In light of their growing environmental responsibilities, provincial and especially local governments need to secure sufficient funding to pursue their mandates. Positive examples of capacity building by the national and provincial environmental authorities need to be scaled-up and more systematic. As a result, different requirements are applied within and among provinces. Most local authorities do not have the capacity to exercise their post-apartheid constitutional powers in land-use management and to integrate environmental aspects into spatial planning; thus, provinces continue to play a significant role. In many areas, traditional (tribal) authorities are insufficiently engaged in spatial planning and land-use management, partly because they consider that the state does not heed the communities’ historic land rights. However, the institutional barriers to its implementation have seriously limited policy effectiveness.