Public Involvement in Environmental Assessment
October 2 1999
Introduction
Projects that affect the surrounding biophysical and socio-economic environment often impinge on the responsibilities, interests and welfare of individuals and organisations outside the actual project area. Consultation and communication with various interested and affected groups (known collectively as public involvement) is a first step in the environmental assessment process. Public involvement is useful for gathering environmental data, understanding likely impacts, determining community and individual preferences, selecting project alternatives and designing viable and sustainable mitigation and compensation plans where needed. Inadequate public involvement can result in significant information gaps which could mislead planners or developers undertaking an environmental assessment. Lack of attention to communication and the consultation process can generate individual, community or regional opposition to a project. This can ultimately lead to substantial delays, increased costs and unsatisfactory compromise solutions which could have been avoided through earlier consultation. An environmental assessment process is an open and transparent activity and relies to a large extent on the inputs of interested and affected parties to make their concerns known at the earliest possible time in the environmental assessment process. In Swaziland public involvement is enshrined in the Environmental Audit, Assessment and Review Regulations of 2000. In addition a well planned environmental assessment has two key activities - scoping and screening. Scoping is a process used for defining what can and cannot be accomplished during a particular environmental study. Screening is a process of determination of the potential magnitude of impacts and hence determines the depth of study required. In both activities the identification and subsequent communication with, of stakeholders and interested and affected parties is required.
Public information
Information about the environmental aspects of a proposed project often covers a wide range of technical issues, which may vary in space, time and degree of uncertainty about likely outcomes. For effective public involvement, key points need to be summarised and presented in ways which are easily understood by a variety of audiences and provide an objective description of the main factors of interest. The presentation needs to allow comparison of impacts which are not readily quantified in common terms, and may provide different levels of detail when used for residents, experts and decision-makers. As a general rule, information used in public consultation should be relevant, sufficient and credible.
Information dissemination
Information regarding a proposed project quickly reaches the public. That information, unless it came through a public involvement programme, is often general and frequently inaccurate. The organised dissemination of concise and information-rich materials on a project can serve to start the environmental assessment on a constructive footing with the public. A major mistake in otherwise well-orchestrated public involvement programmes is the failure to provide stakeholders with enough information about the project, so that they can develop informed opinions and provide useful input into an environmental assessment. In some cases this has been done purposefully, thereby eliminating the value of a public involvement process.
Types of public involvement
Public involvement can take several different formats.
1. Public meetings
Public meetings are used to facilitate public participation in project evaluation. Their main function is to establish the "rules of the game", provide information about the project, seek input into the project and to discuss implementation. Public meetings are a common form of public involvement in Swaziland. Usually they are advertised in the press and on the radio giving a brief description of the purpose of the meeting and also to give the date, time and location of the meeting. Many readers may have seen or heard such announcements in recent months. Organisers of public meetings do not just rely on people just turning up of their own free will. In most calls for public meetings, the environmental consultants will already have identified stakeholders to be invited to attend. Such invitees would include those who will be directly affected by the project, organisations which might have an interest in monitoring project activities or have local knowledge to contribute, private sector entities, government agencies and research institutions, non-governmental organisations and community organisations. When all together a free and open discussion is facilitated by a moderator to guide and encourage interaction and discussion about the project and its impacts. Through such discussion the consultants are able to obtain very useful project area information and determine the level of sensitivity the project has generated.
2. Interview surveys
Surveys are widely used in gathering sociological data and can also quantify opinions, priorities and concerns of people affected by the project. A common approach is to interview a representative sample of affected people and ask a pre-defined set of questions with responses recorded on a standard form. Due to the design, implementation and interpretation, such surveys are expensive and are not used in all environmental studies.
3. Key informant interviews
As an additional tool in the consultants armoury, key informant interviews are conducted among individuals or organisations that have specific local knowledge about a particular geographical area, project type or institutional knowledge. Again many of you may have already participated in such interviews and provided the consultant with valuable local information that has contributed towards a well planned environmental study.
4. Public review of the EIA
As part of the legal requirement in Swaziland, all completed environmental impacts assessments together with their comprehensive mitigation plans (a detailed plan of the mitigation measures or activities to be implemented with the project) are advertised in the media for a public review of the documents. During the screening and scoping exercise, many issues and concerns will have been raised by interested and affected parties. The public review stage allows for those individuals to see for themselves whether or not their concerns have been taken into account and whether or not the suggested mitigation measures are appropriate. The public review encourages comments on the documents to be submitted to the consultants for their further consideration with the eventual aim of producing a document that at least satisfies as wide a selection of interested and affected concerns.
5. Public hearings
Formal public hearings are required under Swaziland environmental legislation under two circumstances:
(a) if after examining the documents and the reports, it is of the opinion that the project is of such a sensitive nature that the public should have the opportunity to make submissions or comments at a public hearing; or (b) if the public concern over the project is great and the number of written and substantiated objections exceeds ten
To date no public hearing has been required. Public hearings, therefore, will only take place for particularly sensitive projects that have caused widespread public concern about the likely impacts of such projects.
Summary In summary it can be seen that the active participation of the public in discussing and providing local and relevant inputs into an environmental assessment is an important step in ensuring that the project receives public support. By carrying out a public involvement programme for all environmental assessments the developer can be assured that the project will meet its planning deadlines and address concerns and issues that would otherwise may have been overlooked and which at some point in the future threaten the sustainability of the project itself.
This page was last updated on 05 November 2001