Prevention is better than cure
Huge trucks excavate coal from an open cast coal mine at Hangwe Colliery.
In Zimbabwe, environmental rights are among the fundamental rights and freedoms conferred on every person as per the Constitution. Before the enactment of the new Constitution in 2013, environmental rights were not recognised as a fundamental human rights issue.
Although the government had developed various strategies and legislation on environmental conservation, like the National Conservation Strategy in 1987 and the Environmental Management Act (EMA) in 2004, these had not firmly established environmental rights within the framework of fundamental rights and freedoms.
The constitutional status of environmental rights, therefore, raised their profile, equalising them to other rights such as the right to life. This created massive expectations from communities, often affected by negative environmental impacts such as river pollution and exposure to toxic substances, that the