On Tuesday 25 July, 06, WECSZ interviewed Patson Zulu (Manager - Inspectorate) of the Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ), who stated that the EIA tendered by Legacy Holdings Zambia Limited was not satisfactory, and that:
- A new plan will be submitted by the end of the month
- A public hearing will take place in Livingstone in September
- ZAWA is signing a lease with Legacy on Thursday
- President Mwanawasa is laying the stone on Friday
- WESCZ asked for a copy of the EIA and the project document, but Zulu said we should not bother as it had been rejected
- He will send WECSZ a copy of the EIA as soon as they receive it
- ECZ would be hiring an EIA consultant to make a vegetation assessment of future impacts etc
Zulu said that they had no knowledge of the 'walking with lion' project in Livingstone
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2 comments:
Shocking! Something needs to be done to stop this but its clear that approval for this project comes from much higher. The fact that a World Heritage site is about to be desecrated and this even though an EIA has clearly stated that the project should not go ahead is a travesty. What hope has Zambia got when its own president willingly sets the first stone on a project such as this.
We need to be realistic about what an EIA will do and what role it plays in the whole process. An EIA makes recommendations to reduce the impact of development at a particular location. It would be very unusual for an EIA to recommend that a site not be developed at all, given that the project is at such an advanced stage. If an EIA did make that recommendation, it is unlikely to have have much force, since the planning authorities and ZAWA are more likely to be in a position to push this through. Ultimately, an EIA is a very weak document and once the recomendations have been made, even if the EIA has been accepted by the ECZ, they are even harder to enforce. The developers will know this.
While I agree the WECSZ should do all it can to stop this development, we may ultimately be forced to play a role in getting some recommendation in the EIA which reduce impact, and then acting a policeman to make sure they are followed. One of the most important to me, in the context of the KAZA TFCA and its emphasis on landscape connectivity and elephant movements, is to make sure elephants can still move through the area.
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