sharyn shufiyan The Star 11 May 14;
Before any 'development' projects are done, discussions should be held to see if the people affected derive benefits...or problems.
Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) are a method to review the impacts of development projects on communities.
The social impacts of such projects affect the way people live and work, their safety and security and how they relate to one another.
In my previous work, I often conducted SIAs to assess existing and potential impacts of plantation operations on workers and surrounding local communities. A key component of an SIA is consultation with stakeholders.
We would interview key individuals, organise group discussions, and conduct participatory activities such as mapping, games and role-playing. Often a passing manager (or an eavesdropping one!) would hear the screams and laughter coming out of our consultation area and they would wonder what we were doing.
“Oh, just playing some games,” we would reply cheekily. Games and role-playing exercises were often used to get our participants comfortable and accustomed to us, and to ease them into discussing more sensitive or difficult issues that they might otherwise feel they could not talk about openly.
Unfortunately, SIAs are often treated like adopted children. Emphasis would often be given to environmental impact assessments (EIAs) as they are a regulatory requirement. Often times, the SIA is a (mere) component of an EIA and they do not come as two separate reports.
I get really peeved when I see an SIA being part of an EIA. For me, unless an SIA is conducted thoroughly and presented as a full report, the assessment may not be comprehensive enough and issues may easily be sidelined or missed.
Often times, feedback from stakeholders can easily be taken at face value without probing deeper. There were a few instances when analysing past reports, that our team found gaps that would require further investigation. We felt like we were detectives tracking trails of non-compliance!
Many of the social and community-related issues that we have right now are often due to a lack of consultation with workers and local communities.
All it takes is to have regular consultation with the workers, to give a platform for them to share their views and opinions, to raise issues, grievances or suggestions for improvement, to bargain collectively – to be represented. Some companies would set up a “joint consultative committee” to represent workers, as foreign workers are prohibited from joining unions in Malaysia. But unfortunately, this is not yet a common practice in labour-intensive industries such as construction and agriculture.
Recently I was in Johor Bahru, tagging along with my dad who interviewed someone from the Seletar Orang Asli community. The Seletar’s main source of income comes from fishing and harvesting sea products such as clams, crabs and prawns. They rely heavily on the mangroves to maintain healthy populations of marine life.
But the mangroves are rapidly depleting due to the reclamation projects of the Iskandar Region. Mangroves are highly sensitive ecosystems; they protect shorelines from big waves and erosion, provide breeding grounds for fish, crabs and prawns and also furnish habitats for various birds, reptiles and mammals. The loss of mangrove ecosystems have not only an environmental impact, but social and economic ones as well.
It’s easy to take consultation for granted but it can be lifesaving. Heck, it should be standard operating procedure. Some of these issues can be avoided if a SIA is conducted prior to the development (not after when you realise you have a problem and need to solve it).
Companies can identify existing local communities, draw boundaries to take into consideration ancestral land, consult local elders on the location of culturally sensitive areas such as burial grounds, community farms and reserves. Areas which people depend on for income such as rivers, mangroves and coastal areas can also be marked out.
If a project affects a community’s source of livelihood, then consultation is crucial to find ways to solve the problem. At least, the people are informed prior to the development taking place and both parties can take the necessary action to move forward.
However, companies will usually not go through the hassle because that will mean a setback to their project plan and time is money. But it can save a lot of people from major headaches. And if you’re unlucky, a legal suit can prove to be just as expensive.
Sometimes the communities don’t even want the project to be in their area in the first place.
SIAs are not conducted just to point out negative impacts, but to identify potential areas that should be managed for improvements.
It gives an opportunity for stakeholders like workers and local communities, a chance to be heard, to negotiate, to be represented. We can easily avoid problems for everyone – if only people take the time and effort to consult one another.
