Roundtable with media: "EIA / SEA procedures - analysis, recommendations and best examples of their implementation”

Tirana, 27.10.2017 – Environmental issues that accompanied different project that are developed all-around country is one of the most important parts of the project implementation process. Even being very important to take into account during project development and make a good mitigation plan for decreasing or avoiding the negative impact on environment, projects time by time do not calculate correctly their impacts and do not include the measures for mitigate/avoid their impacts. This process is faced with community reaction up to protest or objection of projects and requirement of community to participate in public consultation/discussion and further in decision making process for these projects. But this requirement is not respected properly and the contrary situation when community is being part of public consultation and decision making process, the project has taken consensus between parts and has concluded in a win-win case for public and authorities and further more for more sustainable and environmentally friendly economical development.

Raising the awareness and their knowledge about the public transparency and public participation in different projects consultation and the role of media in these activities by advertising the meetings and discussion opportunities between public authorities, investors and community was the main theme of the training session that CO-SEED project team in Albania has organized for and with media representatives. CO-SEED project team in Albania held this training to create a communication bridge and engaged media in information, discussion and decision making process of community in different project development that have impact on environment.

The training focused on the importance of journalist and media – visual and written – in raising public awareness to participate actively in project development plan and projects and creating a medium where public can found its informative and communication ways to engage during Environmental Impact Assessment  and Strategic Environmental Assessment processes. In this training ten media representatives have been participated and attended half day training where the organizers explained what are EIA and SEA, who are the public authorities responsible for them and what are the obligation of the legal and institutional frameworks to engage public in these processes. The project coordinator explained in general the aim of the project and after the legal expert made a short presentation about the points of the main pillars of Aarhus Convention (Public access to information, Public participation and Access to justice) and how media can make news or article for them to help community for informing, participating and give their opinion on decision making.

All journalists expressed their interest for theme and make a productive discussion about the media engagement for presentation of environment issues in their editions, newspapers or social media. They gave fruitful proposal how to increase the interest of the journalist to participate in this activities and how CSOs can furnish them with information, facts and development during the EIA and SEA processes.

At the end of the training, project team presents the manual on global best practices for successful collaboration between civil society organizations, public authorities, and private companies in decision-making for environmental impact assessments and strategic environmental assessments.

For more information, please visit www.co-seed.eu