the impacts of the activities of extractive industries should not be restricted in any way, including through statutes of limitations in accessing the courts. 50. Under Article 24 of the African Charter, in case of a threatened environment, the duty to protect entails that proper scientific monitoring and relevant corrective measures are undertaken by the State. Similarly, in cases of despoliation or pollution of the environment, the relevant legislative and regulatory rules should lay down the standards and processes to be applied for a) assessing the despoliation or pollution, b) the clean-up and restoration of the affected environment, and c) the compensation of the affected persons/peoples. 51. The third duty is the duty to promote the rights. As the African Commission puts it, this entails that the State should make sure that individuals are able to exercise their rights and freedoms. This they should do, for example, by promoting tolerance, raising awareness, and even building infrastructures. In the context of Articles 21 and 24, the duty to promote involves enacting the relevant implementing legislation and elaborating policies and action plans for enabling the general public and particularly potentially affected local people to have advance and continuous access to all the relevant information on natural resources and the environment. It also entails that the relevant regulatory bodies are equipped with and duly mandated to disseminate such information, and undertake awareness creation and public education activities. In the current reality of limited resources and institutional capacity, one way of realizing the duty to promote is to create the conducive legal conditions that would enable members of society, local communities and civil society actors to organize and engage in promotional activities particularly those relating to public education and awareness creation as well as effective participation in decision-making processes. 52. In addition to and related to information is the provision of guarantees for undertaking consultations with and ensuring the participation of the wider public in general and local people in particular, including vulnerable groups and children. As part of the duty to promote, States are accordingly required to ensure that the public is availed adequate opportunities for consultation about and rich and rigorous participation in decision-making processes on plans for both industrial exploration and extraction of natural resources and other large-scale activities with potential environmental and social impacts. State Reporting Guidelines and Principles  | 35