21 May 2005

BEIRUT: Remember when pine trees in what little remains of Beirut's woodland were recently hacked up to be replaced by another state building? This small example illustrates the Lebanese design of plans and projects that rarely takes into consideration the environment. Unfortunately, national developmental processes suffer from a serious lack of global vision.

According to Alissar Chaker, a UN Development Program (UNDP) expert, "the only remedy is to carry out studies of the impact of any plan or project on social, economic and environmental levels."

For the past three years, Chaker has been working on the integration of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in policy-making, a practice common in many countries since the 1970s. As a result, her team at the Environment Ministry has drafted a framework for the implementation of a law regarding this issue. The final text, which was discussed by NGOs and decision makers, will find its way soon to Cabinet for approval.

Chaker said: "The project, funded by the European Commission and managed by the UNDP, aims at setting a legal framework for the protection of the environment from human activities."

She added: "Based on the principle of prevention, SEAs will save a lot of the costs of remediation that usually emerge after the execution of inappropriate plans."

But, Chaker revealed that "the concretization of the project is mainly due to pressure from international donors who expect Lebanese plans to follow the lines of sustainable development principles."

The success of this project depends on coordination among all stakeholders. Accordingly, a three-day workshop that ended Friday was organized to introduce the application of environmental assessment on land-use planning projects to decision-makers, experts, academicians, consultants and NGOs.

Talks addressed the importance of civil society in the lobbying process. Antoine Gharib, from the guidance division at the Environment Ministry, urged environmental NGOs to develop into more specialized groups in order to become reliable consultation bodies.

He said: "NGOs are very close to the local problems of the environment and can influence local communities."

The workshop focused on specific case studies that illustrate the process of carrying out environmental assessment.

Nabil Assaf, an engineer at the Environment Ministry, revealed at the meeting a SEA study of the national reforestation plan which started in 2001 to fight against desertification. The current situation is alarming; continuous destructive land use is leading to a loss of tens of millions of dollars every year.

But according to Assaf, the efficiency of the reforestation plan will rely on various factors such as: protecting biodiversity, increasing the productivity of woods, enhancing tourism, raising public awareness, etc.

Reforestation is beneficial for its positive effects not only on the ecological system and the quality of air, but also for the creation of new job opportunities.

He said: "It is still important, however, to check whether the adopted strategy had a low negative impact on the environment and to monitor it."

The project also included the evaluation of alternative methods for rehabilitating plant cover, such as quenching forest fires.

In another case study, SEA was also applied for the potential implementation of waste water treatment plants in Keserwan.

The project, executed by Assad Saade, an engineering professor at the American University in Beirut, compared between the construction of a large centralized plant and that of several small community scale factories.

In his study, Assad took into consideration social, political, technical and environmental conditions. He investigated, for instance, the impact of treatment plants on atmosphere odor, public health, landscape, and agriculture and came up with the conclusion that small-scale plants are a better choice based on all the above criteria.

To preserve our environment from degradation, civil society is urged to press the government to start implementing fast environmental assessment in all their strategies.