Dear Morufu,

Environmental impact assessments will be crucial in balancing the demands of economic growth, new energy infrastructure and environmental protection, Environmental impact assessment (EIA) has a huge role to play in ensuring that the environmental impacts of new development are minimised and that key environmental issues are fully integrated into the decision making process. EIA practitioners operate at the interface between local communities, developers and the environment. As a regulated process, the procedural complexities are potentially demanding, especially combined with the additional risk posed by legal challenges. At its best, EIA helps to shape the design and siting of development such that social value to communities and broader economic value to investors can both be met, without eroding natural capital and pushing the boundaries of environmental limits – a tool that can truly support moves towards sustainability. However, the many competing demands can often serve to stifle the process, resulting in reams of information that mask the key environmental issues that need to be considered. Environmental practitioners have an opportunity to ensure that EIA plays an enhanced role in engaging communities in shaping new development to find the best environmental outcomes. Reconciling the competing demands between nationally significant infrastructure and local communities won’t be easy, but by sharing experience of best practice, understanding key success factors and reviewing what doesn’t work well – we’ve a better chance of succeeding. Properly performed, environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a useful tool for promoting sustainable development because it includes many components that can help facilitate intragenerational and intergenerational equity.

Regards

Bachir ACHOUR

In Africa, our leaders are more concern with economic growth than Environmental Sustainability. What a trajedy of the common?

Dear Morufu,

Sustainable development is a conception of economic growth that is part of a long-term perspective and integrates constraints related to the environment and the functioning of society.

The concept of sustainable development has emerged from environmental claims but is also an extension of debates on development and the claim of another globalization based on alternative development models. Viewed in this way, it may seem out of place to address the issue of sustainable development in the context of African countries under structural adjustment for about 25 years. Indeed, the macroeconomic policies characterizing these programs limit the margin of maneuver of the states in the definition of policies. However, the concept of sustainable development has enabled the emergence of a space of communication based on principles and values such as responsibility, precaution and participation, which are mobilized by various social actors, thus promoting the expression of alternative proposals hitherto socially inaudible.

Regards

Bachir ACHOUR

EIA as a veritable tool for sustainable development goes a long way to ensure that any plan, policy, program or actual project on the environment does not negatively impact the area thereby protecting certain features and facilities in the environment without affecting the good of the environment for continuity and availability for the future generation. For instance after conducting an EIA in a particular area the result may show that such area is not suitable for the project as it may affect the availability of water resources in the future generation. Simply put, EIA predicts and forecast future damages. The idea of sustainability is that of usability, availability and continuity.