Integrated Environmental Management

1951 Words4 Pages

Introduction
The Integrated Environmental Management (IEM) is a concept that was encouraged and proposed in the 1980’s, in South Africa. IEM was later widely accepted with the release of IEM guideline series in 1992. The IEM concept has three crucial words, “integrated”, “Environment” and “Management” their meanings are described for a better understanding of IEM as a whole term. The term integration has four different components to it, as explained by DEAT (2004), they are:
1. The integration of all environmental concerns.
2. The integration of knowledge from different experts.
3. The integration of tools during decision making.
The environment is described as the surrounds in which all organisms exist. It is a very broad term and consists of the biophysical, social and economic sections, as well as the fractions that lie within the overlapping areas. See figure 1 for a graphical representation.

Management refers to the whole process of managing a project, activity or development. It consists of the initiation, planning, control, implementation and closing of an activity. It also includes the responsibility and accountability of each phase of the activity or development.
IEM is considered to be a philosophy and a set of principles. The philosophy and principles are supported by tools that aim at guiding South Africa and developers towards sustainable development. IEM is not necessarily a process, but rather a “way of thinking” used to support other processes, such as EIA and SEA, or integrated into other processes, such as Integrated Development Planning. The various tools form a framework for environmental decision making. The main objective of the IEM is to support sustainable development, meaning that the framew...

... middle of paper ...

... opportunities to engage with all stakeholders of the project or development. The stakeholders who would benefit most from this are the youth, woman and the disadvantaged. Engaging with the different stakeholders would enable them to contribute, especially to informed decision making.
18. Sustainability
The principle of sustainability is an important principle. Resources should be used be used in such a way that the renewal and replenishment of the resource is done in a manner that the resource declines in a long-term manner. This ensures that the needs of present and future generations are met and the resources are not under limiting pressures.
19. Transparency
Decisions regarding a development or project must be done in a transparent or open-minded manner. All decisions must however be compliant with the various laws of South Africa.

Challenges of IEM

Open Document