A better way to assess harm to environment
Conservation groups used to fight for environmental impact assessments or EIAs to be carried out before big government development projects. Today, that fight has been partly won with government agencies commissioning such assessments to scope out the environmental impact of big projects, such as the 50km Cross Island Line that may tunnel under the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, and plans to develop five wildlife parks in Mandai. But the larger battle to protect Singapore’s remaining wild spaces continues, and one battlefront is over EIA conclusions, with the Nature Society openly disputing the findings on the Mandai project and calling the conclusion of the EIA commissioned by Mandai Park Holdings “highly questionable”. What underpins EIAs is the principle of looking before you leap. EIAs are done before a new development is built and include detailed studies on how going ahead would affect the environment and surrounding areas, and suggestions for measures to mitigate these effects.
