Environment Africa tackles this through institutional interventions, working formally with the media, the business sector and the government. EAfrica lobbies to place the environment firmly on the political and corporate agendas, and has better and more frequent media coverage. In addition, EAfrica takes a watchdog role, following up on reports of environmental degradation and working to resolve conflict over natural resources.

A key opportunity has arisen with the enactment of the Environmental Management Act (EMA) in 2002, which provides a legal framework for regulating, monitoring and coordinating environmental management and prosecuting environmental degradation and pollution. The Act establishes a new Environmental Management Agency that will coordinate environmental legislation and regulation, calls for the preparation of National Environmental Plans, and consolidates and extends previous legislation on environmental issues. Environment Africa is working to ensure that the EMA is widely understood and to train local government officers on its implementation.

EAfrica works to mainstream the environment through:

• Working to raise awareness of key issues among the government, the corporate sector, development agencies and the media. This is done through providing information on key environmental issues in seminars, publications, Greenline magazine, the web site, plain language guides to environmental laws, etc.
• Promoting Environmental laws and conventions such as the Environmental Management Act (EMA) and local knowledge systems through capacity building with local structures, developing and disseminating laymen's guides.

• Lobbying to influence the responsible person or party that is causing environmental or social problems, as well as to ensure thatenvironmental issues get onto and stay on the political agenda.
• Advocacy for clearer legal situations, policy changes or bringing cases of environmental degradation to the press or courts.
• Conflict resolution over natural resource or environment issues.
• Work with industry on corporate responsibility (urban and industry programme) to enhance environmental performance among industry, thereby promoting the sustainable utilization of resources. This has been helped by the formation of industrial clusters (see below).
• Media Relations activities, such as media briefings, news releases. EAfrica coordinates quarterly Environmental Reporter Awards, to promote excellent reporting on environmental issues in Zimbabwe.
• The development and implementation of appropriate training on the environment.