ALL RISE - Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice

14/10/2026

The Daily Maverick has published an article on the Just Compensation Report that was released in September 2026. It highlights key findings of this report.

"When calculated accurately, the economic effects of this coal mine are clearly negative, depriving a rural community of their future, while effectively transferring resources to the private owners of Tendele mine. Even if the fiscal contribution of the mine is factored in, it remains an unconscionable and irrational extraction of value from the many to the few.”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-10-12-coal-mine-relocation-families-paid-less-than-5-of-their-real-losses/

We would be interested to read your thoughts on the report, available on our website, a link is provided in the comments. Please provide your comments below. How do you think this report can make a difference?

What happens to the people ‘relocated’ from their homes and land to make way for major coal-mining ventures? Do they get a fair deal to compensate them properly for what they lose? In the case of the …

10/10/2026

📣 Breaking News

Today, The Constitutional Court of South Africa delivered a landmark judgment (South African Hunters and Game Conservation Association v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others, [2026] ZACC 42) preserving the inclusion of animal "well-being" within South African biodiversity legislation, dismissing SA Hunters challenge with costs.

SA Hunters sought to declare invalid or temporarily suspend the "well-being" provisions added to the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (NEMBA) via the 2022 Amendment Act. They argued that Parliament failed to conduct proper public participation because the definition changed late in the legislative process. The National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA - National Council of SPCAs) and the EMS Foundation Trust intervened as respondents to oppose the challenge.

The Act defines -being as "the holistic circumstances and conditions of an animal, which are conducive to its physical, physiological and mental health and quality of life, including the ability to cope with its environment." Today's ruling means the provisions and definition remain in force.

💪 This is an important ruling for wildlife protection in South Africa. Animal well-being will continue to be a mandatory consideration in the management, conservation and sustainable use of wildlife under NEMBA. The judgment reinforces that decisions relating to wildlife management, permits, policies, quotas, biodiversity management plans and other regulatory processes must continue to take animal well-being into account.

Humane World for Animals South Africa welcomes this landmark outcome and stands ready to support the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment in the implementation of these important well-being provisions.

👏 Congratulations to the NSPCA, the EMS Foundation and their respective legal counsel for their intervention and success. 🐾 👌

Read the judgment: https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2026/42.html
Watch the judgement (from 2:02:30): https://www.youtube.com/live/4CmO1X4wKDU?si=yybl5M09FnemXiWC&t=7335

09/10/2026

Last week, Janice Tooley, representing ALL RISE -, presented at the 12th annual Ocean Stewards Science Session, hosted by WILDTRUST at the Durban ICC. Her presentation, “Industrial Threats to the Ocean: Deconstructing the Development vs. Protection Fallacy”, explored the role of science in informing policy and decision-making within South Africa’s “develop and protect” legal framework.

Reflecting on the session, Janice shared, “It is inspiring and reassuring to know that there are so many talented and engaged young scientists who are committed to the future health of our oceans. As lawyers, scientists and civil society, we all need to work together to have the most impact.”

Wildlands | Wildoceanssa | Sharks Under Attack | Ocean Impact

02/10/2026

Mail & Guardian has published an article on the findings of the Just Compensation Report that ALL RISE - Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice commissioned.

Our thanks goes out again to the School of Global Affairs in King's College London and the authors Sarah Bracking and Danford Chibvongodze for their work in the findings of this report as well as the assistance and provision of resources from the School of Social Science, Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal

If you have not had the opportunity to read this report, a link to the report is in the comments section of this post.

A landmark study by researchers from King's College London and UKZN reveals that 115 households near KZN's Somkhele coal mine suffered over R80 million in…

29/09/2026

Reposted from School of Global Affairs King's College London:
"A coal mine in KwaZulu-Natal has compensated the families affected by the mine for less than 5 per cent of what they lost.
Between 2007 and 2018, 115 households around the Somkhele mine lost an estimated R80 million. They were paid R3.6 million. Only 25 of them received anything at all.

The figures come from Just Compensation, a report by Professor Sarah Bracking of King's College London and Dr Danford Tafadzwa Chibvongodze of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, commissioned by the pro bono law clinic ALL RISE - Attorneys for Climate and Environmental Justice.
What explains the gap is the way loss gets measured. Standard compensation prices what was visibly destroyed, at the moment it was destroyed. This report asks what the asset would have gone on producing: the calves a herd would have borne, the harvests a field would have given. A cow is not a line item. It is a household's food and cash for a decade.
Projected forward to 2038, the losses reach R157 million. The compensation paid covers 2.3 per cent of it.
Other losses the report declines to price at all and says so: ancestral graves families were made to relocate, rivers the mine now draws on, indigenous plants used for food and medicine.
The authors call on the South African government to engage with the mine operator so that affected families are compensated and the land rehabilitated.

Swipe through for the main findings. The full report, in English and isiZulu: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/just-compensation-in-mining

28/09/2026

A link to read the Just Compensation report is available in the comments section of this post.

23/09/2026

Read the Just Compensation report now

An independent report has found that a rural community affected by a South African coal mine was compensated for less than 5 per cent of its actual loss. Published today: 'Just Compensation', a report by Professor Sarah Bracking of King's College London and Dr Danford Tafadzwa Chibvongodze of the Un...

22/09/2026

All Rise commissioned this report to give affected communities something they have never had; an evidence-based figure for what relocation actually costs.

Our thanks to Professor Sarah Bracking and Dr Danford Chibvongodze, and to the households at Somkhele who took part. "Just Compensation" sets a standard. We hope mining companies and their consultants will measure themselves against it, and that regulators and courts will hold them to it.

All Rise commissioned this report to give affected communities something they have never had; an evidence-based figure for what relocation actually costs. Our thanks to Professor Sarah Bracking and Dr Danford Chibvongodze, and to the households at Somkhele who took part. "Just Compensation" sets a s...

21/09/2026

Yesterday marked World Cleanup Day and the 27th marks World Rivers Day - both are reminders that the health of our rivers and the health of our ocean are an integrated, complex system and vital for our health and well-being and the health of our planet.

Let’s all do our part.

10/09/2026

Here is terminology worth understanding: Biodiversity Offset.

The idea sounds rational and reasonable. A development destroys habitat here, so the developer protects or restores equivalent habitat elsewhere. No net loss. In principle, a tool for balancing growth and conservation.

In practice, offsets can become a loophole. When a unique ecosystem is destroyed, can it really be replaced by protecting a different patch of land? When the 'equivalent' habitat is hard to define, easy to overstate, and rarely monitored, an offset can quietly become permission to destroy.

South Africa's environmental impact assessment framework and the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act set the rules. The legal question is whether offsets are applied rigorously - as a genuine last resort after avoidance and minimisation - or loosely, as a box to tick on the way to approval.

At , scrutinising how offsets are used is part of defending biodiversity. Not all losses can be offset or compensated.