Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment Deputy Minister Bernice Swarts last month addressed the 2026 Annual Air Quality Priority Area Summit in Rustenburg, in the North West province, highlighting the responsibility of government, industry, civil society, academia and citizens to work together to reduce air pollution and advance environmental justice.

The theme of the summit, ‘Collective Accountability for Clean Air: Clean Air is Not a Privilege, but a Fundamental Right’, focused on how poor air quality disproportionately affects the most vulnerable members of society, with children, the elderly and people with underlying disease bearing the brunt.

It brought together air quality officials and stakeholders from three declared priority areas in South Africa, namely, the Highveld Priority Area, the Vaal Triangle Airshed Priority Area and the Waterberg-Bojanala Priority Area.

It focused on several essential themes, including building technical capacity among government institutions and stakeholders within the new priority area regulatory framework; assessing lessons learnt from the implementation of the Highveld Priority Area Air Quality Management Plan; and using those lessons to better prepare for the Vaal Triangle Airshed Priority Area and Waterberg-Bojanala priority areas, Swarts noted.

She also applauded the work of philanthropic organisation Clean Air Fund – headed country lead Vumile Senene – which supports the government in its efforts to ensure clean air in the country, such as its rolling out of 200 low-cost sensors across Gauteng, Free State and North West in 2025. This allowed government to fast-track programmes in each priority area.

The summit also focused on the implementation of the National Dust Control Regulations, which compel industries to shift from a reactive to a proactive dust management and control approach.

She highlighted that improving dust management requires collective effort.

“As we move forward, let us remain guided by a simple but powerful theme of the 2026 Priority Area Summit: clean air is not a privilege; clean air is a constitutional right, and clean air is essential for healthy communities, sustainable development and a prosperous future,” she concluded.