Environmental authorisation in Botswana is administered by the Department of Environmental Affairs under the Environmental Assessment Act No. 10 of 2011 and the Environmental Assessment Regulations, S.I. 58 of 2012.
The provision that governs project sequencing is section 5(1): a licensing authority shall, before issuing a permit, licence, consent or approval to any person who has applied to implement a prescribed activity, ensure that authorisation has been issued for that activity under the Act. A licensing authority means any authority vested with the power to issue such approvals.
In plain terms: your mining licence, your BERA petroleum licence, your trade licence for a prescribed activity, all sit behind this. It is not a parallel process.
The penalties are the second thing to understand. Implementing a prescribed activity without authorisation carries a fine of up to P100 000 or up to five years imprisonment, or both, and an obligation to rehabilitate. Failing to rehabilitate carries up to P1 000 000 or 15 years.
Insika screens projects against the regime, coordinates the practitioners who carry out the assessment, and manages the process to an authorisation.
The licensing gate, and the penalties behind it
Two sections carry the weight of the whole Act.
Section 5(1) requires a licensing authority, before issuing a permit, licence, consent or approval for a prescribed activity, to ensure that authorisation has been issued under the Act. That makes environmental authorisation a precondition of the rest of your approvals rather than something to run alongside them.
Section 4 sets the consequences of proceeding anyway:
- Undertaking or implementing an activity in contravention is an offence carrying a fine of up to P100 000, or imprisonment for up to five years, or both.
- The offender must rehabilitate the area affected by the adverse environmental impact. The Act defines rehabilitate as reinstatement or restoration to a normal or functional environmental state.
- Failing to rehabilitate is a further offence carrying a fine of up to P1 000 000, or imprisonment for up to 15 years, or both.
The process and the 21 day public review
An application is made to obtain authorisation for a proposed activity. The competent authority evaluates it and has three routes open:
- Where the competent authority is satisfied that all relevant information is provided and the activity will not have an adverse environmental impact, it authorises the activity.
- Where it finds the information provided is insufficient, it requires and specifies the further information needed.
- Where it decides a fuller environmental impact assessment is required, the project moves into that process.
The competent authority may also request an environmental management plan on receipt of an application.
Public review is built in. The process requires publication in the media, using the official languages, for a period of not less than 21 days, after which the practitioner deals with what the review produced. That is a real, dated step in the programme, not a formality, and it is one of the reasons the environmental process cannot be compressed at the end of a project.
In deciding whether to issue or renew an authorisation, the competent authority takes into account the contents of the statement and the matters the Act prescribes. Where an application is refused, the applicant is informed.
After authorisation: validity, changes and transfer
An authorisation is a live instrument with conditions attached.
- Validity. Under section 14, an authorisation is valid for such period as is stipulated in it, and may be subject to renewal at the end of that period. The period is on the document, so read it.
- Revocation or modification. Under section 15, the competent authority may revoke or modify an authorisation where there is an unanticipated irreversible adverse environmental impact, or where the developer fails to comply with any term or condition of the authorisation. It must give written notice before doing so.
- Transfer. Under section 16(1), no person may transfer, assign or encumber an authorisation in any way without the written consent of the competent authority. Contravening that is an offence carrying a fine of up to P2 000 or up to three months imprisonment, or both.
The transfer rule matters in a transaction. An authorisation is not a freely assignable asset, and it cannot be used as security without consent. Anyone buying a project, or lending against one, needs the competent authority's written consent as a condition rather than an assumption.
The Act also provides for post-assessment oversight: a monitoring programme and evaluation report under section 18, and an environmental audit by the competent authority under section 19. Compliance is checked after the fact, not just at approval.
Which activities are prescribed
The activities requiring authorisation are prescribed under section 3 of the Act, with the detail set out in the Environmental Assessment Regulations, S.I. 58 of 2012.
In practice the regime reaches the activities you would expect in a resource and infrastructure economy: mining and mineral extraction, fuel storage and handling, energy generation and transmission, waste management, industrial and manufacturing operations, water resource projects, roads and major construction, and activities in or affecting sensitive and conservation areas. BERA's own requirements for authorisation to construct a generation plant call for an approved assessment or a departmental exemption, which is covered on our energy and green economy page. Botswana's conservation estate is extensive, and proximity to it changes the assessment substantially.
Because the prescribed list sits in regulations rather than in the Act, and because regulations are amended, screening a specific project against the current list is the first piece of work, not something to infer from a general description, including this one.
How the process fits a project programme
The sequence below reflects that section 5(1) puts this ahead of your other approvals, and that the 21 day review is a fixed cost in time.
- Screening
Establish whether the project is a prescribed activity under section 3 and the 2012 Regulations. This determines everything downstream.
- Application to the competent authority
Made to obtain authorisation for the proposed activity, with the information the regulations require.
- Evaluation and possible further information
The authority may authorise, may require specified further information, or may decide a full environmental impact assessment is needed.
- Environmental impact assessment, where required
Carried out by an appropriately qualified practitioner, with the specialist studies the project needs.
- Public review
Publication in the media in the official languages for not less than 21 days, and the practitioner's handling of what it raises.
- Environmental management plan
Where the competent authority requests one. Treat it as the operating document it becomes, not a submission annexe.
- Authorisation and conditions
Issued for a stipulated period, with conditions. Read the period and diarise the renewal.
- Other licences, then monitoring
Only now can your sector licence be issued under section 5(1). After implementation, monitoring reports under section 18 and audits under section 19.
What Insika does on environmental compliance
Insika does not carry out environmental impact assessments. Those are done by appropriately qualified practitioners. We screen, coordinate and manage.
- Screening. Against the current prescribed list, so you know early whether you are in the regime and at what depth.
- Sequencing. Placing the process where section 5(1) requires it, ahead of the sector licence rather than beside it.
- Practitioner appointment and coordination. Managed as one programme with the technical work.
- Public review management. Planned into the programme as a fixed 21 day minimum rather than discovered late.
- Conditions into operations. Turning the authorisation and any environmental management plan into an operating checklist that survives an audit.
- Transactions. Securing the written consent that a transfer of authorisation requires, which matters most on mining and infrastructure assets changing hands.
Official sources
This guide is based on the current rules published by the relevant Botswana authorities. Always confirm the latest fees and requirements with the office that applies to you.