Phnom Penh, May 23, 2014: Approximately of 50 participants from related organizations including representatives from Ministry of Environment (MoE), Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), NGOs, researchers, law specialists and academies were assemble for the Public Consultation Workshop on a new Draft Law on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). This one-day event, organized by The NGO Forum on Cambodia, took place at Phnom Penh Ecumenical Diakonia Centre (PPEDC).
The main objectives of this workshop were to discuss, evaluate and comments and provide recommendations on the EIA draft law, to fetch together opinions and recommendations from International and National and International CSOs at a national level upon the draft law before submitting to MoE for evaluation and revision on the contents, and lastly to learn for deeply understanding about EIA draft Law.
“The NGO Forum has always been working very closely with our members and networks in preparing this series consultation workshops at national and sub-national levels on this draft law. As a result, after four-times conducted workshops, we observed that CSOs and relevant parties are strongly committed in the discussion and contributed voluminous ideas for the better changings to this law,” said by Mr. Tek Vannak, Executive Director of the NGO Forum on Cambodia during the session.
Few days after the consultation workshop in Phnom Penh, the EIA draft law was brought over for the presentation to the correlated parties in Sihanouk Ville, where numbers of participants from the government, CSOs, NGOs, community people including farmers were involved to hear, discuss and share the opinions afterward. As a result, the revised EIA draft law earned over 50% supporting from the partakers. This draft law will bring to present in different parts of Cambodian country to seek for further thoughts injection before sending out to the MoE for the final decision.
The EIA draft law was firstly initiated by MoE in 2011 with the expectation to manage and protect the environment, specifically, it was made in order to deduct the negative impacts upon environment, society, economics and cultures from the entire private companies’ development projects in Cambodia. Up to date, the EIA draft law is under the monitoring and revising by the MoE with technical support of national and international consultants. The instigation process of this law is considered as a great opportunity for the communities, national and international CSOs to be involved in monitoring and sharing opinions, which can provide a great benefits to protect the sustainable of Cambodian natural resources as well as the environment that will be result in less negative impacts from all the development projects by the private firms.