The Legal Duty of Municipalities to Contribute to Estuarine Management in South Africa: The Case of Knysna Local Municipality

Estuaries are ecological treasures providing a range of environmental and socio-economic benefits to their communities. Yet estuaries are also the most threatened and least protected ecosystems in South Africa. Municipalities are ideally positioned to contribute to estuarine management due to their proximity to their communities and their specific needs; however, the environment, and by implication also estuaries, is a functional competence of national and provincial governments. In addition, local governments themselves are sometimes to blame for the pollution of estuaries within their jurisdictions. The Knysna Estuary is a case in point, where the mismanagement of the local Wastewater Treatment Works by the Knysna Local Municipality is partly to blame for the Estuary's deterioration. The Knysna Estuary is currently under the jurisdiction of the South African National Parks and is the most important estuary in South Africa in terms of conservation. This article examines whether and how municipalities can contribute to estuarine management, with a particular focus on the Knysna Estuary. The authors argue that local government's developmental mandate, coupled with municipalities' obligation to realise the constitutional environmental right, as well as those imposed by the National Environmental Management Act 107 of 1998 and numerous other sector-specific environmental laws, place a duty on municipalities to contribute to estuarine management. They further argue that these laws provide municipalities with the necessary governance tools to perform this function effectively.