In this week’s post, Ezile Madlala reports on the 7th Annual Regional Binding Treaty Indaba held in Johannesburg last month. During the event, mining-affected communities, civil society and African state representatives pushed for a binding international treaty on business and human rights, highlighted barriers to participation in treaty negotiations, and stressed the need for African-led solutions.

In this week’s AML blog piece, Wandile observes that South Africa’s Climate Change Act represents a step forward in aligning the country with global climate commitments. However, he notes that the recently enacted Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Act undermines this progress by promoting the exploration of fossil fuels. He argues that this contradiction threatens environmental rights, deepens inequality, and reveals a troubling disconnect between South Africa’s climate goals and its fossil fuel-driven development agenda.

In this week’s post Celiwe examines the Sustaining the Wild Coast cases, where South Africa’s courts evaluated the lawfulness of Shell and Impact's seismic exploration rights along the Wild Coast. While the High Court suspended the exploration due to insufficient consultation with affected communities and environmental concerns, the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the decision, emphasizing foreign investment. The article highlights the legal tension between corporate interests, environmental protection, and marginalized communities’ rights

In a capitalist construct, the environment is viewed as a commodity with zero opportunity cost, and over the years capitalism has given rise to severe environmental degradation. In this week’s post, Professor Soyapi focuses on capitalism and the environment. He discusses carbon majors' contribution to environmental degradation in Africa. The environment is everybody's responsibility to protect hence the observation that communities have the key to challenging future state-sanctioned carbon major projects that threaten African eco-frontiers.