Prospects for regional cooperation on environmental impact assessment in mainland Southeast Asia.

AuthorWells-Dang, Andrew

Economic development in Southeast Asia is increasingly pressing against environmental limits. Infrastructure construction, including the "connectivity corridors" established through the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) "Greater Mekong Sub-region" (GMS) initiative, affects biodiversity, forest cover and water systems. (1) Mining of gold, bauxite, iron ore and other minerals raises issues of waste storage and chemical pollution. (2) In perhaps the highest-profile example, construction of the Xayaburi and Don Sahong dams along the mainstream of the Mekong River is claimed by some analysts to threaten fisheries throughout the lower Mekong basin and even end the rainy season reverse flow of the Tonle Sap river system in Cambodia (3)--claims that are denied or downplayed by project proponents. (4) The environmental impacts of these projects have emerged as issues of common concern among governments, organized civil society groups and business sector actors in the region.

This article begins from the premise that there are potential benefits to transnational cooperation to address environmental impacts, whether they are felt within a single country or across borders. (5) The formation by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)--due to come into effect at the end of 2015--is the latest in a series of steps by countries in Southeast Asia to increase multilateral cooperation aiming for development and sustainability. (6) ASEAN has taken substantive action to address the perceived "development gap" among member countries through the establishment of an Initiative for ASEAN Integration, with a focus on raising standards among the poorer members such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. (7) Yet environmental issues have been notably scarce on the integration agenda. (8) Sub-regional institutions, notably the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and the GMS, have picked up some of the slack, funding high quality research on environmental impacts at the sectoral and project levels. (9) However, these studies have not yet led to the establishment of regional cooperation mechanisms. Each regional institution and major donor has tended to set up its own system, resulting in a plethora of working groups and conferences, all including some important actors but leaving others out. As a result, the MRC, ASEAN, and international financial institutions have overlapping mandates and roles, each relating to different parts of national governments.

At the domestic level, legal processes for environmental impact assessment (EIA) are well-established in all Southeast Asian countries. EIA and related forms of environmental assessments are carried out throughout the region with varying quality, legal frameworks, monitoring and compliance. (10) As a widely-applied process for preventing, mitigating and reducing potential impacts of developmental projects on the environment and society, EIA is not primarily a tool for decision-making about project approval. Instead, assessments answer the questions of how and where a proposed project should be built, offering regulators a means to influence options for project design and monitor compliance. (11)

Previous research has identified a "window of opportunity" to engage in supporting new EIA laws and improved implementation through a regional EIA standard, linked to regional openings such as the AEC. (12) Such a standard would form the basis for an agreed-upon benchmark or minimum level of quality for EIA practices, potentially including specific principles, criteria and indicators that define social and environmental performance. But how would regional governments, investors, and societal actors respond to opportunities to cooperate on EIA standards?

To answer this question, the author and a team of eight regional researchers initiated a qualitative political economy study in late 2014 to identify key features of EIA policy processes and to develop a proposed roadmap for improving these processes through regional cooperation. We selected the five countries of mainland Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam) as research sites, since a large concentration of regional development projects is currently taking place in these countries, particularly in the sectors of hydropower, mining, and land concessions that have attracted the greatest attention from citizens, civil society groups and investors. (13) This article begins with a consideration of the structures, interests and incentives of key national and regional stakeholders engaged in EIA processes in each country. It then proceeds to country-specific and general recommendations for increasing regional cooperation in EIA.

Methodology

Cross-national research in Southeast Asia poses a series of methodological and logistical challenges. (14) Despite common membership in ASEAN, countries in the region differ widely in political systems, language and ease of access. (15) This is particularly the case for the five Mekong Basin countries that are considered in this article. To ensure a balanced approach, the author and research sponsors in the Mekong Partnership for the Environment (MPE) assembled a multinational team of eight researchers based in each of the participating countries. (16) During a week of face-to-face orientation to discuss the research topic and qualitative data-gathering methods, members of the research team identified key governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders in their respective countries. We then organized qualitative interviews with these stakeholders according to an agreed interview guide including a set of key questions that were translated into each national language. All interviews were conducted in the respondent's native language without translation. Interviews were arranged through a combination of personal contacts and official letters from the research sponsors. This allowed for a combination of the trust and rapport achievable through relationship-building (17) along with access to key official agencies engaged in the EIA process. Additional interviewees were added through a "snowball" sampling method in which stakeholders recommended others for researchers to meet. (18)

The research team conducted a total of 127 semi-structured interviews in the five countries surveyed (see Figure 1). Government respondents included officials at department director and specialist levels in ministries responsible for environmental protection, planning and investment, agriculture, land, mining and hydropower issues. Non-governmental stakeholders selected comprised directors and staff of research institutes (including some retired government officials), non-governmental organizations, international development agencies and business associations. The specific composition of interviewees varied among countries based on assessed influence and interest in EIA issues. Respondents' ages ranged from the low 30s through to senior citizens, with the majority being in their 40s and 50s; 78 per cent were male and 22 per cent female, a consistent ratio among both governmental and non-governmental sectors. Interviews were primarily conducted in capital cities, with some notable exceptions such as Siem Reap and Yangon. For reasons of confidentiality, the names of interview respondents are not included in the text of this article. Quotations are identified by the nationality and/or affiliation of the speaker where this is important to convey meaning.

Interviews explored respondents' understandings and attitudes towards EIA policies and types of possible regional cooperation, seeking to assess positions and levels of influence among multiple stakeholders. After each interview, researchers scored the respondents on four basic questions regarding their positions and influence on national and regional EIA policies. Interview data was triangulated with other sources of information, including published documents, government and non-governmental reports in various languages and presentations at national and regional workshops sponsored by MPE and MRC. During an analysis of the interview results, the team leader communicated regularly with researchers through a combination of face-to-face and virtual meetings. This allowed for joint debriefing, commenting and later review of draft findings. (19)

The political economy framework used in analysis aims to integrate economic development concerns with policymakers' decisions in each of the countries studied. More generally, a political economy analysis is "concerned with the interaction of political and economic processes in a society: the distribution of power and wealth between different groups and individuals, and the processes that create, sustain and transform these relationships over time". (20) Political economy tools used in analysis included stakeholder identification, power mapping, process tracing and assessment of both formal and informal institutions. (21) In a broader sense, the political economy approach allows for iterative problem solving, stepwise learning, brokering of relationships and the discovery of common interests among stakeholders, including the research team. (22) While the literature on EIA from a technical perspective is immense, our research process represents one of the few examples of EIA examined through a political economy lens. (23)

ASEAN's Approach to Regional Environmental Governance

Regional cooperation on environmental issues is weaker in Southeast Asia than in other parts of the world. Regional structures are present but not functioning optimally as environmental institutions. (24) These include ASEAN, inter-governmental mechanisms for cooperation and international financial institutions such as the World Bank and ADB, specifically through the GMS initiative and the MRC. These bodies have not yet implemented regional environmental standards; not due to any lack of capacity among the people involved...

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