Cedar Tower Services attended the 20th anniversary conference of the International Association for Impact Assessment South African affiliate (IAIAsa) on 17th August at the Cathkins Arms, Drakensberg Champagne Sports Hotel, KwaZulu-Natal. We presented our Heritage Screeners poster and held various discussions around our services and methodologies.

The conference was well attended by representatives from Eskom and various government departments dealing with environmental management. Unfortunately there were relatively few Environmental Assessment Practitioners present, who missed out on a wonderful location and interesting discussions. The use of technology in the Integrated Environmental Management session was particularly engaging and it strengthened our view that the use of digital resources in the environmental process is the way for the future!

Cedar Tower Services was the only representative for the heritage sector. We should definitely do more to promote our role in the impact assessment process and will encourage our colleagues to participate in future conferences. It is also a goal of the IAIA past president, Sue George, to recruit more heritage practitioners and get the heritage sector to be more involved in this impact assessment collective.

We finished the day with the eye opening view of Shore Break, a must see for everyone involved in the environmental sector in South Africa.