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ACCES A L’INFORMATION : CAS DE L’EXPLOITATION MINIERE DE Qit Madagascar Minerals (QMM) DANS LA REGION ANOSY (Fort Dauphin)

Published: 2011

Les industries minières sont considérées par le Gouvernement malagasy d’être des industries stratégiques pour le développement de Madagascar. Elles sont aussi sources d’impacts sociaux et environnementaux non négligeables. QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM), détenue à hauteur de 80% par Rio Tinto et de 20% par l’Etat malgache représenté par l’Office des Mines National et des Industries Stratégiques (OMNIS), a mis en chantier une opération d’extraction de sables minéralisés, à Mandena, Taolagnaro dans la Région Anosy pour une durée de 20 à 25 ans. Le projet minier est localisé dans un environnement naturel très sensible avec un taux d’endémisme élevé et un écosystème littoral unique. L’étude de ce cas relatif à l’exploitation des sables minéraux (ilménite et zircon) à Fort-Dauphin se base alors sur les problématiques suivantes : y a-t-il une (des) initiative(s) du Gouvernement et de la compagnie minière pour l’accès du public à l’information sur le projet? Quelles sont les portées de celles-ci au niveau de la population ? L’objectif est d’identifier les lacunes juridiques, institutionnelles et les pratiques sur l’accès à l’information par rapport à l’environnement, la biodiversité et fournir des recommandations afin de combler ces lacunes.

Construction d’un complexe hôtelier à Nosy Hao sur une zone sensible – site d’une nouvelle aire marine protégée

Published: 2011

Ce rapport porte sur une étude de cas pour l’IA concernant un projet touristique : « Construction d’un complexe hôtelier à Nosy Hao sur une zone sensible – site d’une nouvelle aire marine protégée (Andavadoaka – Commune Befandefa – District Morombe – Région Atsimo Andrefana) ». La construction du complexe hôtelier Korail sur l’île de Nosy Hao est déjà passée par plusieurs étapes et celles-ci seront analysées sous l’angle de la participation publique, dans le cadre de cette étude. Ainsi, la particularité de cette étude réside dans l’analyse de la participation publique aux prises de décision au niveau d’un projet (touristique). Une mission de descente sur terrain a été réalisée du 16 au 21 mai 2011 à Tuléar et à Andavadoaka afin d’identifier des éléments de réponse aux indicateurs IA. La zone d’aménagement de Velondriake (l’Association responsable de la gestion de l’aire marine protégée) est dotée d’une richesse biologique. Les coraux et herbiers existants sur le site présentent un intérêt fonctionnel et patrimonial fort . Cette zone affiche alors un important potentiel de développement. Elle possède d’ailleurs une valeur économique essentielle car la pêche constitue l’activité économique principale de la majorité de la population locale. De plus, l’Aire Marine Protégée d’Andavadoaka ayant reçu des récompenses dans le domaine de la conservation sur deux années consécutives (le prix Equateur en 2007 et le prix Paul Getty en 2008), l’attrait de ce site pour l’écotourisme devrait s’accroître en raison de la médiatisation. Cette vocation touristique pourrait, cependant, se solder par une dégradation accrue du milieu récifal et des mangroves . C’est ainsi que ce projet de construction d’un complexe hôtelier risque d’avoir des impacts considérables sur le territoire et sur la vie des pêcheurs ainsi que des ménages occupant l’île de Nosy Hao et le site d’Andavadoaka. En ce sens, la participation du public au processus de prise de décision doit être prise en compte dans le cadre de ce projet. L’étude axée sur ce cas à Nosy Hao se base sur la problématique suivante : Dans le cadre de la construction du complexe hôtelier Korail à Nosy Hao, y a-t-il eu prise en compte et application effective d’un processus de participation publique en vue de garantir les conditions environnementales, économiques et socioculturelles pour le site d’Andavadoaka ?

Are Access Rights the Next Victim of the Global Recession?

By Andrew Rizzardi (Posted: June 10, 2009) 

Environmental access rights could be threatened by government stimulus packages intended to counter the effects of the global recession. Several countries worldwide have proposed stimulus legislation that includes rollbacks of environmental impact assessments (EIAs).

The information made available by EIAs is fundamental to informing the public of development issues and promoting participation. A reduction to EIA procedures will inherently result in a decline in transparency and threaten public involvement in development projects.

A few countries such as Canada and Peru have already taken legislative steps weakening EIAs. Preliminary reports from the Access Initiative provide that similar measures are being considered in a number of countries worldwide. To date, only the United States has rebuffed calls to ease environmental regulations by including language that effectively protects the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Environmental impact assessments are an invaluable tool that advances public capacity to participate and impact development decisions. Reducing such standards poses a serious risk of alienating the public and allowing development projects to move forward unchecked by the affected communities. Economic recovery programs and increases in development need not come at the expense of access rights and environmental procedures. Safeguards for access rights should be a component of all stimulus legislation worldwide.

See WRI posting:

Tracking Environmental Impact Assessment Rollbacks

Join the discussion:

Discussion Group – Identifying Rollbacks in EIA

See also:

Canadians Debating to Lower Environmental Safeguards

Stimulus or Environment – Must we choose?

Indian Court Reminds Environment Tribunal About Its Duty to the Future Generation

Indian Court Reminds Environment Tribunal About Its Duty to the Future Generation

By Ritwick Dutta (Posted: June 7, 2009) 

Two significant ruling by the Delhi High Court in the month of April and May, 2009 delivered by Justice Ravindra Bhat has greatly helped the cause of access to Justice in India. These two judgments along with the Judgment on the functioning of the NEAA delivered by Justice A. P Shah and Justice S Muralidhar has laid down a framework for access rights for far as challenging environmental clearances are concerned.

Background:

The National Environment Appellate Authority (NEAA), a Statutory Authority to hear appeals filed against approval granted by the Government to various industrial and infrastructure projects based on Environment Impact Assessment, dismissed two appeals filed before it. The first concerned approval of the Vedanta Aluminium Smelter Plant in Jhasrsuguda, Orissa and the second, a mine approved in Goa. The first Appeal was dismissed on the ground that the petitioner, Prafull Samantray did not have the loucus standi to file the Appeal since he was not an “aggrieved person”. The second was dismissed on grounds of delay since the petitioner did not, according to the NEAA have “sufficient cause” in filing the appeal late. The Delhi high Court quashed both the orders of the National Environmental Appellate Authority. In respect of Vedanta it imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 to be paid to the petitioner. The Courts clarified on the issue as to who can file an Appeal before the NEAA and held as follows:

•“Public hearings……. are organized to elicit comments from the members of public before granting clearance to a project in order to assess the nature of environmental damage, if any, due to the likely execution of project and its impact on the rights of inhabitants and the persons who depend on that area for livelihood or otherwise. A person who participates in the public hearing, and thus in the process of decision-making, potentially becomes an aggrieved person if his grievances are not properly addressed.

•The world as we know is gravely imperiled by mankind’s collective folly. Unconcern to the environment has reached such damaging levels which threatens the very existence of life on this planet. If standing before a special tribunal, created to assess impact of projects and activities that impact, or pose potential threats to the environment, or local communities, is construed narrowly, organizations working for the betterment of the environment whether in form of NGOs or otherwise, would be effectively kept out of the discourse, that is so crucial an input in such proceedings. Such association of persons, as long as they work in the field of environment, possess a right to oppose and challenge all actions, whether of the State or private parties, that impair or potentially impair the environment.

•In cases where complaints, appeals etc. are filed bona fide by public spirited interested persons, environmental activists or other such voluntary organisations working for the betterment of the community as a whole, they are to be construed as “aggrieved persons” within the meaning of that expression under Section 11 (2) (c) of the Act (National Environment Appellate Authority Act)

•As a native American proverb goes, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”; denial of access to meaningful channels to communities who can be affected by proposed projects would only leave them remediless, on the one hand, and allow unchallenged indiscriminate drawings from the future generations’ rights with impunity, thus gravely undermining the purpose of the Act.

•The kind of disputes that the Tribunal is expected to adjudicate upon is not really a lis between the litigating parties – it is necessarily a wider one whereby the impact of the State decisions to permit/promotion a kind of project, on the local community or the environment in general has to be considered. Viewed from this perspective, and the statement of objects of the enactment, this Court is of the opinion that the Tribunal has to in each case (where appeals are preferred before it), adopt a broad and liberal, rather than narrow and cribbed approach. The latter view, however, has appealed to the Tribunal. After all when the local community or a person entitled to move an appeal approaches a Tribunal as has happened in this case, the grievance is not the impact on the immediate parties alone, but on the wider community at large. The Tribunal has to keep that in mind.

•In a case like the present where environmental clearances’ impact on local population in terms of their environmental harm, has to be assessed the approach of the tribunal especially set up for this purpose should be liberal and not “hyper technical”

The two decisions of the Delhi High Court are truely landmark. These two, along with the earlier Judgment of Justice A.P Shah and Justice Muralidhar on the functioning of the NEAA could form the guiding force for affected communities and groups who wish to challenge destructive projects approved on the basis of faulty EIA.

Community Takes Oil Giant to Task: Demand Direct Role in Environmental Management of Drilling Project

By Eugene N. Nforngwa (Posted: June 4, 2009)

Limbe, SW – You know you are nearly there from the unending file of fuel trucks lining both sides of the winding double-carriage road.

“There is a perpetual risk of one crashing into these things,” complains Thomas Nche, deputy mayor of Idenau, who uses the road everyday. “There are no warning signs.”

The two-kilometre stretch outside the country’s lone petroleum refinery is only one example of how development could come with problems.

Since the creation of the National Oil Refinery (SONARA) 30 years ago, locals suspect gas flaring from the seaside facility is poisoning their air.

Beachgoers have reported spills and locals blame pollution of the shallow waters used by artisan fishermen for ever declining catch.

In addition to the perpetual risk of accidents, the arrival of hundreds of truckers every day has caused prostitution and, many suspect, HIV/AIDS to blossom around the refinery.

Nche and the nearly 7000 small-scale farmers, fishermen and hunters that make up his municipality, say they do not want to face the same fate.

Later this year, petroleum giant Total E&P plans to drill at least one offshore exploration well close to the municipality.

Major risks shown by an environmental impact study include potential oil spills, residual wastes, disruption of sea traffic and accidental situations, among others.

The well, on the Bomana block (Bomana South) would be located about 12km from the nearest coastline in a zone with water depth of just above 6m.

Ahead of the start of any works, community leaders and ordinary people are already asking a tough question: how would their environment and way of life be protected?

The question came up frequently at a public audience on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the project held in Idenau from 25 to 29 May.

The exercise, a requirement of the Cameroonian law, gave members of the public the opportunity to browse the project’s EIA report and make their comments in writing.

Elsewhere and a few years back, the operation would have been a formality. But the people of Idenau were ready and got fully involved.

Idenau is perhaps the first community that has received training on grassroots participation in EIA processes in Cameroon.

A workshop led by the organisation Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme Cameroon in December 2008 also resulted in the setting up of environmental governance committees.

The committees, spread across half a dozen villages and made up of ordinary people, now act as local environmental watchdogs.

“The training has helped us a lot because today we can identify some pitfalls in the [EIA] documents,” said Orgen Motome, an eviromental governenace committee focal point from Bibunde village.

“Those things that they have neglected or that they are informing us that are not very significant, we have seen that they are very significant, especially our absence in some of the operations.

“We are asking that we should be included in the operation so as to check these areas.”

One significant issue pointed out by the locals is the plan to find an alternative measure to deposit barite, a bi-product of the drilling process, into the sea.

“The Report recommends an alternative method to be put in place but we are not there to see that this alternative method has been put in place,” Motome said.

“We need to be there to check the alternative method and [ensure] that it is operational.”

Motome adds: “The report is not very bad, but the worries are that the technical document, which is a thick volume, can only be consulted on the spot. The villagers cannot take it home and have a thorough look at it. What is free for them is the summery, which does not give the very technical details of all the operations.

“Also, in the stakeholders’ consultation meeting, we said since our area is largely English speaking both the summery and the technical document should be in English. But we are surprised that the reporter for the BOMANA South is in French.

“BOMANA is very close to Idenau. The population of BOMANA came and because the document is in French, the went back because they could not exploit the document. That is a major handicap.”

By: Eugene N. Nforngwa theQuail Newspaper PO Box 25284 Yaounde, Cameroon Tel: 00 237 22 03 63 46 Mobile: 00 237 75 11 43 96 Fax: 00 237 22 31 99 53

Environmental and Social Assessment Memos

Published: 2008

The objective of these memos is to provide helpful informational research to further populate the available materials on access rights issues.

The information memos are commissioned by the TAI Secretariat. They represent the ideas and thoughts of their respective authors and do not represent the official position of the Access Initiative or the TAI Secretariat. While the secretariat does its best to ensure the quality of these memos they are essentially the work of their respective authors who take full responsibility for their content. Please contact the TAI Secretariat if you have ideas for topics which are not covered in the current research.

Canadians Debating to Lower Environmental Safeguards

By David Heller (Posted: February 13, 2009) 

Canada, like many of its neighbors, is struggling to balance the competing needs of economic improvement and environmental protection during this global depression. Included in Canada’s 2009 federal budget, recently presented to Parliament, are suspicious provisions that encourage “regulatory efficiency” in infrastructure projects designed to jump start their lagging economy. Leaked documents suggest that this expediency might come at the cost of weakening the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), a price that many Canadian environmentalists are not willing to pay.

Under the current CEAA, federal departments, agencies, and crown corporations must conduct environmental impact assessments (EIA) for proposed projects where the federal government is the proponent, or where the project involves federal funding, permit, or license. These EIAs, though frequently ridiculed for causing delays in the construction process, are often the only means people have to participate in assessing government projects and intervening when such projects are perceived to have unwarranted environmental costs.

The budget that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced to Parliament on January 27th devoted more than $2 billion towards transforming the Canadian economy into a sustainable and environmentally friendly one, but also included provisions that might undermine this process by making certain projects exempt from EIA oversight.

Authors of the 2009 budget claim that full compliance with CEAA impedes Canada’s economic recovery. “Currently,” the budget states, “infrastructure approval processes are subject to duplication and inefficiencies in administration, leading to unnecessary project delays.”

In order to address this perceived flaw, the budget says that “…regulatory efficiencies will be pursued for projects subject to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.” [Emphasis added].

Leaked documents received by the left New Democrats Party indicate that this interest could manifest itself in several forms. The first possible route being examined is eliminating the need for EIAs on certain infrastructure projects costing less than $10 million. Another option is reducing oversight on bigger projects, which currently require separate EIA assessment at the provincial and federal levels.

In line with this first option, the Toronto Star reports that Federal Infrastructure Minister John Baird is targeting certain less costly and “environmentally friendly” projects for EIA exemption. As Baird says, “We’ve got a lot of rules in place to stop bad things from happening, but we don’t have anything to help good things happen, particularly for things like public transit and waste-water treatment that improves water quality.”

The other alternative being tinkered with by Conservatives is designed to combat the time cost associated with fulfilling the EIA mandate. Echoing the redundancy cited in Canada’s official budget proposal, Baird told several newspapers that, “There’s a real hodge-podge of environmental assessment requirements – of overlap and duplication. Many of them are just duplicating what’s done at the provincial level.”

There is legitimacy to these latter concerns given the depression and the immediate economic value that construction can bring. But the logic behind the first option, that certain projects (like water treatment plants or public transit infrastructure) ought to be exempt from an EIA because their purpose is to mitigate environmental harm, is terribly flawed.

Barring the invention of environmentally friendly bulldozers, shovels, and the like, a project’s finished product ought to not blind Canadians to the harm that the project’s construction might wreak on surrounding areas. For this reason, allprojects, regardless of their purpose and cost, must be subject to at least one EIA.

As alluded to earlier, the EIA also provides a valuable civic service to the Canadian people. Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada, an environmental watchdog organization, highlighted the fact that the EIA can facilitate the exchange of information between people while allowing public concerns about certain government actions to be addressed.

“Whether it’s a small footbridge or a huge open-pit mine, if a project is badly designed or if it’s just a bad idea to begin with, the public needs a way to make sure it is fixed or stopped,” Kneen said.

Ongoing debates within governments are framed within the anachronistic concept that economic recovery must come at the expense of environmental harm. It is necessary to forego these false zero-sum boundaries, by tethering economic growth to spending that will have positive short- and long-term implications for the environment. Only EIA-approved investment that addresses climate change, taps into renewable sources of energy, and creates sustainable and healthy communities can effectively satisfy the two public goods of economic recovery and environmental protection.

Please continue checking back to see how the planet’s governments are responding to this universal challenge.

Stimulus or Environment – Must We Choose?

By Seema Kumar (Posted: February 6, 2009) 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the infamous stimulus package that is regarded as the much needed bandage to the ailing U.S. economy, is locked in Congressional tension. If passed, the Act would inject an almost $900 billion into federal programs and projects, with the explicit purpose of creating jobs, investing in infrastructure, advancing energy efficiency, and restoring credit confidence. Amendments to the bill have been aggressively tossed back and forth in the name of urgency and relevance to stimulation, and one in particular has enraged environmentalists.

U.S. Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, in a February 4, 2009 press release, depicted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as a red-tape inhibitor, which is hindering the implementation of “shovel-ready” projects that are otherwise prepared to proceed with construction, but for a NEPA mandate that requires the environmental impacts of federally-funded projects be reviewed and mitigated. Senator Barrasso’s amendment specifically seeks to “streamline” the NEPA process with a 270-day deadline to complete an environmental review for stimulus package projects. Under the current NEPA provisions, environmental reviews are not subject to such deadlines.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce along with a band of business representatives have endorsed Barrasso’s amendment. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been a long-time advocate to revise NEPA, as evident from a Comment of its Initial Findings and Draft Recommendations on improving NEPA it submitted to the NEPA Task Force on February 6, 2006. The Comment characterizes NEPA as a “weapon to delay and eventually terminate, through attrition, proposed projects that some people oppose.”

According to Steven Biel, Greenpeace’s global warming campaign director, NEPA “is an absolutely essential review to ensure public involvement in public works decisions… There are more than enough shovel-ready projects out there that have already undergone NEPA reviews. There is absolutely no reason why this process needs to be waived.”

In response to Barrasso, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (Democrat-California) quickly retorted with an amendment of her own, which would require that any project that is not in compliance with NEPA either finalize its review or be replaced by another project that has a final review.

As the Senate readies to vote on the stimulus package, for the sake of the economy and the environment, it is crucial that President Obama emphasizes the purpose of this bill – jobs, infrastructure, energy efficiency, and credit confidence – and asks Congress some probing questions:

How is it logical to argue whether projects that have not conducted a proper environmental assessment should violate existing law while projects that are truly “shovel-ready”, worth millions in dollars and job creation, can benefit from stimulus funds right now?

How does curbing NEPA promote to energy efficiency when the potential consequences of such actions could threaten public health and energy independence?

How can America invest in solid infrastructure without prescribing to the necessary procedures and assessments (including environmental) needed to ensure public safety and durability?

Jackson Ushers in New Era of Transparency for U.S. EPA

By David Heller (Posted: January 30, 2009)

The Obama administration’s emphasis on transparency and public participation in government was echoed in a recent introductory memorandum that Lisa Jackson, the newly appointed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), circulated to her staff.

This commitment to access principles – a clear deviation from recent EPA precedent – will face an immediate test.

In the memo, Jackson describes her vision of how EPA, under her leadership, will uphold transparency and public participation in its work. As she says,

Public trust in the Agency demands that we reach out to all stakeholders fairly and impartially… and that we fully disclose the information that forms the bases for our decisions. I pledge that we will carry out the work of the Agency in public view so that the door is open to all interested parties and that there is no doubt why we are acting and how we arrived at our decisions.

Of particular interest to Jackson is soliciting input from marginalized, impoverished, and minority populations, whom as she says, “have been historically underrepresented in EPA decision making.”

This interest in improving external transparency is complemented by a hope for more inclusiveness within the EPA itself.

“As I develop my agenda,” Jackson informed her staff, “I will be seeking your guidance on the tasks that are most urgent in protecting public health and the environment and on the strategies that EPA can adopt to maximize our effectiveness and the expertise of our talented employees.”

Jackson is not the only EPA administrator who has sought to introduce transparency and participation in the agency’s actions.

In 1983, then-EPA administrator William D. Ruckelshaus released a similar in-house memorandum that outlined many related concepts.

Ruckelshaus famously spoke of his desire to have EPA operate “in a fishbowl.” His influential memo went on to say,

EPA will provide, in all its programs, for the fullest possible public participation in decision-making. This requires not only that EPA employees remain open and accessible to those representing all points of view, but also that EPA employees responsible for decisions take affirmative steps to seek out the views of those who will be affected by the decisions. EPA will not accord privileged status to any special interest group, nor will it accept any recommendation without careful examination.

But these principles did not permeate through all forthcoming EPA administrations. Stephen Johnson, EPA’s leader under G.W. Bush, was accused of repeatedly ignoring the scientific findings of agency scientists and relaxing standards for polluters.

This legacy of partisanship, combined with a shrinking budget (over the past six years, EPA’s budget has fallen by $1.3 billion, or 15 percent) and diminished authority over regulatory matters, has led many to question EPA’s credibility and whether or not it’s capable of fulfilling its environmental protection mandate.

Russell Trail, EPA administrator during the Nixon and Ford eras, has gone so far as to say that, “EPA has become a nonentity.”

Likewise, during Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearing, Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told Jackson “The EPA needs to be awakened from a deep and nightmarish sleep.”

Consider the alarm sounded, to the tune of a massive spending package with clear environmental implications. Contained in the stimulus bill just passed in the U.S. House of Representatives is a $151 billion infrastructure component, consisting of large scale transportation and construction projects. It’s up to EPA to oversee the monitoring of environmental impacts and mitigations of these allocations, and to diligently enforce environmental standards when violations arise.

Though weakened, our nation’s official environmental steward must not claim defeat. Instead, amnesia would be more appropriate, as the time is ripe for EPA to reemerge as a vigilant enforcer of environmental standards. Jackson must prove that she can lead her agency in consonance with the principles outlined in her memo and not fall victim to the flaws of her predecessor. If she can manage to do this, then not only will EPA re-gain some of what it has lost, it can help guarantee that transparency and public participation in environmental policymaking will be here to stay. It’s a win-win situation that Jackson ought to take advantage of, and that Mother Earth will thank her for.

Stay tuned for updates on how well Jackson’s EPA is upholding its commitment to access principles, as money for the stimulus bill is doled out.