1

AGA Act & the protection of Astronomy Geographic Advantage Areas

May 2011

2

Presentation outline

• Introduction• Purpose of the Act• AGA Act milestones• Future declarations and regulations

3

Introduction

• Astronomy Geographic Advantage Bill assented into an Act in 2008 by the President

4

Purpose of the Act

• Preservation of geographic advantage that attracts and protect investment in astronomy

• Supporting advancement and development of astronomy e.g. human capacity building and research development

5

AGA Act milestones

1. Declaration of Northern Cape Province excluding Sol Plaatjie Municipality as astronomy advantage area in terms of section 5 of the AGA Act

6

2. Declaration of the Northern Cape optical and radio telescope sites as core astronomy advantage areas in terms of section 7 of the Act

AGA Act milestones

7

3. Declaration of Southern Africa Large Telescope (SALT), MeerKAT, and SKA as protectable astronomy and related scientific endeavours in terms of section 28 of the Act;

AGA Act milestones

← SALT

KAT-7 →

8

4. Declaration of the Department of Science and Technology as the astronomy

management authority of the core astronomy advantage areas

AGA Act milestones

9

Future declarations and regulations

Central and coordinated astronomy advantage areas declarations will be completed during 2011/ 2012

Regulations for central and coordinated astronomy advantage areas are planned for completion during 2012/ 13

10

Cabinet Task Team

• Cabinet has set up a interdepartmental task team to probe the impact of fracturing.

• The team is led by the DG’s of DMR and DST

11

THANK YOU