The government recently said that it “welcomes public comments on EIA reports”. Macaranga digs into what comments actually matter, and why. Part 1 of 3. Read Part 2 and Part 3.
WHEN RARE earth refinery Lynas Malaysia wanted to build a disposal facility for its radioactive waste in 2021, its environmental impact assessment (EIA) report got a record-breaking 4,000 comments from the public. Most opposed the facility. But the report got approved anyway.
Does public feedback even matter? It does, but only if it addresses technical issues in the report. The EIA review is not a voting process, say EIA consultants.
In this 3-part series, Macaranga speaks with the Department of Environment (DOE), EIA consultants, and civil society organisations to learn how we can make public participation more meaningful in shaping what projects are run and how.
(Feature image: KUASA, an environmental NGO, held mock environmental impact assessment sessions for Orang Asli communities to prepare them for future dialogues with developers and consultants. (Photo courtesy of KUASA))
What is an EIA report?
In Malaysia, developers who want to run projects that would cause notable environmental impact must submit an EIA report. Developers use EIA reports to convince the Department of Environment (DOE) that they are ready to reduce and mitigate environmental impacts from their projects. Projects can start only after the DOE has approved the EIA reports.
The bigger EIA report reviews collect public opinions too. If public opinions could decide the DOE’s approval, they would have rejected the EIA reports of some of the country’s more controversial projects.
The 4,000 comments to Lynas’s EIA report were 40 times that of the average EIA report. And like most EIA reports, “almost all the comments were in protest (of the Lynas project),” the DOE told Macaranga.
But most were not comments that the DOE could use to evaluate EIA reports. Public sentiments are acknowledged but they do not affect the DOE’s decision. Macaranga has seen EIA reports approved despite receiving more than 80% disagreement in community surveys.
Government wants public input
Still, the DOE and EIA consultants say public participation is crucial to improving and assessing EIA reports. In a 22 January press statement, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability (NRES), said that his ministry “welcomes public comments on EIA reports” and hopes the “public can play more active roles in sustainable environmental management.”
However, civil society organisations question if and how public participation matters in the EIA process.
“We continue to do public participation because we hope there will be improvement,” said Siti Hawa Abd Wahid, the president of environmental NGO Persatuan Aktivis Sahabat Alam (KUASA). “But we feel that our comments are not taken seriously. We aren’t sure if they will be considered or [if the public feedback] is just to tick boxes.”
EIA report for airport on Tioman
June and July 2023 were hectic months for Alvin Chelliah, the Chief Programme Officer at Reef Check Malaysia. The DOE had just posted for public review an EIA report for a new airport on Tioman Island, Pahang.
Chelliah and his colleagues have been running conservation and community programmes on the island since 2014. He thought the new airport would hurt the island’s wildlife and the fishers’ livelihood. He felt that the public review period was the only chance for the islanders to voice their concerns to the DOE. They could not afford to miss that opportunity.
But at that time, Chelliah did not fully understand how the EIA review process worked.
Public input happens in two stages
In Peninsular Malaysia and the federal territories, the Environmental Quality Act 1974 mandates the DOE within NRES to regulate and oversee the EIA process. The process identifies the potential environmental impacts of new developments and ways to prevent or mitigate them.
EIA reports became mandatory in 1988. Since then, the DOE has expanded public participation in the process.
EIA reports are categorised as First Schedule or Second Schedule – the latter are deemed to incur more significant environmental impact. So First Schedule reports do not require public participation, while Second Schedule reports receive public input in 2 separate stages.
First, developers (called ‘project proponents’ in the reports) hire EIA consultants to produce the EIA reports. The consultants must talk to designated environmental NGOs and local communities within the project’s expected impact area.
The consultants use these discussions to better map out local concerns and propose mitigation measures. They would put the findings in the EIA reports.
Second, once the DOE receives an EIA report, they will announce it online and display it for public review. Typically, the DOE gives the public 30 days to read the report and another 15 days to send in their comments. An EIA report on public display can be read online or in hard copy at the DOE offices or a local premise.
“We want people to know about the projects that are happening near them so that they can give input,” said DOE Director-General Wan Abdul Latiff Wan Jaffar.
Public input does not dictate approval
Public participation can be instrumental in writing EIA reports, EIA consultants told Macaranga. Conversations with locals help the consultants to address community concerns. For example, one consultant added a point to widen a river to ease flood risk, and another proposed a wall to reduce noise pollution.
With public participation, “the locals get to know the project, and we get useful insights on the area from them who have lived there for years and years,” said Dr G Balamurugan, an EIA consultant of more than 30 years.
But “the EIA process is not an election decided by the number of people who vote yes or no,” Balamurugan added. “On every LRT and MRT project I have worked on, people say ‘good project, but not near my house, not in my backyard’,” said Balamurugan. “If you merely based on people’s word, nothing would get built.”
One-line protests do not work
Typically, a Second Schedule EIA report would get fewer than 100 comments during its public display. Many – if not most – of these would be one-liners: I do not support this project. Such comments, even if they come in the thousands, have no direct bearing on the DOE’s review of the report. EIA consultants respond to such one-liner comments with a simple ‘Diambilmaklum / taken note’.
Instead, the DOE establishes a committee that reviews the EIA report on technical grounds.
DOE approves reports, not projects
It is important to understand the specific role that the DOE plays in the EIA process, said Rohimah Ayub, the director of the EIA Review Division at the federal DOE. Her office only evaluates the technical merits of the EIA reports, not the project itself.
“If the comments say they don’t want the project, they have to tell the approving authority. We don’t approve the project. We only approve the EIA report,” said Rohimah.
But many quarters mistakenly think that the DOE can cancel a project – a misconception that frustrates the DOE.
Ultimately, it is the federal or state government that approves projects. In fact, projects are approved first before developers begin the EIA process if needed.
A rejected EIA report only means the project cannot start work. A developer may revise a rejected EIA report and resubmit it as many times as they like. The federal or state government is the one that makes the decision to cancel the project.
Criteria to approve EIA reports
How does the DOE decide whether to approve an EIA report?
First, the project must align with existing government policies and development plans. Second, the EIA report must contain sufficient and accurate information on the project’s environmental impact and measures to mitigate the impact.
“At the end of the day, if the studies in the EIA report are done, and all the agencies (in the review committee) agree, we cannot say anything,” said Rohimah. “We can just approve the EIA report with conditions.”
Therefore, not all public feedback is useful for the DOE when reviewing an EIA report. Rather, the DOE can only use technical comments that point out gaps or errors in the report itself.
Responding to Tioman airport’s EIA
But back in June 2023, confronted with the Tioman airport’s EIA report of over 1,000 pages, marine conservationist Chelliah did not know what the DOE needed exactly. He was simply rushing against time to explain the project to locals.
He asked his colleagues to postpone their leave. “Please, guys, you aren’t going off the island,” Chelliah told his team. “We need to get this done.”
Within weeks, Chelliah’s team visited 7 villages to share their knowledge of the project. They answered questions and highlighted concerns. One point that stood out was the potential noise pollution from the planes.
“The report says that the noise would be higher than acceptable levels. We asked the villagers, ‘will you be okay with this?'” recalled Chelliah. He suggested that those who disagreed with the project write that they did not agree because the noise pollution was bad.
However, “noise pollution is bad” would not have been a comment the DOE could have used to evaluate the EIA report. That is because the EIA report would have already suggested measures to reduce the noise pollution.
To be of use to the DOE, the commentator would have had to point out how those measures were not good enough to reduce the pollution.
At the time, Chelliah did not know that the regulator could only use technical comments.
But he did more than get the locals to send their feedback. He rang up professionals off-island to study the EIA report, too.
Updates: 10/3– Added a pull-down “EIA legislations in Sabah and Sarawak”
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series that covers how public input works within the EIA process. Part 2 looks at how the public can better provide technical comments on EIA reports; Part 3 describe ways to make town halls feasible and why the public participation must start way before the EIA process.
[Edited by SL Wong]
This story was also produced with a grant from the Youth Environment Living Labs (YELL), administered by Justice for Wildlife Malaysia (JWM). The contents of this story do not necessarily reflect the views of YELL, JWM, and their collaborators.
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Very informative!
Thanks for reading!