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Learning
to defend Social Welfare & the Environment using International
Safeguards of EIA. |
With a projected income of
$7 billion dollars over 30 years into government revenues the
proposed Kao Diamond mine puts a huge incentive to the Lesotho
Government to allow the mine to be set up in Lesotho. Undoubtedly as
employment creation is one of the top priorities of Vision 2020 the
coming of such a large scale development, that at it’s height will
employ 457 people and require the creation of many more associated
entrepreneurial activities, will have a large impact in employment
creation in the North of Lesotho. However, let us not forget the
people that are settled in the proposed Kao Diamond mine area, men,
women and children whose lives will be changed forever as a result
of placement of such a huge development. The mine will bring
electricity, improved roads, improvements to health care and the
local school, but let us not forget, it will also bring bad things,
industrial traffic, dust, changes in the fabric of their society,
anti-social activities associated with mines and of course the ugly
views of any industrial complex.
There are also other looming developments that include the Metalong
Dam and industrial complexes associated with the Millenium Challenge
Account Proposal of Lesotho.
NGO’s have experienced these sorts of developments before,
traditionally called in as advocates of communities who feel wronged
by the developers and the government as a result of economic
developments. However, there is a growing realization that NGO’s
need to become involved in the planning process of these
developments to stand up for the rights of local people and
minorities who may be adversely effected by industrial development.
The government require all large scale developments to undergo what
is termed an ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’ that sets out to
assess the processes of construction and operation of industries and
assess the potential impacts on the environment and local
communities and devise a mitigation plan to avoid or minimize the
impacts of a particular industry. Thus a legal tool has been created
that allows public input into these schemes and is a way that NGO’s
can become involved in the planning phase. NGO’s also need to
consider their involvement in the monitoring of the EIA’s and
Environmental Management Plans to ensure developers honor their
commitments in these documents.
Of course this is not the first time large-scale developments have
occurred in Lesotho. In recent years a number of large-scale
industrial developments have been built that have had and will have
long lasting effects on both the neighbouring communities and the
natural environment. Some of the most impactual developments would
be cited as the Mohale and Katse Dam developments and the large
industrial developments associated with the textile industry.
Incidences of people being moved from their homes to accommodate
developments, with inadequate compensation deals, significantly
lower river flows around the Mohale Dam and blue water running
through the centre of Maseru are but three of the inheritances from
large scale development.
Despite these potentially disastrous effects, the reality has to be
balanced with economic development in the country, that is why EIA’s
are one way of weighing up the cost and benefits of these potential
economic developments. Therefore as NGO’s we must become involved in
safeguarding Lesotho communities and ensuring that potentially
lucrative developments are viewed considering where the costs of
these industries will be transferred too i.e a mine may make the
investors a fortune and provide much needed work to local people,
but if those local people end up with fatal lung diseases as a
result of the development and leave families bereft of their bread
winners, what is the real long term economic cost to Lesotho? In a
case like this the costs are transferred on to the local health &
social welfare systems, long-term.
A internationally used assessment tool has been adopted by the
Lesotho Government called ‘ Environmental Impact Assessments’ (EIA)
which also includes Social Impact Assessments. Social Impact
Assessment is a part of the EIA process, where the consultants hired
by the developer ‘sensitize’, a term that already assumes the
development will occur, to the development and solicit the potential
impacts and mitigation measures of the proposed project on
communities.
EIA offers level ground to all stakeholders in developments,
including the developers, government and the wider community to
provide an open analysis of the costs and benefits of large- scale
projects. However in reality they are often jam packed with
technical details and jargon that communities would find difficult
in their own right to assess the potential impacts and mitigations
measures that should be enforced. Also in the SIA consultations
communities are often given quite developer biased information which
does not equip a community with the full facts about impacts in
their local area.
Indeed on occasions, the diverse nature of industrial development
often goes beyond what government departments can understand. For
example there are a whole wealth of chemicals used in the textile
industry, different mining methods used in different sorts of
natural resource extraction and entirely gageing the effects of
redirecting water flow and collection are difficult for even experts
in this field.
However to address some of the problems with the EIA process the
government, through the Natural Environment Secretariat (NES) are
currently inviting NGO’s to become engaged in the EIA process. At a
recent workshop organized by the NES and Lesotho Council of NGO’s,
NGO’s and the government worked together to examine the potential
roles of NGO’s in the stages of Environmental Impact Assessment
process. At the workshop a representative from Transformation
Resource Centre, Lenka Thama said, ‘NGOs should get the communities
involved in the projects so that their views are incorporated. It is
imperative to gather more information about the communities to be
affected well before the project is set up so that decisions made
are well informed. Cultural factors need to be considered in project
development which would be useful in making decisions for example
when it comes to relocation/ resettlement.’
NGO’s expressed an interest in being involved in all stages of the
EIA process from gaging what developments need EIA’s, as observers
of the consultants brought in to conduct the SIA surveys by the
developers, as reviewers of the assessments submitted by the
consultants and as monitors and evaluators of the implementation
phase of the projects to ensure that mitigation measures to avoid
impacts are practiced in the implementation of the project and not
just given lip service too. NGO’s also stated that they will
continue to take the role of watch-dog and advocator for adversely
effected communities.
Despite this enthusiasm by NGO’s to be involved, time, expertise and
the fact that EIA’s are not the core role of any NGO in Lesotho,
difficulties in the capacity to respond to requests by NES to become
involved in the EIA process occur. NGO’s are constantly struggling
for existence so somehow funds need to be utilized that can pay
NGO’s to be involved where necessary as a safeguard mechanism to the
government in these nationally important decisions.
Added to this, the lack of expertise was cited as a potential
problem for NGO’s in reviewing reports could be a problem. Perhaps
as a collective unit of NGO’s we do have a capacity to respond to
many of the issues assessed in an EIA. Within the NGO sector we have
social, legal, economic, local and many other professional expertise
areas to draw upon to be able to critically examine the impacts of
new developments. Through working as an umbrella the NGO sector
could draw upon relevant professionals to assess a particular
potential detrimentally developments. But to be effective we need to
co-operate fully. LCN’s, Agriculture, Environment and Natural
Resources Commission are pulling together a proposal to facilitate
this and the calling of impartial specialists, where deeper
expertise is required on certain developments. We are also looking
at ways to free up time of experts within our own NGO’s to act on
review and monitoring panels.
(Interview with NES)
However even if these measures are put in place, there still remains
a fatal flaw in the implementation of environmental management plans
that are formulated as a result of EIA’s. This comes in the form of
the Environmental Act of 2001, a law formulated to protect and
ensure compliance with environmental protection. Despite it’s 2001
formulation the law has still not been gazetted (passed) by the
Lesotho Government, therefore as it stands at the moment any
developer who is given a license to develop a business in Lesotho
can agree to the conditions of the EIA Licence and then on
implementation, completely ignore these conditions with almost no
legal teeth enforcing environmental and social protection. NGO’s are
pressing for this law to be passed, but currently there seems to be
confusion as to how long the gazetting process will take and exactly
why it is taking so long. In the mean time the potential of more
Blue Rivers, disempowered people and any other environmental crime
is remains.
As NGO’s, rather than shutting our eyes to industrial developments
and hoping for the best, perhaps we should recognize our expertise
and ensure well-planned economic developments that involve and
enhance local communities and minority groups. Through working
together we can achieve this, but if we do not become involved more
and more people will be adversely effected by economic growth, and
it will be NGO’s left to pick up those pieces.
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