The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism have identified, under the Environment Conservation Act (Act no. 73 of 1989), activities, which may have a detrimental effect on the environment within the Outeniqua Sensitive Coastal Area (OSCA).
This means that as a developer you need to be aware of these activities that may hinder or restrict your project, as well as the tracts of land that fall within the OSCA. The activities are measured by their extent and usually do not include normal agricultural or gardening activities (advice in this regard can be obtained from your local authority). The activities are:

1. Disturbance of vegetation (deliberate trampling, cutting or removal of vegetation)
2. Earthworks (excavation, moving, removal, depositing or compacting soil, sand, rock or rubble)
3. Dredging (as in point no.2 where a river, tidal lagoon, tidal river, floodplain or wetland are involved)
4. Dune destabilization (planting on, or covering with vegetative, natural or synthetic material of dunes or exposed surfaces of sand, or the erection of structures or walls thereon with the purpose of preventing the sand from being eroded, accreted or moved by wind or water)

The OSCA includes designated erven stretching along the entire Garden Route. Detailed maps are available from the South Cape District Council, George municipality and Groot-Brak River Municipality indicating specific erf numbers in towns such as Wilderness, Herolds Bay, Knysna, Sedgefield and Plettenberg Bay. The Act remains in force and should still be heeded whether you are a developer or a resident of the Garden Route. An environmental consultant can assist with your application for an OSCA permit. As a developer you need to apply for approval from the local authorities should you be involved in developing one or more of these erven, even after you may already have your Environmental Impact Assessment approval. Where approval is required, a developer would usually require submitting a rehabilitation report on how the affected areas will be cared for.
There is also a question as to whether or not the local authorities have the resources to attend to or monitor all such cases.