Chapter 18: The Environmental Management Act (2017) and natural resource regulation in Malawi: opportunities for and limitations to effective enforcement

Abstract

Malawi’s first significant policy document on environmental issues was the National Environmental Action Plan1 (NEAP) published in 1994. The NEAP was set out to document and analyse all the major environmental issues and proposed measures to alleviate them as well as to promote the sustainable use of natural resources in Malawi. The NEAP highlighted that one of the greatest challenges to effective environmental protection and management was poor enforcement of the legal framework. In particular, NEAP highlighted that the legislative framework was uncoordinated and had several gaps, inconsistencies, duplications and conflicts all of which made enforcement difficult. This was the main reason for the adoption of the National Environmental Policy2 (NEP) in 1996 (revised in 2004) and the subsequent enactment of a framework environmental law, the Environmental Management Act3 (EMA) in 1996. The EMA (1996) provided for an elaborate institutional framework for implementing the environmental and natural resource management provisions prescribed in the Act, expanded opportunities for stakeholder consultations and enabled coordination. However, there is little indication that it improved environmental management in general or sector coordination to any significant degree.4 In an attempt to address the above concerns, a second Environmental Management Act (EMA) was assented to by the President in February 2017. EMA (2017) provides for a coordinated and comprehensive future legal framework for environmental protection and management as well as the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. EMA (2017) will replace EMA (1996), when the former commences by way of notice in the future. Until this occurs, EMA (1996) remains the applicable law.