ALL RISE - Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice

02/09/2026

September marks the start of spring in South Africa.

The beauty of Spring is a poignant reminder of what is at stake. The natural cycles we celebrate from flowering, breeding, migration, to the return of life, and everything in between, depend on ecosystems that are under sustained pressure. Renewal in nature is not always guaranteed. It is the product of conditions that environmental harm steadily erodes.

The work of defending those conditions does not take a season off. This September, All Rise Attorneys will be marking the International Day of Clean Air, Heritage Day, and World Rivers Day - connecting each to the legal work of protecting South Africa's air, water, and natural heritage.

Follow along as we move through the month.

Happy spring. 🌼

28/08/2026

On 21 August, Lihle Mbokazi took part in the South African Civil Society Forum in Durban, She joined a panel to launch the Chasing Shadows report, commissioned by former UN Special Rapporteur on the risks and dangers faced by Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor. The panel was convened by the African Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD Initiative) and Amnesty International. Lihle spoke on behalf of All Rise, alongside Tanele Maseko, Director and Founder of the Thulani Maseko Foundation, and Malungelo Xhakaza, Director and Founder of the Fikile Ntshangase Foundation and daughter of the late Mam’Fikile Ntshangase.

Lihle was asked what land, water and the environment mean to people in Somkhele, a mining-affected community in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
She spoke about Mam’Fikile, who lost her life while defending her community against mining activities and the proposed expansion of mining in the area which have cost the community their land, livelihoods and access to clean water”;. Lihle said her key message from the gathering is simple: “protecting human rights defenders also means protecting our land, our environment, our water, and our communities.”

26/08/2026

As Women’s Month draws to an end, the environmental justice sector must ask a more difficult question: not simply whether women are present, but whether environmental laws and decision-making processes recognise the full, gendered cost of environmental harm.

When water becomes polluted or scarce, the additional time spent finding safe alternatives and caring for sick family members rarely appears in an environmental impact assessment. When agricultural land or communal resources are lost, women’s informal income, subsistence work and unpaid labour may not be reflected in economic assessments or compensation. When communities are displaced, women whose rights to land are informal or dependent on family relationships may have the weakest claims to compensation or resettlement support.

Environmental processes can therefore appear neutral while reproducing existing inequality. A consultation meeting does not necessarily mean that women had an equal opportunity to be heard. Compensation paid to a household does not guarantee that women will benefit from it. An assessment of environmental impacts is incomplete if it ignores the unpaid labour, economic insecurity and increased vulnerability those impacts may create.

Treating environmental harm as a human rights issue requires us to ask: Who carries the costs that are not recorded? Whose knowledge is accepted as evidence? Who holds decision-making power? Who can access legal remedies when harm occurs?

For All Rise Attorneys, this perspective is not incidental to our environmental justice work; it is an intentional and integral part of it. The women of All Rise Attorneys pictured here are members of a women-led organisation that deliberately examines how seemingly neutral environmental decisions may affect women differently and works to ensure that those impacts are not overlooked. This commitment shapes how we listen to communities, examine evidence and pursue accountability. It strengthens our efforts to ensure that legal processes look beyond technical compliance and reflect the realities of all those affected.

Pictured in no particular order: Lihle Mbokazi, Kirsten Youens, Janice Tooley and Kaliope Geldenhuys

20/08/2026

Water and mining interests are on a collision course in much of South Africa due to competing legal mandates.

Mining is both water-intensive and water-polluting. Acid mine drainage from abandoned and active operations contaminates rivers and groundwater that communities depend on. Where water use licences are granted, their conditions are seldom enforced and water polluting mining operations continue, often upstream of vulnerable communities who bear the consequences of non-compliance.

The legal tension is real. Section 27 of the Constitution guarantees access to sufficient water. The National Water Act treats water as a public resource to be protected and fairly allocated. Mining rights, whilst subject to the National Water Act, are governed by their own legal framework, one that promotes mining, and are often utilised by rights holders in the absence of, or in contravention of, water use licences.

When competing interests collide, the question is: whose rights prevail? The answer should not automatically favour the industry with the most resources.

At , defending water as a shared public resource is core to our work. The right to water is not negotiable.

Read more at www.allrise.org.za

18/08/2026

Long before environmental law was written down, communities across South Africa held deep knowledge of how to live with the land, the rivers, and the coast.

In South Africa, indigenous and traditional communities hold customary relationships with land and natural resources that the law increasingly recognises. The right to free, prior, and informed consultation; customary land rights; and the value of traditional ecological knowledge are all part of a just environmental order.

Too often, large developments proceed as though these rights do not exist. They do.

At , ensuring that affected communities have a genuine legal voice is central to our community empowerment work. Read more at www.allrise.org.za

14/08/2026

We celebrate this landmark judgment in the Constitutional Court today!

Appeal granted!

The precedent-setting judgment handed down by Justice Kollapen, has been lauded by Wild Coast communities and environmental organisations (the Applicants) who brought their case against the two oil companies to the Constitutional Court in September 2025 after Shell and Impact Africa had planned to explore for oil and gas off the Wild Coast coastline, based on an exploration right received in 2014.

The whole administrative process and the decision to grant the exploration right is set aside, and thus the oil parties do not have the right to explore for oil.

For centuries colonialism and capitalism have enabled a system that ignores the rights of indigenous people in their own land. At last we have been able to assert the rights of indigenous people over the profits of global corporations.

This is a win not just for us as Indigenous People, but also for the environment and the planet.

13/08/2026

13/08/2026

Celebrating World Lion Day and World Elephant Day
Lions and elephants are among the animals the world pictures when it thinks of African wildlife. They also provide a useful way to understand how the law protects nature.

The survival of South Africa’s iconic species depends on a legal framework: protected-area legislation that safeguards the land they need; the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, which governs threatened and protected species; and laws and policies that guide the management of human-wildlife conflict where communities and animals share space.

But these laws are only effective when they are properly implemented and enforced. When protected area boundaries are eroded, development is approved in critical habitats, or conflict is managed without regard for the law, even iconic species become vulnerable.

As we mark World Lion Day (10 August) and World Elephant Day (12 August), reflects on the legal work that contributes to the protection of wildlife and the habitats on which it depends. Biodiversity protection is a legal obligation, and helping to ensure that this obligation is recognised and respected is an important and deeply valued part of our work.

Share to raise awareness. 🦁🐘

09/08/2026

This Women's Day, we remember the roughly 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria in 1956 to protest the pass laws. Their courage reshaped the country, and we honour them on National Women's Day.

That same spirit lives on in the women defending South Africa's environment today. The community leaders challenging polluting industries, the activists holding the line against unlawful developments, and the lawyers and scientists doing the rigorous work behind the headlines. Women are not only those who bear environmental harm. They are among its most determined opponents.

Across communities throughout South Africa, we have the privilege of working alongside remarkable women. Through their lived experience, local knowledge and determined leadership, they are protecting their land, water, health and livelihoods. They participate actively in discussions, engage with legal and environmental information, ask important questions and deepen their understanding of the rights and processes that shape their communities. What they learn does not stay in the room. They carry it home to their families, neighbours and wider communities, helping others understand their rights, take part in decisions and act collectively against environmental injustice.

Section 24 of our Constitution guarantees everyone the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing. Turning that promise into reality takes the kind of courage and persistence the women of 1956 showed.

Today, ALL RISE - Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice honours the courage, wisdom and commitment of the women advancing environmental justice across South Africa. We are proud to stand with them, to learn from them, and to defend our environment alongside them. 🇿🇦

07/08/2026

August is Women’s Month in South Africa - a time to recognise women advancing environmental justice and to ask a question that environmental decision-making too often overlooks: who carries the weight of environmental harm?

The burden is rarely gender-neutral. In many communities, women secure water, grow food, care for families, and hold communities together. When mining effluent pollutes a water source, drought empties the fields, or environmental degradation displaces families, women often experience the consequences first and most severely.

Yet women are not only carrying these burdens. They are organising, advocating, defending their land and livelihoods, and shaping solutions. They are advancing environmental justice.
Environmental justice and gender justice are inseparable.

This Women’s Month, will share content that centres the women and communities bearing the heaviest environmental burdens, while highlighting the legal tools available to protect their rights and support their pursuit of justice.
Follow along as we honour women advancing environmental justice.