Ms Chumisa Thengwa is a Professional Natural Scientist, a Registered Environmental Assessment Practitioner and a Grade 1 Environmental Management Inspector (Green Scorpion) who holds a Masters Degree in Environmental Management. Her undergraduate studies were a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Statistics with an Honours BSc in Zoology which gave her the solid grounding in Science that she has drawn from in establishing for eThekwini Municipality one of the strongest Impact Assessment and Environmental Legal Compliance functions in the space of Local Government in South Africa. Over the past 5 years she was involved in climate change and environmental governance as well as high level decision making in these areas. In this respect, she has presented and fulfilled speaking roles on behalf of the Municipality on various national and international platforms and contributed towards several policy briefs in on nature based urban solutions. Her professional background includes environmental regulation, auditing and reporting; biodiversity protection and conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation as well as marine protection and research. She also worked in the sustainable coastal livelihoods space in her early career hoping to pursue Marine Biology as a speciality area. She has since held administrative and governance positions on various Boards, Tribunals, and Steering Committees including being a member of the Project Steering Committee (PSC) for the Environmental Impact Assessment and Management Strategy (EIAMS), a national intervention that aimed to look at the future state of the Environmental Impact Assessment system. She was also a Board member for the newly established Environmental Assessment Practitioners Association of South Africa (EAPASA), the only legislated professional registration authority for Environmental Assessment Practitioners in South Africa, occupying the role of Deputy Chairperson of the Board for 3 of the 7 years she spent with EAPASA.
