1. 1 AGA Act & the protection of Astronomy Geographic Advantage Areas May 2011

2. 2 Presentation outline Introduction Purpose of the Act AGA Act milestones Future declarations and regulations

3. 3 Introduction Astronomy Geographic Advantage Bill assented into an Act in 2008 by the President

4. 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. 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. 6 2.Declaration of the Northern Cape optical and radio telescope sites as core astronomy advantage areas in terms of section 7 of the Act AGA Act milestones

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

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

9. 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. 10 Cabinet Task Team Cabinet has set up a interdepartmental task team to probe the impact of fracturing. The team is led by the DG’s of DMR and DST

11. 11 THANK YOU