Environmental Management Plans - Environmental Challenges in West Africa

摘要

The level of success achieved in environmental management during construction is highly dependent on how well the requirements and mitigation measures identified in the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) reflect the realities and limitations imposed on the project's physical location, cultural attitudes, and available skill sets of the workforce that are expected to implement the measures and requirements. EMPs must be developed with careful consideration of these and other factors in order to have any hope of making sustained implementation a success. This is especially true when working in remote locations with limited access to manufactured products and a predominately rural workforce, often with minimal to no formal education in western-style environmental protection measures.When planning for the management of environmental issues during construction of large-scale industrial projects in remote locations such as West Africa it becomes critical that local and non-traditional approaches to mitigating impacts and managing environmental issues be investigated and incorporated into the upfront planning and requirements identified in the EMP. Because of their identified and potential reserves of oil, gas, and minerals, both onshore and offshore, countries in West Africa are poised to see rapid industrialization, often in previously undeveloped areas. This means that where once there were only small villages where people lived off of the land; there are now, or soon will be, large industrial facilities with associated infrastructure.This paper will identify key environmental concerns commonly encountered during development of EMPs for large-scale projects in areas such as West Africa. In the absence of national environmental standards and regulations, these requirements are taken primarily from the Environmental Impact Assessment and supporting studies and management plans developed for government and international financing agencies. The primary focus of the initial EMP is to avoid and minimize adverse environmental impacts during construction. However, as the project moves into operation, the intent should be to modify and update the EMP to include requirements for environmental protection during facility operations.