Letter #1 to Minister of the environment
AKNL addresses a first letter to Hon. K. Ramano, the newly-appointed minister of environment, solid waste management and climate change.
As an introduction for hopefully a future collaborative relationship, AKNL introduced to the minister the concept of Blue Carbon and how sea and water with their specific floras have a far greater carbon-sinking potential.
Because it’s one of the resort projects located in coastal marshlands in Bel Ombre, south of Mauritius, AKNL stressed on the importance of making void of having the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) certificate of the project by West Coast Leisure Ltd. Furthermore, a temporary freeze of all EIA licences for projects on the coastal zone would be a precautionary measure until the (then) current investigation by UNDP about how the project they financed, “Mainstreaming Biodiversity in the Coastal Zone of the Republic of Mauritius” is being implemented be completed.
Finally, as environmental democracy is a cornerstone of a healthy, sustainable development, AKNL asked that the right of citizens and civil society actors to challenge EIA approval decisions be legally recognised. On practical level, the urgent step would be to reinstate the 42-day time-frame for appeals at the Environment and Land Use Appeal Tribunal (ELAT).
