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Ravina Shamdasani

Official environmental impact assessments are biased in favour of developers and should be reformed, analysts and green activists say.

The call came as Environmental Protection Department (EPD) Director Robert Law denied a news report that it was about to reject an impact study by the Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation on a rail link that would cut across the environmentally sensitive Long Valley wetlands. The wetlands are the second most important bird habitat after Mai Po. The plan to build the 7.4km spur line linking Sheung Shui and Lok Ma Chau has attracted 220 objections from the public.

Mr Law said the news report was 'just speculation'.

'The decision will be made based on professional views on the adequacy of the [impact assessment], on comments from the Advisory Council on the Environment, the public and other factors,' he said. 'Certainly it wouldn't just be a response to pressure on maintaining Hong Kong's international image.'

Mr Law is expected to announce his decision on the assessment within three weeks.

The Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance requires development projects likely to have an adverse impact on the environment to be subject to studies and the developers to apply for an environmental permit before they can begin construction.

Many experts are sceptical about the validity and effectiveness of the studies in preventing ecological damage. Richard Corlett, a University of Hong Kong assistant professor in the department of ecology and bio-diversity, said that in theory the Government held tremendous power to stop projects and write strict conditions into environmental permits, but in practice, developers seemed to have the upper hand. He questioned the independence of the reports.

'The ecological standards are just too low,' he said. 'It is the developers who hire the consultants to conduct the assessment. Consultants who find more problems create more problems for their own employers and are less likely to get employed again.'

Between April 1998 and August last year, 145 assessments were received by environment chiefs and only eight rejected. World Wide Fund for Nature conservation manager Alex Yau Shuk-kau said projects were always planned with little room for change.

'The developer will say, we want to go through here and we will trash the place in between, but we will try to provide something to make up for it,' she said. 'They do the planning first, then see the impact and compensate - that is not a terribly good use of public funds and resources.'

In a letter to the South China Morning Post,  the Hong Kong Birdwatching Society claimed the department lacked resources and leverage in government. 'The EPD is under-resourced and comes very much at the bottom of the pecking order [of government departments]. Project proponents such as the KCRC and the Highways Department have unlimited lobbying resources,' the society said.

A department spokesman said it carried out ad hoc inspections to ensure measures were properly implemented. '[Assessment] reports have to go through both internal scrutiny by the department and external scrutiny by the public and the advisory council before a decision on whether to approve the report is made,' the spokesman said.



Activists claim lax investigation guidelines allow developers free hand to push through projects