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By David Owei (Yenagoa)
Civil society activists in Bayelsa State are advocating a review of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act, 2004, in line with present day realities.
To this end, a community-based eight-member committee has been set up to sensitize communities in the state on the EIA Act and its usefulness to communities and development interventions in their environments.
The stakeholders came up with the decision during a two-day workshop on ‘Environmental Social and Human Rights Impact Assessment (ESHRIA)’ organized in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, by the Mac-Jim Foundation, with support from CORDAID.
At the training, resource persons made presentations on ‘The Objectives of the Project/Training and Community Advocacy Issues on ESHRIA,’ ‘The Importance of ESHRIA to Community Development’ and ‘Mainstreaming ESHRIA into EIA: Steps and Role of Community.’
According to the activists, the committee, under its mandate, would also engage relevant stakeholders, including legislators, in the advocacy for an amendment to the EIA Act that would also have community input.
They stressed the importance of a review of the EIA Act to reflect in clear terms the environmental, social and human rights implications of development projects, construction and extractive activities to host communities.
The participants, numbering over 40 and drawn from the various local government areas of Bayelsa, were unanimous in their position that community capacity building on the EIA Act was necessary to equip communities on issues of EIA.
They called on the leaderships of communities to put in place environmental, social and human rights committee to ensure development projects in their areas had EIA components to derive communal benefits and avert risks associated with project execution.
Mr. Godson Jim-Dorgu, executive director, Mac-Jim Foundation, explained in an interview that the essence of the workshop was to enlighten community stakeholders on the subsisting EIA Act and its relevance to social development interventions and activities within communities.
He stated that the approach was to galvanize a community-driven advocacy towards the repealing of the EIA Act.
Jim-Dorgu said, “Some of these communities do not understand that there is an existing EIA Act which needs to be reviewed.
“They are only expressing concerns that as communities they are supposed to be consulted by oil companies, construction firms and even government agencies on development projects in their environments that require environmental impact assessment.
“In other climes, people are beginning to talk about environmental, social and human rights impact assessment, having gone beyond the EIA. So, the awareness is for communities to know they can use and rely on the EIA Act for sustainable development.”
