Numbers matter: Join us in reporting violations of environmental rights

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) is campaigning for increased reporting of environmental crimes through the National Environmental Crimes and Incidents Hotline (0800 205 005). The CER argues that the South African government, specifically the Treasury, underinvests in compliance monitoring and enforcement, which violates the constitutional right to a healthy environment. Because the hotline is the only mechanism where reports are centrally collated and published annually by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), the CER asserts that higher reporting numbers are necessary to provide an accurate picture of the scale of violations and to pressure the state to allocate more funding and personnel to enforcement.

• The Centre for Environmental Rights and other organisations argue that the South African government provides insufficient resources for the monitoring and enforcement of environmental laws, which they claim is a violation of the constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to health or wellbeing.
• Official government data on environmental violations is believed to be inaccurate because many citizens do not report crimes due to a lack of knowledge on how to do so or fatigue caused by reports being ignored or met with claims of insufficient capacity.
• The National Environmental Crimes and Incidents Hotline (0800 205 005), operated for the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) since approximately 2005, is the only reporting mechanism that produces centrally collated and annually published data on environmental law violations.
• Reports made to the Environmental Crimes and Incidents Hotline have fluctuated over several years, with 389 cases in 2009/10, 612 in 2010/11, 708 in 2011/12, and 680 in 2012/13.

APA

Melissa (2014). Numbers matter: Join us in reporting violations of environmental rights. Centre for Environmental Rights. https://cer.org.za/news/numbers-matter-join-us-in-reporting-violations-of-environmental-rights

Chicago

Melissa. Numbers matter: Join us in reporting violations of environmental rights. Centre for Environmental Rights, 2014. https://cer.org.za/news/numbers-matter-join-us-in-reporting-violations-of-environmental-rights.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Melissa |title=Numbers matter: Join us in reporting violations of environmental rights |publisher=Centre for Environmental Rights |date=9 June 2014 |url=https://cer.org.za/news/numbers-matter-join-us-in-reporting-violations-of-environmental-rights |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{melissa2014numbers, author = {Melissa}, title = {{Numbers matter: Join us in reporting violations of environmental rights}}, publisher = {Centre for Environmental Rights}, year = {2014}, month = jun, url = {https://cer.org.za/news/numbers-matter-join-us-in-reporting-violations-of-environmental-rights}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }