SAM: State govts must be responsible for developers avoiding EIA

 

Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) said state governments must be held accountable over developers exploiting a loophole that allows them to skip publicising Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports on projects.

This is done by dividing a major project into medium-sized projects, as public consultation is not required for projects between 100 and 500 hectares.

“Such an attempt to avoid the EIA process is not a new matter. State governments must be held responsible for failing to ensure that such manipulation does not take place. There is simply no excuse for states not to be aware of it.

“While we try to move forward to amend the forestry law to enforce mandatory consultations, at the same time, our existing consultation spaces can easily be circumvented through sheer manipulation,” said SAM president Meenakshi Raman in a statement today.

While she believed forest conversions should be stopped, she said the threshold of 500 hectares for a monoculture plantation project to undertake an EIA process with mandatory public participation is a decidedly high one.

“Imagine, living next to a 459-hectare timber tree plantation and not having the right to know more about the project?

“How can local communities effectively voice their objections if accessibility to information is a challenge? For indigenous communities, the situation may even be worse, such projects can even take place within their customary territories,” she said.

Medium-sized projects

Malaysiakini previously reported that among the Department of Environment (DOE)-approved projects last year, forest plantations topped the list with 18 and all of them were medium-sized projects.

Of the 18, seven of the projects were related to Fajarbaru Builder Group Berhad, a public-listed firm with roots in the construction sector but later shifted to logging and plantation in 2010.

Fajarbaru raised RM37.4 million through issuing warrants last September, of which some RM15 million would be invested in “business expansion, logging, timber trading, and plantation”.

Records showed Fajarbaru cleared 2723.09 hectares of land in the Tekam and Tekai Tembeling forest reserves through its subsidiaries or companies owned by shareholders and staff.

This accounted for 12 percent of Pahang’s total forest plantation area for 2021. According to the Pahang Forestry Department, there were 22,987 hectares of forest plantation land last year.

Despite projects related to Fajarbaru amounting to the size of 3,813 football fields, their EIA reports were not required to be made public.

Based on public records sighted by Malaysiakini, Fajarbaru was indirectly involved in several forest plantation projects in Jerantut’s forest reserves - Tekam and Tekai Tembeling.

In both forests, Fajarbaru’s plantation projects were divided into smaller projects and their EIA reports were submitted separately by its subsidiaries and affiliates.

According to the Environmental Qualities (Prescribed Activities) (Environmental Impact Assessment) Order 2015, the area of a forest plantation project would determine its EIA category:

• Projects that cover areas less than 100 hectares (approximately 247 acres) are not required to submit an EIA report;

• Medium-sized projects that cover areas between 100 to 500 hectares (approximately 1,235 acres) would be categorised as Schedule 1. Developers are required to submit an EIA report but do not need to publicise and get public feedback;

• Large-scale projects which cover areas more than 500 hectares would be listed as Schedule 2. Developers are required to submit and publicise EIA reports and gather public feedback.

Re-gazette Kuala Langat (North) forest

Meanwhile, Meenakshi also called for the regazettement of the Kuala Langat (North) forest.

“To date, Selangor has yet to regazette parts of the Kuala Langat (North) forest reserve, after six months of promising to do so.

“It was only last week that the Pertahankan Hutan Simpan Kuala Langat Utara (PSHKLU) coalition, of which SAM is a member, demanded that regazetting exercise is carried out immediately,” she said.

In December 2021, Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari said the Selangor government aimed to regazette the Kuala Langat (North) forest into a permanent reserve by the first quarter of 2022.

However, the regazettement would still leave out a portion of the forest, which Amirudin said will be kept for possible continuity of the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), dubbed the Seremban Bypass.

Amirudin told reporters he is confident the regazettement would cover "easily 90 percent" of the original gazette plan.

The state previously degazetted 536.7ha from the forest reserve, including a portion it planned to use for the Southern Alignment and development projects, among others. - Mkini