Case studies of EIA in practice - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 299

• large increases in population. For instance, Gueckedou's population rose from 20,000 to
150,000 in 10 years, and in the capital city Conakry there are about 100,000 refugees
in a total population of 800,000-900,000;
• a rapid rise in solid wastes, unmatched by improvements in the sanitation infrastructure
and waste management, leading to a serious decline in the health status of urban areas.
This includes small waste dumps inside towns, polluted streams and inadequate pit
latrines. Epidemics are a serious threat;
• a dramatic increase in the demand for potable water, leading to massive overutilization
of all sources of water and increased pollution; and
• depletion of the natural resources in the areas around the cities. In particular, the
vegetation cover has declined due to its use to build housing and provide firewood and
charcoal.
9.9.3 The “impact pre-assessment”
In 1999, at the request of the Government of Guinea, the UNEP, in close cooperation
with United Nations Centre for Human Health and United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees, carried out a rapid assessment of the environmental impact of refugees in
Guinea. The assessment was carried out by experts in refugee management, EIA, human
settlements and environmental management. The work began with a nine-day desk study
in November 1999, involving two working groups: one on substantive issues and the
other on institutional issues and logistics. Directly afterwards a week-long intensive field
mission took place. This involved visits to relevant government departments and NGOs
(e.g. Ministry of Agriculture, World Bank), to several existing and proposed refugee
camps and settlements and to affected urban areas.
The work resulted in a “pre-assessment” report (UNEP et al. 2000) that first
summarized the environmental impacts of the refugees and then recommended a range of
solutions. Existing initiatives to counter the refugees' impacts—both from international
organizations and from the Guinean Government—were found to be sector-specific and
insufficiently integrated. The report recommended the development of an urban
programme to strengthen the environmental management capacities of the urban centres
in southern Guinea. It also recommended that an action plan for the protection of existing
natural resources should be developed, focusing on ways to integrate agricultural and
development activities with sustainable natural resource management. It recommended
that the UN should take the lead in developing these, and that they should be presented at
a donors conference in late 2000. Finally, the report recommended that a workshop
should be organized in Conakry in late 2000 to strengthen the links between all of the
organizations involved in environmental management in Guinea.
This type of assessment is not the first of its kind. For instance, a BBC (1995)
television programme documented a similar assessment, led by the UN, about the
environmental impacts of the huge Benaco camp in Tanzania set up for Hutu refugees
from Rwanda. That EIA, which took place after the camp had been in existence for
several months, aimed to identify the camp's environmental impacts and recommend
solutions for how to minimize them. For instance, to reduce the impact on nearby forests
caused by the camp's need for firewood, key trees that should not be cut down were
identified and marked; refugees were transported from the camp to nearby forests but