites [Chapter 29:13], the Rural District Councils Act, while the approval is expressly given under section 229 of the Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15], which is the correct statute for a municipal council. The by-laws are also, section for section, near-identical in drafting to the Murewa Rural District Council by-laws published a week earlier as S.I. 31 of 2024, including provisions on grazing areas that sit oddly in an urban council area.