Mhondoro-Ngezi Rural District 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 for the Mhondoro-Ngezi Rural District Council area, made under section 90 of the Rural District Councils Act. They are the same template as the Nkayi by-laws published two weeks earlier in S.I. 42 of 2024, with the council name changed.

Everything hangs on a Local Environmental Action Plan. Council must prepare one, put it on public exhibition, advertise where and when it can be inspected, invite objections within thirty days, and seek advice from the provincial planning officer, the provincial agriculture officer, the provincial environmental officer, the provincial warden and the provincial Mining Commissioner. Departing from that advice requires written reasons to the Provincial Council, which then has thirty days to approve the plan or propose amendments; council may appeal to Cabinet through the Minister. Approved plans must be free to inspect and sent to every Ward Assembly.

The plan designates grazing areas, where council can cap total livestock and per-owner numbers, decide who may graze where, and set destocking deadlines. Livestock found outside a grazing area are presumed to have been allowed there by the owner, subject to a reasonable-precautions defence, and a dipping card is treated as proof of custody of the cattle it records. The plan also designates cultivation areas, controlling who cultivates, what crops and implements are used, rotation, noxious weeds, contour ridging, wood lots and renewable energy crops.

This matters particularly in Mhondoro-Ngezi, which hosts major platinum mining. Any project requiring an environmental impact assessment must consult council during the EIA, involve council in community consultations with traditional leaders, disclose the consultant's details and EMA registration, and lodge both the EIA report and the approved report with its EMA certificate. Starting operations without doing so is an offence. Anyone commercially exploiting natural resources — mining expressly included — must lodge a rehabilitation plan and rehabilitate the environment before abandoning or closing the project, with council monitoring alongside EMA.

The by-laws run to forty sections, going on to cover burning of vegetation, invasive alien species, wetlands, sleighs and farming implements, tree cutting, forest produce, removal of gravel, stones, river sand and pit sand, brick making, water sources, biodiversity, commercial timber logging, wildlife and indigenous plants, fencing, air pollution, waste and effluent, landfills, littering, hazardous substances, mining and mineral panning, and genetic resources.

Two caveats. In every section available, the penalty is only "a fine prescribed by council" with a written warning possible for a first offence — no figure appears in the by-law, so residents must obtain the council's fine schedule separately. And the text here is truncated partway through section 11, so sections 12 to 40, including section 40 on offences and penalties, are not covered above and must be read in the instrument itself.