The Natural Resources and Environment Minister has “rapped” 14 errant developers who have flouted environmental rules in Lojing. Nine of these naughty developers had carried out projects without submitting Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports while four had EIA reports but failed to follow its mitigation plans.
14 to face the music
Kami sokong! All errant developers should be rapped, preferably on their knuckles and toes until they turn blue.
We would, however, like to (humbly) point out to the honourable Minister that EIAs are only as effective as the agency that approves (and then monitors and enforces) them.
Many EIAs have been submitted and approved for many of the deforestation projects in Lojing and Gua Musang over the years, but (as far as we know) this has not changed a thing on the ground. Why is this so? It’s probably due to a number of factors. One could be that many of these EIAs that have been approved are of dubious quality and should not have been approved in the first place.
If this is so, then the rapping should not only be confined to the errant contractors who did not follow the mitigation measures contained in the respective EIAs or did not even bother to submit EIAs at all. The government agency that approved these EIAs should also be rapped.
Let’s backtrack a little and talk about some basics of EIAs in Malaysia with regards to forest conversion. There are two general categories of EIAs in Malaysia. Of these, the so-called “Preliminary EIAs” are required under Section 34A of the Environmental Quality Act 1974 for land development schemes covering an area of 500 hectares or more to bring forest land into agriculture production (50 hectares or more if it is hill forest). Preliminary EIAs are submitted to the respective State Department of Environment (DOE) offices for approval. Only “competent” EIA consultants that are registered with the DOE can submit EIAs.
Based on the Executive Summaries of EIA reports for conversion of forest to plantations in Gua Musang/Lojing approved by DOE Kelantan in the past five years (these summaries are available on DOE’s website), two things may be observed:
- The bulk of these EIA reports are done by a small handful of EIA consulting firms who seem to specialise in churning out EIAs for deforestation in Kelantan.
- Many of these EIA Executive Summaries are cut-and-paste jobs.
- Some of the findings and recommendations outlined in these summaries are just plain dumb.
Let’s play “Spot the difference”!
As EIA consultants are hired by the project proponents, it is only natural that they act on the best interests of their clients, which ultimately is to obtain approval from the DOE so the that the particular project can go ahead.
But when poor quality EIAs are approved, is it the fault of the consultant, or the DOE which approves it?
Although we are only baseing this claim on the Executive Summaries available online, would you put much trust in EIAs that have ridiculous conclusions such as this?:
“More importantly, the greening of the respective area may in directly contribute in producing an oxygen and carbon dioxide needed by the human being, trees (flora) and any other living organism within and surrounding the proposed project site area.”
Source: PEIA FOR PROPOSED OIL PALM PLANTATION AT MUKIM ULU NENGGIRI, DAERAH BERTAM, GUA MUSANG, KELANTAN DARUL NAIM
(See full Executive Summary here: RingkasanEksekutif-PEIAPMBKSawit5000Ekar)
And this is the conclusion given for a project that will clear fell over 2,000 hectares of rainforest, within a forest reserve, for oil palm. In a water catchment area (although the EIA denies this, the whole damn area is a water catchment lah, come on!). Less than 1km away from an Orang Asli settlement (who likely were not even properly consulted in the EIA study). And this EIA was approved by DOE Kelantan. What rubbish.
And don’t get us started on monitoring and enforcement…
RubberForests 