Trans-boundary environmental issues: South Asian experts for knowledge sharing

Countries do not often agree on issues when filtered through the lens of “national interest”.

ISLAMABAD: The question’s content betrayed the exasperation that can be associated with failed negotiations, even though the tone of the person asking the question was calm and his manner composed.

How do we get countries quibbling over trans-boundary environmental issues especially water to agree on recommendations of an environmental impact assessment report, the audience member had asked the panel of experts sitting at the head table in front of him.

“Maybe they could produce the recommendations everyone agrees on,” said Peter-John Meynell, a hydro biologist with a long and international career in environment resources management, in reply.

There was a loud chuckle in the hall, as people — experts at the South Asian Environmental Assessment Conference (SAEAC) 2013, who had given presentations on trans-boundary water issues earlier, and audience members, who had quietly listened to suggestions of regional cooperation from those experts — realized the near-certain impracticality of Meynell’s statement.

Countries do not often agree on environmental issues, especially when the issues are filtered through the lens of “national interest,” even when the environmental degradation appears to be a common problem for neighbouring countries. Agreements sometimes become more difficult if the countries share a complex, hostile past.

Meynell’s own presentation on two Strategic Environment Assessment (SEA) studies for the 4,350-km long Mekong River, which flows through six Southeast Asian countries, showed how one country had completely rejected the recommendations from one study. The SEA is an impact assessment methodology that introduces environmental safeguards in policy and planning processes.

But even though the recommendations were neglected, Meynell did say the studies had initiated and informed a debate on the issues discussed in the studies.

And so, trans-boundary regional cooperation for environmental protection and sustainable development seemed to be the mantra at two separate international conferences that were held in Islamabad during last week.

The SAEAC, organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Pakistani government, stressed using environmental impact assessments to open a participatory path for regional cooperation on environment and climate change-related issues.

At a separate hotel, a few miles away, government officials from member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation gathered at a meeting of the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme (SACEP) and issued statements that sounded similar to the SAEAC experts.

Federal Minister for Science and Technology Zahid Hamid, for example, said regional cooperation and a collaborative approach represent the way forward to overcome our common environmental challenges.

Shri Anand Singh, the Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India, said regional commitments from SAARC member states could help South Asia become a climate and environment-conscious region.

Other officials and experts, at both conferences, had similar views to offer.

Vaqar Zakaria, a senior Pakistani environmentalist, said convergences in impact assessments were becoming clear even in the Indus Water Treaty between Pakistan and India, for which the two countries are engaged in litigation in the Permanent Court of Arbitration on water flows from a new dam India plans to build on the Neelum River (Kishenganga hydroelectric plant project.)

“Clear traces are emerging but we need to discuss with the other side,” Zakaria said, during the SAEAC panel discussion on role of SEA in trans-boundary water issues. “The SEA we have done can be expanded to the other side of the border.”

He was referring to data and knowledge sharing to bring countries, not just Pakistan and India, on the same page to resolve disputes about natural resources.

There are some existing institutional mechanisms to facilitate knowledge sharing within South Asia. The SACEP, which began in 1982, has achieved some success in starting projects on building capacity and strengthening institutions to support environment conservation and management.

But the South Asian region, under increasing population strain, continues to suffer from, and be vulnerable to, environmental degradation and extreme weather events.

Some experts suggested cooperation should be protected from negative political rhetoric. There was plenty of positive political rhetoric at the conferences in Islamabad. But it remains to be seen whether the countries are actually able to shed their political differences and come up with SEA recommendations on which they all agree.

The future of millions of people is at stake and it is not a trivial matter.

As the SACEP Director-General Anura Jayatilake, put it, “collective, viable and robust approaches to cope with environmental and climatic challenges can reduce miseries and negative impacts on lives and livelihoods of the millions of people in the region.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2013.