Workshop on Closing the Environmental Compliance Gap @Sambhaavnaa Institute, Himachal Pradesh [Feb 26-28]: Registrations Open

Environmental-Compliance-Workshop-Sambhaavana-institute-Palampur-150x150

01 Dec 2018

Categories: Courses & Workshops

About

Across the world, marginalized communities bear a disproportionate burden of the environmental, social and economic cost of development. Projects such as polluting industrial units, municipal disposal sites or mining projects not only trigger land use change but also expose communities to toxic contamination, adversely affecting their livelihoods and imposing restrictions on their access to common resources and mobility.

Many of these projects are meant to be regulated by laws that are crafted far away from the affected communities. Their stated purpose or extent of implementation is known only to policymakers, the projects and few experts.

They remain in the books while harmful projects continue operations for years in gross violation or non-compliance of these laws. The neoliberal development paradigm to sustain necessarily requires dilution of environmental laws in order to ensure economic growth and that is the process we see happening in the country today as well.

In the field of environmental justice through regulation, compliance is one of the least understood and researched topics. Since compliance may involve scientific and technological aspects of the environment, it is mostly left to technical experts, regulatory bodies and members of the industry. Owing to the lack of public knowledge, compliance has rarely seen public engagement or community action at the field and at policy levels.

Citizen engagement in the policy and practice of environmental compliance can reduce the environmental and social impacts of development, can make them the legitimate third party in monitoring systems that are otherwise comprised of only the government and companies, and can lead to an inclusive decision making on new projects, expansions and sectoral investment.

We see this as an additional tool in the hands of the communities to assert their rights over their lives and resources as well as challenge the impunity with which projects violate environmental laws.

Who Can Apply?

Applications are invited from young researchers, activists and community organisations interested in working on environmental compliance of industrial and infrastructure projects. Selected applicants can attend a 2.5 days workshop on community-based research methods on environmental compliance and classroom sessions on concepts and practice of compliance.

Facilitators

The workshop is being designed and facilitated by researcher and partner organisations associated with the Centre for Policy Research-Namati Environment Justice Program. The resource persons and facilitators have worked with these methods to address impacts arising out of environmental non-compliance in different parts of the country.

They have also systematically documented the case and policy related work which will be shared as part of this workshop.

Registration

Fill the Application form given here.

Contribution

The expected contribution towards workshop costs from participants is 2500/- for 3 days. Participants who need partial or full waivers please do mention so in the application form.