09 Oct CONSTITUTIONAL COURT DECIDES IMPORT MATTER INVOLVING BIODIVERSITY & SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVISM

Posted at 18:54h in Environmental Matters by Adv. Samantha Jane Martin

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Landmark Foundation is one of the few organisations challenging practices around biodiversity management such as gin traps, poisoning & culling – especially with Damage Causing Animals, which may include endangered animals. This new decision, from the Constitutional Court will have far reaching consequences for how environmental activists deal with environmental/ animal rights concerns online. Especially through social media. A key takeaway for me is the remark of the under-utilisation of the Section 24 Environmental Right & animal welfare from a biodiversity perspective:

“[90] Activists’ “long history of guarding the interests of animals reflects constitutional values”[56] which are those embodied in section 24 of the Constitution. But it has been said that section 24 suffers from “ongoing silence” and “under-utilisation”[57] in that, while it provides what some call the world’s most expansive and sophisticated rights-based approach to environmental protection, the right is often ignored.[58]”