Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is one of the tools used by relevant authorities all over
the world in an attempt to ensure that the principles of sustainable development are achieved.
Since the Environment Act (EA) No. 15 of 2001 was passed in the parliament many EIAs have
been conducted in Lesotho. This Act has been replaced with the EA No. 10 of 2008. Though it
was not until June 2009 that the environmental law was promulgated, government institutions
and environmental practitioners have been operating within the provisions of this Act. The
preparation of high quality EIA reports is one component of an effective translation of EIA
policy into practice. The Lee and Colley review package (Lee et al 1999) was used to assess the
quality of 15 EIA reports submitted to the National Environment Secretariat which is now
referred to as the Department of Environment (DoE). The reports comprised of the project briefs
(PBs) and the environmental impact statements (EISs). Interviews with the EIA consultants,
stakeholders and concerned government officials have also been conducted to underpin the root
cause of poor quality of EIA reports. The analysis reveals that several key areas of EIA do not
receive sufficient attention. The inadequacies are particularly in areas relating description of the
development, identification, evaluation and mitigation of key impacts, consideration of
alternatives, and consultation and participation of the public. The government institutions also
show less interest in environmental matters and as a result matters relating to environment are
given less priority. This leaves the effectiveness of the EIA process to be highly questionable.
The study offers suggestions that would improve the EIA process in the country.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-10192011-141151 |
| Date | 19 October 2011 |
| Creators | Talime, L A |
| Contributors | Ms E Kruger |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-10192011-141151/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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