Ecologist Calls For EIA Legislation:

By Quincy Parker -
Nassau, Bahamas:

Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Belize are some countries in the Caribbean that have Environmental Impact Assessment legislation – The Bahamas has a draft Act that contains these regulations, but the Act has not yet been brought to parliament.

One local practitioner has called for the terms of EIAs to be legislated, and bemoaning the absence of an environmental auditing regime; institution of environmental regulation is, in his view, "an urgent undertaking that should demand our immediate attention."

Ecologist Romauld Ferreira, whose firm conducts EIAs, explained that under an environmental auditing regime, an external professional audits a company’s performance in accordance with that company’s "environmental management system."

"I believe that all risks from development can be managed," Mr. Ferreira said. "And I think Bahamians have the wherewithal to manage them."

In order to manage these risks, however, Mr. Ferreira is calling for "teeth" in The Bahamas’ environmental legislation.

"There’s nothing wrong with Atlantis – we could build a hundred Atlantis-type developments. It’s managing that risk [that’s the issue]. And how do you go about it? Well, you can’t have the fox watching the henhouse," Mr. Ferreira said.

"You need an independent body, whether private or public sector, and that’s what it’s about. So I’m not [someone] who believes we should all be dancing the hula and climbing coconut trees. Nonsense. We should be developing our resources."

Citing the United Nations Convention on Environment and Development (UNCED) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Mr. Ferreira is continuing to decry the absence of regulatory teeth in The Bahamas’ environmental legislation.

Mr. Ferreira noted that the EIA concept has its roots in UN Council for Sustainable Development (1977). By the time the Earth Summit took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the need for principles to guide sustainable development had become apparent.

"One of the key principles is that the terms of the EIA should be legislated. In other words, whether or not one conducts an EIA based on the project size or type of project should be mandated by law – that’s very important, because a project under a certain size really should have an EIA, but that has to be done by law," Mr. Ferreira said.

"There is a clear and present danger by not (legislating the terms of an EIA), and that is that you can require one person who is doing project A to have an EIA and another comes along, and does project B – which is identical to project A – and [he or she is] not required to have it. A person may feel victimized because EIAs are an expensive proposition."

Mr. Ferreira quoted UNCED Principle 17, which states that the EIA is a "national instrument" that should be undertaken for projects with potential environmental impact and are subject to a "competent national authority," which in The Bahamas would be the Bahamas Environment Science and Technology Commission.

The follow-up conference, held in Barbados in 1994, cited the need for "small island developing states" to develop national and local environmental regulations. The UN called for "specific legislation for appropriate environmental impact assessments for both public and private sector developments."

"We have a BEST Commission, which is the competent national authority; what we don’t have is the legislation. So we only have one piece of the puzzle," Mr. Ferreira said.

He cited Principle 2 of UNEP, which states that "the criteria and procedures for determining whether an activity is likely to significantly affect the environment, and is therefore subject to an EIA, should be defined clearly by legislation, regulation or other means so that subject activities can be quickly and surely identified, and EIA can be applied as the activity is being planned."

What’s missing, according to Mr. Ferreira, is a requirement that EIAs be done for any project – public or private – that is over a certain size, which should be defined by law.

Another missing component, he said, is an environmental auditing system.

"For example, look at what happened in Bimini – the total clear-cutting of that portion of Bimini (being used for Floridian Gerardo) Capo’s development. Disaster. Well what’s the penalty for that? What penalty should be applied for someone who does that? I’m sure BEST Commission did not give them permission to do that," he said.

"Same thing with the Ginn [Company] – those thousands of acres in Grand Bahama cleared down. Not even a "shepherd needle" standing. What is the penalty for that? The penalties have to be appropriate or else it becomes a cost of doing business."

Mr. Ferreira called for penalties that developers who transgress the requirements of the EIA will "feel."

26 July 2006

environment