Environment law
Introduction:
Textile sector occupies a very important position in the economy of Bangladesh in terms of value addition. It accounts for one third of total manufacturing value addition, which is equivalent to 5% of the country’s GDP and provides employment opportunity to over 3.5 million people, which accounts to 45% of the total employment of the industrial sector.
It is well recognized that each industrial development has impacts on the natural environmental directly or indirectly. So, before taking up of any project, the environment aspects of the proposed development activities must be taken into consideration and due attention must be paid to protect the environment.
LEGAL AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS:
In any country, development projects are governed directly or indirectly by some type of legal and/or institutional requirements. Assessment of policy, strategy and regulatory issues are extremely important for any project proponent or developer before they physically execute a Program or Plan. The proponent has to be well aware of these requirements and comply with the provisions as applicable and necessary. The following sections review the relevant National legislative, regulatory and policy requirements along with some international ones.
BANGLADESH ENVIRONMENT CONSERVATION ACT 1995 AND ENVIRONMENT CONSERVATION RULES 1997:
Environment Conservation Act 1995 (ECA’95) is currently the main legislation document relating to environment protection in Bangladesh. Under the Act, no industrial unit or project shall be established or adopted without obtaining environment clearance, in the manner prescribed by the Rules.
Environment Conservation Rules 1997 has provided categorization of industries and project and identified types of Environment assessments needed against respective category of industries or projects.
The Environment Conservation Act 1995
This Act of 1995 is officially the ‘Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act, 1995, established for environment conservation, environmental standard development pollution control, although it is known by the shortened title above. It has repealed the Environment Pollution Control Ordinance 1977.
The Environmental Conservation Act, 1995 (ECA’1995) is currently the main legislative framework document relating to environmental protection in Bangladesh.
The main objective of ECA, 1995 are-
- Conservation and improvement of environmental standard, and
- Control and mitigation of pollution of environment.
The main strategies of the act can be summarized as-
- Declaration of ecologically critical areas, and restriction, on the operation and process which can be carried or can not be initiated in the ecologically critical area.
- Regulation in respect of vehicles emitting smoke harmful for the environment.
- Environmental clearance.
- Regulation of the industries and other development activities-discharge permit.
- Promulgation of standards for quality of air, water, noise and soil for different areas for different purposes.
- Promulgation of standard limit for discharging and emitting waste.
- Formulation and declaration of environmental guidelines.
The first set of rules to implement the provisions of the Act has been promulgated in 1997. The Department of Environment (DoE) is implementing the Act. DoE is headed by a Director General (DG). The power of DG, as given in the Act, may be outlined as follows:
- Identification of different types and causes of environmental degradation and pollution.
- Instigating the investigation and research into information regarding environment conservation, development and pollution.
- Power to close down the activities considered harmful to human life or the environment. The operator does have the right to appeal and procedures are in place for this. However, if the incident is considered an emergency, there is no opportunity for appeal.
- Power to declare an area affected by pollution as an ecologically critical area. DoE governs the type of works or process, which can take in such an area.
- Similar to an above mentioned clause, if any part of environment is polluted/damaged by operations, the Director General can request or force the operator to make rectifying arrangements;
- Operators must inform the Director General of any pollution incident.
In the event of an accidental pollution, the Director General may take control of an operation and the respective operator is bound to help. The operator is responsible for costs incurred (and possibly) compensation;
- Before new project can go ahead as stipulated under the rules, they must obtain an Environmental Clearance from the Director General. An appeal procedure does exist for these promoters who fail to obtain clearance;
- Failure to comply with any part of this Act may result in punishment by a maximum of 5 years imprisonment or a maximum fine of Tk. 100,000 or both.
Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act (Amendment 2000)
This Act focuses on:
(1) Ascertaining responsibility for Compensation in cases of damage to ecosystems,
(2) Increased provision of disciplinary measures both for fines and imprisonment and
(3) Fixing authority on cognizance of offences.
Bangladesh Environment Conservation Act (Amendment 2002)
This Act elaborates on:
(1) Restriction on polluting automobiles,
(2) Restriction on the sale, production of environmentally harmful items like polythene bags,
(3) Assistance from law enforcement agencies for environmental actions,! (4) Break up of disciplinary measures and
(5) Authority to try environmental cases.
Environment Conservation Rules 1997
These are the first set of rules, promulgated under the Environment Conservation act 1995. Among other things, these rules set
(i) The National Environmental Quality Standards for ambient air, various types of water, industrial effluent, emission, noise, vehicular exhaust etc.
(ii) Requirement for and procedures to obtain environment clearance
(iii)Requirement for environmental impact assessment according to categories of industrial and other development interventions.
According to the rules, any project/development intervention of the Red category, is to obtain environmental clearance in two steps-first to obtain site/location clearance (based on the application along with necessary papers, including the Initial Environmental Examination, IEE which will contain the scope of work of the proposed EIA, if required, and then to obtain Environmental clearance (by submitting the application along with necessary papers). The department may take up to sixty days to issue the site clearance (from the date of receiving the application), sixty days to approve the EIA and thirty more days to issue the Environmental Clearance, provided everything goes well.
This may be quite a lengthy process if DOE uses the full extent of the time limits. The rules however provide the Director General a discretionary authority to grant ‘Environmental Clearance’ to an applicant exempting the requirement of site/location clearance, provided he considers it appropriate.
