Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Minister Barbara Creecy has been ordered to dust off and implement a 15-year-old plan that was drawn up to remove harmful air pollutants in Mpumalanga’s Highveld area and save lives.
Pretoria High Court Judge Colleen Collis, in her judgment on Friday, ruled that the poor air quality in the Highveld Priority Area was in breach of residents’ constitutional right to an environment that was not harmful to their health and wellbeing.
In 2019, two environmental organisations – groundWork and Mpumalanga’s Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action – went to court to force the minister to clean up the polluted air.
