Environmental Management (Environmental Liability Polluter Pays) Regulations, 2026

The polluter pays principle becomes a binding rule of Zimbabwean environmental law. Every ministry, department, agency, local authority and public body administering environmental law must apply it in decision-making, permitting, regulatory action and enforcement.

Liability covers four things. Remediation means restoring the damaged environment to its baseline condition, including removing pollutants and rehabilitating land, water or ecosystems. Restoration means preventive or mitigating measures where damage is threatened but has not yet happened. Compensation means paying the value of the natural resources damaged, the loss of ecosystem services, and any consequential loss suffered by a person or community. On top of that, an authority may require financial security, performance bonds or environmental insurance sufficient to guarantee the liability.

The reach of that liability is the part businesses should read twice. It applies whether or not the polluter held a permit, licence or authority for the activity; whether the pollution came from a single event or from cumulative, continuous or historic activities; and whether the harm was immediate or emerged over time. A valid permit is no longer a defence, and damage caused years ago is still actionable.

Reporting duties are immediate and short. Anyone who causes environmental damage or an imminent threat, or becomes aware of one, must notify the Environmental Management Agency at once, take all reasonable measures to contain and prevent further damage, and submit a remediation plan to the Agency for approval within fourteen days.

Non-compliance can attract administrative fines, criminal prosecution leading to a fine or imprisonment or both, civil liability for remediation and restoration costs, suspension or revocation of an environmental permit or licence, or any combination of these.

One caution on the text as gazetted: the sections run 1, 2, 3, then 5, with no section 4, and the cross-references inside section 2 do not line up with its own subsections. Whether a provision was dropped in printing is not apparent from the instrument.