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- Convenor:
-
Emilka Skrzypek
(University of St Andrews)
Send message to Convenor
- Stream:
- Morality and Legality
- Sessions:
- Thursday 1 April, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel explores mechanisms designed to identify and assess environmental and social impacts of resource extraction projects. It considers the different ways in which those impacts are perceived, evidenced and articulated, and assemblages and alliances that form around the assessment process.
Long Abstract:
Resource extraction projects have extensive and complex social and environmental impacts. It is now a common practice in the extractives sector that a company wishing to develop a new resource project is required to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed venture, and submit it to the government regulator as part of a new project permitting process. The EIA documents are produced either directly by the company or, more commonly, by contracted consultants and seek to demonstrate to the government regulator that the developer has identified and sufficiently addressed impacts associated with project operations. They are then considered by the government as it decides whether to approve the project.
This panel explores the EIA and other mechanisms designed to identify and assess environmental and social impacts of resource extraction projects. It invites contributions that address the diverse ways in which those impacts can and indeed are being experienced, assessed, articulated and evidenced by different actors involved; the local and global assemblages that form around the EIA process; the factors facilitating access to the impact assessment and government decision making processes for different interest groups; and/or perceptions of effectiveness and the value of impact assessment mechanisms.
Whilst the EIA process is most commonly associated with a new project permitting process, contributions which consider these questions in contexts of already operating projects are also welcome.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 1 April, 2021, -Michael Main (The Australian National University)
Paper short abstract:
The EIA for the Sepik Development Project is informed by a techno-scientific understanding of risk that is in direct conflict with qualitative constructions of risk. This paper argues that the risk paradigm in the EIA is inadequate, and other views of risk are vital to avoid a catastrophic outcome.
Paper long abstract:
The Sepik Development Project is the latest incarnation of the long-proposed Frieda River mine, located at the headwaters of the Sepik River system in Papua New Guinea. In November 2018 the privately-owned mining company PanAust submitted a multi-volume EIA report that came to over 7,000 pages. The EIA was released for public review, which is a statutory requirement, in October 2019. I was one of several people commissioned to provide “expert advice” in relation to the EIA. This paper focuses on the most contentious aspect of the proposed development, which is a vast dual-purpose dam designed to hold acid-sulphate producing mine waste as well as drive a hydroelectric power station at the headwaters of the Frieda River. The designers of the dam classify the consequence of its failure as “extreme” and rank its construction risks as “high to extremely high”. In order to mitigate these risks the designers recommend on ongoing stewardship program that must be continued “in perpetuity” so as to avoid eventual failure of the dam and the realisation of the extreme consequences of its collapse. This techno-scientific view of risk dominates the global mining industry and is in direct conflict with the social, cultural, and qualitative constructions of risk that are perceived by impacted landowners, civil society organisations, and this independent reviewer. This paper argues for a broader understanding of risk that needs to be brought to challenge the dominant risk paradigm that informs the EIA of the Sepik Development Project.
Emilka Skrzypek (University of St Andrews)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the local and global assemblages that formed around the EIS review process at the Frieda River Project in Papua New Guinea.
Paper long abstract:
Recent analysis by Valenta et al. (2019) included Frieda River’s mineral assets on a list of the world’s ‘most complex copper orebodies’ and warned that rapid unlocking of these ores will unleash significant environmental and social impacts that may impede extraction and restrict the global supply of copper. In September 2020, ten UN special rapporteurs wrote to the PNG government urging that these impacts are fully and appropriately considered in the new mine approval process. Grounded in people’s own perceptions and experience of the Environmental Impact Statement review process, this paper explores the kinds of relationships that were illuminated and formed by the review process, and the factors facilitating and restricting access to the process for the different interest groups.
Milena Baghdasaryan (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia)
Paper short abstract:
The approval of Amulsar gold-mine by the former semi-authoritarian regime has generated a large-scale movement against the mine. Contestation of the project’s EIA has become a key element of the struggle. Though experts gave negative evaluation of the EIA, the struggle is far from being successful.
Paper long abstract:
The former semi-authoritarian regime, in power between 1998 and 2018, granted an exploitation license for Amulsar gold-mining project to an offshore company in 2009. The company’s latest EIA’s was approved in 2016. The project was controversial from its very inception. The exploitation of the mountain, which has high potential for acid rock drainage, could pollute nearby rivers and storage lakes, affect areas protected by Berne Convention, destroy or impact habitats of Red List species and extinguish the tourist economy of the town of Jermuk. The local residents found out about the project in 2010-2011 and protested against it since then. Their struggle, joined by civil initiatives and the wider public, included litigation, applying to company’s investors and direct action. As pollution and impact on the local economy was the residents’ major concern, contestation of the project’s EIA became a central element of their struggle. This has become effective, since several local scholars and international experts have come to the conclusion that the EIA does not properly assess the project’s environmental impacts. After the Velvet Revolution of 2018, the issue gained more public resonance and the new government, ignoring other controversies, decided to base its stance on experts’ evaluation of the project’s EIA. However, after the experts they hired concluded that the EIA was improper and a new one was required, the case entered a limbo. The paper seeks to unpack the complexities of the case, including interrelations of different actors with respect to the EIA.