Improving Environmental Impact Assessments

By Shivika Mala

The University of the South Pacific and Fiji’s local government units need to collaborate to see improvements in Fiji’s current Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), says local researcher.

Joeli Varo, Land Officer for Fiji Government Sustainable Land Use Planning and Development Unit

Speaking at the USP Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (Pace-SD), Joeli Varo of the government’s Sustainable Land Use Planning and Development Unit, said that the University can help identify the loopholes present in the current EIA and work together with the relevant departments to improve it.

The Director of PaCE-SD Elisabeth Holland highlighted that the EIA is a critical tool for long term disaster planning.

She also added that USP’s post-graduate EIA course is undergoing revision to be able to better address climate and disaster resilience.

Senior Lecturer and Researcher at PaCE-SD Dr Hilda Sakiti Waqa said that they are revising the EIA course to make it more contextual to the Pacific Island Countries and to better address climate change and disaster risk management through EIA process.

PaCE-SD’s EIA Scholar Moleen Nand believes USP research students are well placed to address these difficulties.

“The first challenge that students identified through the discussion forum was the lack participation of all relevant stakeholders- this could be due to lack of awareness or the people are not aware of the consultation meeting”, she said

“In addition to this, the need to have proper Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) so that environmental considerations are included into plans, policies and programmes”, added Nand.

Varo also emphasized that students and workers of different fields should also work hand in hand with the relevant authorities to contribute their thoughts on the EIA.

“They can deal indirectly, they can contribute indirectly. Like for example, an accountant can be useful for our valuers and work together with them to derive some sort of formula so that we could incorporate it in our EIA”, said Varo.

“EIA is a tool to identify potential impacts to the environment of a proposed development project and also instrumental in providing high-level environmental assessment and planning at the national & project levels”, said Waqa.