In this second part on how the public can participate in EIA reviews, we lay out suggestions by civil society and government efforts to improve the process. Part 2 of 3. Read Part 1 and Part 3.
IN 2023, marine conservationist Alvin Chelliah had a challenge the size of an encyclopaedia. Splayed across his computer screen was the environmental impact assessment report (EIA) of the Tioman airport project.
The main report was over 1,000 pages thick. Chapter 6, which described the environment on the project site alone, had 200 graphs and 125 tables. The appendix was twice the size of the main report.
Chelliah, the Chief Programme Officer at Reef Check Malaysia, was looking for gaps in the report. The federal Department of Environment (DOE) had put up the report for public review in June 2023. Chelliah had 30 days whereby the report would stay online, and another 15 days to submit comments.
He and his team had been encouraging locals to share their views. But many of the details in the report – construction physics, soil dynamics, hydraulics – were gibberish to the untrained.
(Feature image: A random selection of the hundreds of graphs, tables and images in the EIA report of the proposed Tioman airport project. | Compiled by Macaranga)
EIA legislations in Sabah and Sarawak
This series discusses only the EIA processes in Peninsular Malaysia and the federal territories.
While projects in Peninsular Malaysia and the federal territories are subjected to the federal Environmental Quality Act 1974 and its regulations, those in Sabah and Sarawak are subjected to different ones.
In Sabah, it is the Sabah Environmental Protection Enactment 2002, while for Sarawak, it is the Natural Resources and Environment Ordinance 1993.
But there are exceptions. The Environmental Quality Act 1974 stipulates that specific project types in Sabah and Sarawak (e.g., aerodome, shipyards, oil fields) are subjected to the federal law instead of the state enactments.
In general, the EIA processes in Sabah and Sarawak have less public participation and accessibility than that in Peninsular Malaysia.
A call for professional help
To find faults in the report, Chelliah needed professionals. He reached out to people with different know-how, such as those who work on coral restoration, fish biodiversity, and birds. “Can you see if anything sticks out? Anything you feel we should be concerned about?” he asked them.
Chelliah’s efforts fed an 18-page analysis with a 7-page list of errors found in the EIA report. Reef Check Malaysia shared their findings with the locals, media, and other civil society organisations (CSOs).
By the end of the public review period, the DOE received about 1,400 comments. That was the second-highest number of comments for any EIA report, the DOE told Macaranga.
Usable public feedback for the DOE
And the response to this EIA report was “interesting”, said Hazrina Salleh, head assistant director at the EIA Review Division. “Half of the public comments were about technical aspects of the report.”
Technical comments are those that point out specific gaps in the report. For example, Reef Check Malaysia’s comments flagged misidentification of coral and fish species, weak coral relocation methods, outdated hydraulic surveys, and conflicting statements in the report.
Corals in the waters off Kampung Genting and near the proposed airport site.
Was the public feedback to the Tioman airport EIA report a good example of the type the DOE needs?
“Yes,” said Rohimah Ayub, director of the EIA Review Division at DOE. With such comments, “we can deliberate if the report’s mitigation measures are enough.”
Hazrina, who was nodding, added: “If the mitigation measures are not enough, we cannot approve (the report).”
How can the public provide usable comments?
How can the public better provide the technical comments on EIA reports that the DOE needs? Chelliah and other environmental NGOs offer ideas: (1) Make EIA reports downloadable, (2) Make previous EIA reports available, and (3) Establish a network of experts.
1. Make EIA reports downloadable
Firstly, allow anyone to download the reports for review. For now, during the 30-day public display period, EIA reports are posted online (often in Google Drive folders) by the developers or EIA consultants. Anyone can click on announcements on the DOE website to read the reports.
But thereafter comes the challenge. In Macaranga’s experience of examining EIA reports since 2020, most of the EIA reports on public display cannot be downloaded. Instead, viewers must stay online and scroll the report page by page; a report can have hundreds of pages.
That was Chelliah’s experience with the Tioman airport EIA report. “If you are waiting for the page to load, it can be very slow,” recalled Chelliah, who had a weak internet service on Tioman Island. He also could not make notes or highlights on the report.
“We can’t do anything. It’s very frustrating. After a while, people would be like…ah, this is wasting my time,” he said. Only the dedicated would persevere. “It definitely would have made things much easier if we could download a copy of it [to review offline and take notes].”
2. Make previous EIA reports available
Secondly, the DOE could also make older EIA reports readily available to help the public write technical comments on new ones. Environmental NGOs told Macaranga that they could use past EIA reports to study whether previous mitigation measures had worked or how the environment had changed.
For example, Chelliah pointed out that in the Tioman airport EIA report, the consultants had proposed relocating all the corals from the reclamation site and planting them elsewhere. “Come on, at that scale, has that been proven to work?” said Chelliah. “If we could see another project’s EIA report and assess how successful that move was, it would be beneficial [for our review].”
Some of the coral restoration efforts run by Reef Check Malaysia at Tioman Island. The NGO used their experience and expertise to criticise the EIA report's coral relocation measures. (Reef Check Malaysia)
Chelliah had tried but failed to acquire the EIA reports of older coastal airport projects in Terengganu and Tioman Island. Even EIA consultants have told Macaranga they struggled to get copies of past EIA reports for reference.
Reasons to restrict access to EIA reports
Macaranga asked some EIA consultants why developers might not agree to permanent and online access to their EIA reports. Here are some of the answers received:
Open to abuse. "I have had cases where the public view the report, get information about the client then threaten the client that they will derail the project with objections if they are not paid," said Geetha P Kumaran.
Sabotage. "EIA reports describe many issues and mitigation measures. For example, there might be flood risk but the report would also have solutions. But opposing parties might just pick the problems to highlight because they want to sabotage the project. It should be transparent, but developers are worried about sabotage," said Mohd Hasri Omar.
Aiding competition. "The developers have paid a huge amount of money for the EIA report. [If the EIA reports are readily available], other developers in the area could use the data in this EIA report and save some money from conducting new baseline studies," said Khairulina Mohd Kamaruddin.
3. Establish an expert network
Thirdly, another way to get more technical comments is for the DOE to establish a network of experts, said Chelliah. The DOE could then notify the experts of new EIA reports relevant to their specialty or areas of interest.
“Many of us in conservation do not regularly check the DOE website for new EIA reports,” said Chelliah. But if the DOE informs them, “I think many of us who have technical skills wouldn’t mind giving input on EIA reports.”
DOE’s recent move lauded
The DOE appears to appreciate the need to make EIA reports more accessible. In a 22 January press statement, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, the Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, stated that starting February 2025, the DOE would publish the executive summaries of all EIA reports on its Digital Library. That includes the summaries of First Schedule EIA reports, which do not require public display.
Conservationists and journalists welcomed the DOE’s move to make executive summaries publicly available. “It’s a good move to give us a clearer picture of Schedule 1 (First Schedule) projects,” said Hawa Wahid, president of environmental NGO Persatuan Aktivis Sahabat Alam (KUASA). “Before this, we just make assumptions based on previous projects.”
Journalist Low Choon Chyuan, who had used EIA reports for his investigations, said that executive summaries would “at least show us the locations of Schedule 1 projects.”
And the DOE is aiming for more transparency. In the same press statement, the Minister added that the DOE will study the feasibility of making the complete EIA reports downloadable, along with the need to amend laws and upgrade .
It might surprise many that the DOE would need to amend laws to make EIA reports downloadable. Can the officers not simply tweak the settings on Google Drive?
No, they cannot, because of Section 50 in the Environmental Quality Act 1974.
“Under Section 50, you have to get permission from the owners if you want to reveal any information submitted to us,” EIA Review Division director Rohimah Ayub told Macaranga. And who owns the EIA reports? Not the government, but the developers who had paid consultants to produce the reports.
Passages like this are printed on the front and back of some EIA reports. (YH Law)
Bound by Section 50, the government must seek the developers’ consent to share the EIA reports with other parties. The DOE explained that developers have agreed to make hard copies of the EIA reports available at DOE offices but not online.
As such, anybody wishing to read EIA reports outside the public display period must submit requests at DOE offices. Approvals are not guaranteed.
How accessible are EIA reports?
Before February, requests by Macaranga and other journalists to access EIA reports at state Department of Environment offices had been rejected. The Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability’s 22 January announcement appears to have eased restrictions. Starting February, the offices now provide request forms — previously it was a straight rejection.
The DOE aims to table the amendments to the Environmental Quality Act this year. If the Parliament passes the amendments of Section 50, “then [the public] can get full access [to EIA reports],” said Director-General Wan Abdul Latiff Wan Jaffar.
Updates: 10/3 — Added a pull-down “EIA processes in Sabah and Sarawak”.
This is Part 2 of a 3-part series that covers how public input works within the EIA process. Part 1 looks at what and how public participation affects EIA reports. Part 3 describe ways to make town halls feasible and why the public participation must start way before the EIA process.
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