Lessons Learned
The Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge successfully established an alliance of attorney firms, research institutions, governmental sections and local communities. The alliance mechanism promoted legal research into Southwestern China biodiversity protection and legal services executed by attorney firms enhanced the legal awareness of the local communities. The public was also given more opportunities to understand the necessity of environmental protection.
Chen Yue, Project Official, Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge
What was the most important lesson learned?
The channel for the local communities to participate in environmental policymaking needed to be strengthened and broadened.
Describe how you learned this and whether / how you have adapted your approach or specific project elements as a result.
One objective of the project was to develop the institutions and policy tools to pilot transparent, thorough and just Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Socio-economic Impact Assessments. During the project implementation, the environment for NGOs tended to be so strict that it made it difficult for the NGOs to participate in the local policy hearing process. We hoped to support the subproject on public participation in the EIAs in order to strengthen local community capacity. However, to find such appropriate proposals were very difficult.
In Yunnan and other Southwestern regions, there are many resources available for developing projects that are approved by the local government every year, but the approval procedures are seldom open to the public and thus rarely pursued. The local communities also lack knowledge of EIAs and are consequently unwilling to participate in such activities. On the other hand, an NGO forcing such activities seemed dangerous and sensitive.
At last we picked two proposals concerning EIAs. One proposal was in regards to producing the necessary materials for educating the local communities on how to participate in the EIAs; the content was described in pictures for those ethnic minorities who cannot read and write. Another proposal requested funding for conducting research on communities participating in garbage clean-up. During the latter part of our project, when the draft of the Regulation of Planning Environmental Impact Assessments was opened, we had organized the researchers to discuss it together. Additionally, we communicated and committed their opinions on channels of public participation to the legislators.
- September 23, 2008
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