A National Strategy for the Facilitation of Coastal Access in South Africa
DEA, March 2014
"The intention of coastal access land provision as per ICM Act is to ensure that the public can gain access to coastal public property via public access servitudes – in perpetuity. All municipalities with coastal public property must declare these servitudes within four years of the establishment of the ICM Act. They are also required to report to the MEC their progress towards declaring coastal access land within two years of the ICM Act coming into effect. Municipalities are also required to establish coastal access land using by-laws. While the ICM Act is a mechanism for ensuring co-ordinated action and policy-planning around the coastal zone through a governance approach that is facilitating, integrated and cross-cutting, practical advice on how to achieve equitable access is not given. Therefore, the DEA Oceans and Coasts branch commissioned the development of a National Coastal Access Strategy (NCAS) in order to provide coastal access land management with national guidance coupled with practical step-by-step implementation at municipal level, acknowledging that at this management level, frequently resources are scarcest. This document presents the National Coastal Access Strategy under ICM Act and provides a framework for the National Guide to Coastal Access for South Africa, which focuses on the practical step-by-step implementation...."