Prosecution of Environmental Crimes: A Critical Assessment of the Environmental Management Act: A Case Study of Tanzania

Mhini,, Geofrey Jeremia (2017) Prosecution of Environmental Crimes: A Critical Assessment of the Environmental Management Act: A Case Study of Tanzania. Masters thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

Environmental crimes pose serious and growing problems and are a roadblock to the implementation of policies and laws for protection of the environment. They pose a considerable challenge to institutions and authorities tasked with the responsibility to combat them. Despite the gravity and threat imposed to the environment itself and to human beings, environmental crimes are not accorded the desired response from the government and the enforcement community. The environmental legislation establishes a comprehensive legal and institutional framework for compliance and enforcement together with crimes that regulate activities of environmental polluters and violators of environmental laws and regulations. Prosecution of environmental crimes however is highly challenged for being poorly and in effectively conducted due to deficiencies in the laws and regulations, poor investigation and prosecution, lack of expertise and experience, scarcity of special equipment and inadequate budgetary and human resources. The study aims to reveal the scale, impacts of environmental crimes and the institutions involved in enforcement and prosecution of environmental crimes. The relevant laws are reviewed and a critical discussion is made on the prosecution of environmental crimes under the Environmental Management Act, No.4 of 2004. The study gives a critical analysis of the issue “whether or not prosecution of environmental crimes is effective” through underlying the causes of failure of environmental criminal cases prosecuted under the environmental legislation.

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