#Under scrutiny full
“The soft copy version of the Executive Summary shall be submitted to the Department of Environment together with the soft copy of the full EIA Report.
Public participation and public display of the reports, however, are only required for activities which fall under the Second Schedule, which are larger scale activities typically covering land areas of 500 hectares or more, depending on the activity’s sector. Evidence of an EIA could only be found online when this was listed in the curriculum vitaes of the consultants involved,” RDP said, adding that the lack of transparency is inconsistent with the Department of Energy’s own set of EIA guidelines updated in 2016.Īccording to the EIA guidelines, the Executive Summary of all EIAs conducted, at the very least, are required to be displayed online. “We were not even initially aware that a massive dam had been approved in the forests of Ulu Tembeling. The group conducted an investigation into the area following “suspicious patterns of forest loss”, and found that Global Forest Watch data appeared to indicate that a dam was being built. One such project for which the EIA remains unpublished is the Tekai hydroelectric project in Ulu Tembeling, Pahang, according to RDP. The group maintains a publicly accessible EIA database on their website, which draws on information from the Department of Environment, other web-based sources, and data sent to them by the public. “A number of EIAs appear to be missing from this database, based on a cross-check with RDP’s own data,” RDP said. 11 EIAs had been posted since February 2022. A check by Eco-Business on 27 July revealed that the latest EIA was posted nearly a month ago on 23 June.
This new database has been deemed inadequate as it does not appear to be regularly updated or maintained, it added. While this portal had many limitations in terms of the availability of data, in February 2022 the department redesigned their website and this portal, the only government database on new EIA submissions and approvals has now disappeared, and replaced by a new database on the website,” the statement said. “Previously, the Department of Environment had an EIA portal available on their website.
#Under scrutiny update
In a statement published 7 July which was endorsed by 53 civil society organisations and four individual environmental activists, RDP called on the authorities to update its online database on a daily basis and ensure that its public databases include historical EIAs dating back at least 10 years. RDP has been at the forefront of a list of Malaysian civil society organisations and activists that are calling on authorities to increase transparency surrounding EIAs, making data on EIAs transparent and freely available on the internet with immediate effect. More than 800 houses were affected, with 16 houses being swept away and 18 others destroyed, according to local reports.
On 4 July, 12 villages in the town of Kupang, which is in Baling district, were inundated with the worst floods on record, killing three people and displacing more than 1,400 others. Joint statement by Malaysia’s civil society organisations and environmentalists These projects are of public interest as they may potentially involve environmental destruction, impacts on communities, exacerbate climate change and have exposure to corruption. “ĭata on EIAs are essential for us to monitor projects, such as logging and land reclamation, mining and quarrying, infrastructure and others. “For maximum accountability, the Department of Environment should improve transparency on the internal processes surrounding EIA approvals, and list down which committee and/or individuals are involved in EIA approvals,” said the group. RDP, however, charged that the EIA process needs to be looked into.
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