Chairman of Livingstone branch of WECSZ comments:

Mike Musgrave said...

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