The Minister of Environmental Affairs has issued norms and standards for the management of protected areas in South Africa in terms of section 11 of the NEM:PAA.
The purpose of the Norms and Standards is to, inter alia, ensure that human induced disturbances originating outside or within protected areas is avoided and so as to provide a “goal for protected area management authorities to strive for in managing their protected areas”. The Norms and Standards include provisions pertaining to, inter alia,-
- Verifying the importance of the protected area to the South African system of protected areas;
- Demarcating the boundary of a protected area;
- Promoting positive involvement of the protected area management in planning outside the protected area which may affect its integrity; and
- Ensuring that each protected area has an effective performance evaluation system in place.
