A lot of disaster has happen during the last 10 years since, the legal need for an EIA in certain prescribed activities defined by quantum, project size and not defined by any unit of measure. The EIA Order, 1987 has been reactive to adapt to new problems and more stringent rules are being looked at. Laws have to be stringent yet flexible to prescribed the appropriate measures. More can be done to improve on the EIA process.

There should be a study on the sensitive erosion risk areas in the highland areas and zoning it for easy monitoring, which Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) is supportive of the statement by Prof Dr Ibrahim Komoo from the Universiti Kebangsaan LESTARI. The areas are then zone according to categories of risk. These should be done in the beginning of the local structural planning stage. The high risk area and the medium risk area should have more stringent mitigating measures imposed. The level of development can then be even out and spread out according to its capacity. There should be a restriction on the density per hectare in these areas. MNS also welcome YB Datuk Law Hieng Ding’s move to study the on lowering the minimum hectarage to 25 hectares and this can apply to the low risk areas. MNS feels that there should not be any minimum hectarage at all on a high risk area and medium risk area. EIA must be made mandatory even for small hill side projects. We are talking about human lives.

The whole issue on the landslides in the hilly areas are all caused by overdevelopment, in this case high density development, unappropriate housing projects and practices and uneven spread of projects will definitely put a strain on the geologically sensitive areas.  Just because Malaysians may see the buying of hill properties as a status symbol, developers should not build as many units as possible without giving serious attention to safety and the environment. People seemed to have short memory when it came to disasters and thus things were always taken for granted. Even with a 1000 meter restriction on highland development, there should be more macro and stringent enforcement, identifying out all the risk areas and even out the density and spread of development.

Who is to take up the responsibility? It is either the Federal or the State which should take the responsibility. If all land matters is a State matter, and the hands of the Federal Government is tied and the State is not doing anything about it, then the Federal Government should be given the authority for more effective enforcement of the EIA process. There should be any issuance of temporary certificate of fitness in the first place as there is doubt by the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council.

The hiring of experts, like geotechnician is a necessity and more informed knowledge will be done in the planning and decision making stage so that plans could be changed to suit the local conditions.

Finally, the consumers themselves have to beware of the goods they buy. The demand for such luxury status symbol have led to the whole country to pay a price when a disaster happens.

The whole point of having an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is to identify and predict the impacts on the environment (safety aspects included) of the proposed project and to detail out the mitigating measures before approving and implementing the project.

Dato’ Dr  Salleh Mohd Nor     Kuala Lumpur, 18 May 1999
President