The Environment Department is responsible for promoting environmental sustainability and conservation within the district. Key duties and responsibilities include:

The environment Department seeks to promote sustainable utilization of natural resources within the administrative area of Jurisdiction of Umguza Rural District Council. The department aims to achieve this through monitoring the extraction and ferrying of natural resources from the Council’s area of Jurisdiction to other parts of the country. Previously, his has been done through issuing out of permits to abstract and ferry these resources and penalizing those who breached the law as supported by the Council Land Use and Conservation By-Laws of 2013. The Council also makes it mandatory to educate the community on Sustainable Utilization of Natural Resources. Umguza Rural District Council is endowed with natural resources such as stones (quarry,pit-sand, river-sand and gravel) wood, wildlife. The department also deals with other various environmental issues like Land use and allocation where it partners with the Engineering department to assess project feasibility through what is called ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’. The department also deals with veld fires, proper waste management, problem animal Control, human-wildlife conflict, trophy hunting Quotas and any other environment related issues that emerge by day.