AGA Act & the protection of Astronomy Geographic Advantage Areas

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

7. AGA Act milestones 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; ← SALT KAT-7 →

8. AGA Act milestones 4. Declaration of the Department of Science and Technology as the astronomy management authority of the core astronomy advantage areas

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 hasset 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