{"id":20011002,"date":"2015-07-23T14:01:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T08:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=11002"},"modified":"2020-11-17T17:15:50","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T11:45:50","slug":"nepal-earthquake-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/nepal-earthquake-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Nepal earthquake: boon for industry, disastrous for the environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nepal\u2019s government has decreed that developers can build cement factories, with a 3,000 tonnes capacity, without carrying out an environmental impact assessment.<\/p>\n

Dr. Ramsharan Mahat, Nepal\u2019s finance minister, said the decision will help reduce cement imports and help boost investment in roads and other infrastructure, as he announced his budget in parliament last week.<\/p>\n

This is not the only recent government decision that has undermined the country\u2019s environmental laws.<\/p>\n

Last month, Nepal\u2019s president agreed to establish a new authority to oversee earthquake reconstruction with a mandate to implement development projects without carrying out environmental impact assessments, which are mandatory under the country\u2019s environment protection<\/a> act.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaws related to land acquisition, public procurement and environmental impact assessment will not be applicable in earthquake hit areas,\u201d the president\u2019s ordinance to the new reconstruction authority stated.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists say the government\u2019s decision was influenced by industry groups who have fought against mandatory environmental assessments for some long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndustrialists are trying to ruin the environmental sector by bribing the corrupt government which is not acceptable,\u201d said Salil Devkota, an environment expert at Nepal Environment and Scientific Services<\/a>, a private consultancy firm.<\/p>\n

The death toll from the 7.9 magnitude earthquake<\/a> in April and subsequent aftershocks has reached about 10,000. Three million people have been displaced and 800,000 houses damaged or destroyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s against the state\u2019s promises to maintain environmental standards and it\u2019s against its own environment act,\u201d said Madan Koirala, a professor at Tribhuvan University\u2019s environmental science department and president of the Nepal Environment Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is not only environmentalists who are outraged. \u00a0Authorities within the government are also deeply concerned. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t discussed with the environment ministry and we want it to be revoked, so we are discussing amongst ourselves how to move forward,\u201d said Dr. Suroj Pokhrel, director general of the department of environment at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The earthquake caused an estimated US$7 billion worth of damage \u2013one third of Nepal\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Other countries have pledged<\/a> to give Nepal US$3 billion to help with reconstruction through a mixture of grants and loans. The Nepal government allocated about US$750 million in its latest budget\u2014almost 10% of the total.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are willing to search for options to make the procedure for environmental assessments shorter and easier, but the decision to waive requirements will ultimately put already vulnerable communities at further risk,\u201d added Pokhrel.<\/p>\n

Environmental laws: weak but worthy<\/h2>\n

Many people argue that Nepal\u2019s EIA\u00a0process is merely a paper tiger, due to the inefficiency and weak monitoring of government bodies.<\/p>\n

However, paper laws are better than nothing. \u201cThe EIA process maybe weak but it doesn\u2019t mean we have to waive it,\u201d said Dr. Dinesh Chandra Devkota, former vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission.<\/p>\n

It has been mandatory to conduct EIAs before starting development project since the late 1990s, when the country introduced its first environmental protection act.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are meeting with the officials at the environment ministry this week to demand they scrap decisions that will have negative implications for generations in the future,\u201d said Madan Koirala, professor of environmental science at Tribhuvan University and president of the Nepal Environment Society.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Environment\u2014the sole body responsible for reviewing EIAs \u2014has little political clout and is severely under resourced \u2013 both in terms of human and financial resources.<\/p>\n

According to ministry officials, less than half a dozen officers handle EIAs, which involve very technical and complex issues and range from big hydropower projects to small irrigation projects, from hospitals to industrial projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nepal\u2019s government has agreed to waive environmental laws to speed up reconstruction and development projects after the devastating earthquake<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20000200,"featured_media":20014674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[20000192,20000325],"hashtags":[],"country":[20000113],"class_list":["post-20011002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","tag-disasters","tag-industry","country-nepal"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNepal earthquake: boon for industry, disastrous for the environment | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nepal\u2019s government has agreed to waive environmental laws to speed up reconstruction and development projects after the devastating earthquake\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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