| Environmental Consultants are Selling us OUT !!! |
| Monday, 24 May 2010 20:40 |
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(The truth about Environmental Impact Assessments) What started out as a trade necessary to facilitate environmental impact assessment processes has quickly turned out to be a big money making businesses with little in the way of ethics. The practise of environmental impact assessment’s used to mean something. It used to only be partaken by those with a love for the natural environment and a background in nature conservation, in other words people who sole purpose was to make sure our environments were never degraded or compromised. In recent years however this trade has turned into a multi-million Rand industry where qualifications, credentials and ethics are as scarce as Dodo’s. Just about anybody looking for a change in career path has cottoned on to becoming an environmental consultant many of whom do not even know the name of one single flower or plant of South Africa, yet they are happily processing EIA applications for developers and charging fortunes for it. You may ask, how is this possible? Surely this practice is governed by some council who oversees and accredits people for performing these duties? Sadly the answer is a big NO. There is absolutely no official governing body to oversee environmental consultants and our natural environments are being sold out right from under our feet. While there may exist credible and ethical environmental consultants, I have yet to actually encounter one. You see the EIA process itself is severely flawed and this issue has been drawn to government’s attention even directly to Mr Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s office yet this matter falls time after time on deaf ears. The problem is that a developer get’s to choose an environmental consultant and the developer is the one who pays the “steep” bills handed to him on a regular basis by the environmental consultant. Of course and you may not believe it but “He who pays the piper calls the tune” and as a result the environmental consultants quickly fall prey to the lure of lots of money for getting the EIA passed by government. The purpose of an EIA is to produce an unbiased environmental report. Yet in 4 years of personally being involved in EIA processes, from an affected party stance, I have not seen one environmental consultant produce such a report. Instead an EIA report turns into a sales pitch for the client and the environmental consultant quickly throws his ethics out of the window. It certainly also appears that approving EIA’s has also become just as lucrative for corrupt ministers to boost their government salaries. A few years back, EIA consultants who, after studying the site in question, felt that the natural environment would be threatened in any way would produce an environmental report stating so and in many cases developments would be denied on such sites. However in recent years the consultants will instead down-scale a development but never recommend it not be passed, why, because the developer simply will not pay them otherwise. So how do the environmental consultants do it? Easy and I’ll tell you. First of all to those of you who do not know about Alien vegetation here is a brief intro. Many years ago certain trees and plants were brought into South Africa by the Departments of Agriculture and Forestry. Trees like Pine, Blue-gum and Black Wattle have commercial value but due to plantations being sited close to waterways, seeds washed down our rivers all the way through South Africa and as a result these alien species have invaded many natural environments in South Africa. So what does alien vegetation have to do with anything? Well in recent years there has been a massive drive towards clearing alien vegetation and restoring natural environments and developer’s cottoned onto this. So a developer will buy a piece of land that is perhaps 20-30% infested with alien vegetation and when it comes to reporting time, suddenly, on paper anyhow, the whole site is alien infested. Then the developer and his EIA consultant pull out the “Alien Trump Card” and tell government how they are going to restore this site to its natural glory, but with a hotel and several hundred villas to add to it. Many unspoilt, critical and highly threatened eco-systems within a site, on paper, become alien infested. Then these environmental consultants will hold public meetings to facilitate the public participation process and their first words to the communities, public and affected parties “We are on your side”. Yeah right, if I had a hundred dollars for every time I heard those words. They do this to try and win the public on their side, fooling them into believing they are impartial parties to the process when simply nothing could be further from the truth. Then the “paid” environmental consultants produce thousands of pages of documentation which the average person has a hard time grasping. The environmental consultant will have months to produce such documentation, will then make it available in certain inconvenient locations and then give a 30 day deadline for comments. If you miss the deadline, then tough luck to you. To the few who stick through the process and submit comments, the comments are passed back to the developer, his consultants and his lawyers who then have a chance for a rebuttal which more often than not turns into snide remarks against those who do not support the developers “daft” dreams. While it also gives the developer and consultant the opportunity to turn everything around and say in their final documents that they have addressed all the issues at hand when in most cases they have not. Most people are so tied up in their daily lives, struggling to make a living that many do not stay the full course during an environmental process and near the end only a few “die-hards” remain. This only strengthens the developers cause and many of them actually rely on this by drawing things out unnecessarily to purposely create delays and cause frustration. In some cases developers even have private meetings with community leaders who they bribe onto their side by offering them money and perhaps even a nice job in their new development if they get the rest of the community on their side. Of course their “second trump card” is “jobs” and in many cases much of the jobs being offered are not long term solution to employment in South Africa. Believe me I have seen it all, there quite simply is NO length that some developers will not stoop to, to get their own way. South Africa supposedly has some of the toughest environmental laws in the world yet they quite simply are not policed or upheld. In recent months the SA government, the Department of Minerals and Energy, Land Affairs, Public Enterprises , Eskom and the Mining Fraternity of South Africa have been trying to pass through new legislation which will amend the toughest environmental laws, in particular the National Environmental Management Act NEMA, so that the government themselves can push through any developments they see fit without any public participation or comment, the decision being place solely into the hands of one minister. In fact our very constitution and democracy is under a great threat at this point in time. The very spirit of all Environmental Legislation is that there shall be full public participation processes. Yet, when the public protests in numbers against things like the government’s push towards reviving the nuclear industry in South Africa, what do they do? They try to change the laws so that nobody can say anything. Sound a bit like communism? Animal Farm anyone? An independent body to accredit environmental consultants is in existence and they have been speaking to government for some time but absolutely nothing has become of it. Why? Because of all the red tape and nonsense that fills just about every government department in South Africa. Environmental Consultants compromise themselves from the word go and it is sad to see so many of them, especially some of the biggest ones, fall prey to money instead of their duty to the environment. I know there are some very reputable environmental consultants out there but sadly developers avoid them like the plague and instead hire someone who has a portfolio of approved developments. A credible environmental consultant will perhaps have one development passed for every ten turned down. Sadly the masses have placed big yellow question marks on this entire trade. So where do we go from here? Well that is a question I ponder every single day. The departments of government who are supposed to police and protect against things like this are so busy trying to change legislation to suit their own goals that they could care less, they certainly have made that quite clear to those who have taken time and effort to write to them. The environmental consultants who should be caring for and policing our environment themselves need to be policed and monitored. I am seeing more and more fragile environments being sold out purely for the sake of greed and profit. What will you tell your children one day? “Oh this used to be so beautiful”, Perhaps show them a picture or two while reminiscing yourself about how beautiful this country used to be? Are you willing to allow that? Perhaps you do not give a damn? Think about your children, think about the generations to come, what legacy are we leaving for them? The foolish mistakes of this largely incompetent, greedy and complacent society are creating numerous environmental disasters which will live on as nightmares for the children of tomorrow. Ponder that one in your dreams tonight. |
