DOE gets strict over EIA

The Star, Monday September 10, 2007

LUMUT: From Oct 1, only consultants registered with the Department of Environment (DOE) will be allowed to prepare Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports.

Perak DOE director Abu Hasan Mohd Isa said this was because many of the previous reports were not up to mark.

“Before this, any Tom, Dick and Harry was allowed to prepare the EIAs,” he said after the launch of a two-day seminar on the improvement of EIAs here.

Abu Hasan said the department would blacklist consultants if unethical methods had been used to file the reports or certain information had been omitted to expedite the approval of projects.

“Once the consultant is blacklisted, he or she will be barred from preparing other reports.”

Abu Hasan said the EIA should not be used as a licence to approve a project but to help the authorities make sound decisions.

On the DOE’s recent challenge to cut the time taken for an EIA approval from 10 weeks to five, Abu Hasan said:

“It is not a problem. As long as the reports are properly prepared, approval can be given even within two weeks or less.”

Later, department deputy director Norazizi Adinan said that shoddy EIAs put the department under tremendous pressure as it had to assess and approve them quickly in order for projects to move on.

Only DOE-registered consultants allowed to prepare EIA reports

the star, Saturday September 8, 2007

By CLARA CHOOI

LUMUT: Come Oct 1, only consultants registered with the Department of Environment (DOE) will be allowed to prepare Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports.

Perak DOE director Abu Hasan Mohd Isa said this was because many of the previous reports were shoddy and not up to mark.

"Before this, any Tom, Dick and Harry were allowed to prepare the EIAs," he said after the launch of a two-day seminar on the improvement of EIAs here on Saturday.

"That is why the reports have not been up to standard. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the quality of previous EIAs at three," he added.

Abu Hasan said that on some occasions, the department would discover that consultants had merely "cut and pasted" old data from previous reports to prepare a new one.

"As such, we have to ask them to redo it or to get more information where it is lacking."

With the new ruling, only consultants with good experience, knowledge and expertise in the field were allowed to register, he said.

He added that the department would blacklist errant consultants if found that unethical methods had been used to file the reports or certain information had been omitted to expedite the approval of projects.

"We will not hesitate to do this. Once the consultant is blacklisted, he or she will be barred from preparing other reports," he said.

Abu Hasan said the EIA should not be used as a license to approve a project but instead used to help the authorities make sound decisions.

Govt mulls using RFID chips to address timber theft

Monday August 13, 2007

MACHANG: The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry is studying the possibility of using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips on trees to address timber theft.

Its Parliamentary Secretary Datuk Sazmi Miah said that using the RFID system would enable authorities to detect stolen timber.

He said the chips, with data on the species and location of the trees, would be inserted into the trees.

"When the timber is stolen, a radio wave will give away the stolen timber when it passes through a checkpoint. This will enable authorities to identify the culprits and the location where the timber was felled," he said.

Sazmi said he would bring up the proposal to use the chips to the Cabinet soon.

"We feel it is the best and the most effective way to address the problem of timber theft, which is becoming serious," he said.

He said that theft of timber was a serious problem in states like Kedah, Perak, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, adding that the culprits were mainly logging companies which were awarded timber concessions.

"These companies cut trees outside the concession areas awarded to them," he said. – Bernama