Not Sustainable Development. Definitely NOT.
"1,658,266 cu.ft of marshy soil will be removed from Maakilhi wetland area to build the Convention Center for SAARC Summit according to EIA Report....
and for backfilling the area, 4,145,665 cu.ft of sand had to be mined from Hithadhoo lagoon! A reliable source has confirmed that the sand is being mined from an area planned for future reclamation..."
Now I was asked if this is sustainable development in a facebook thread by Ahmed Nizam (Maavahi NGO Founder member and current Maldives NGO Federation President).
I still vividly remember that night as the darkest night of my entire civil society engagement. The public consultation meeting was ordered by the president's office, but it remotely resembled a discussion forum. It was more like a muzaahiraa against a handful of us who were trying to reason against a politically charged crowd of more than 70 people. Here is my reply to in the thread which summarizes the night and the subsequent difficulties we had. In the end we gave up.
"Ahmed Nizam, we were openly against building SAARC Convention Centre in the wetland area and let that be known in the public consultation process. We were not presented with the EIA report, we were not given the benefit of a technical review, we were not even given a concept plan for the development of the convention center area. There were a handful of us (about 7 people in more than 70 people who were given wrong information abt the area, who were politically charged using the pretext of us being against development in general) and in the end the facilitators resorted to taking a popular vote which we lost by a large margin. We were harassed by a lot of people even after the public consultation meeting, at times subjected to verbal abuse. To answer your question, no I do not believe this is sustainable development."
and for backfilling the area, 4,145,665 cu.ft of sand had to be mined from Hithadhoo lagoon! A reliable source has confirmed that the sand is being mined from an area planned for future reclamation..."
Now I was asked if this is sustainable development in a facebook thread by Ahmed Nizam (Maavahi NGO Founder member and current Maldives NGO Federation President).
I still vividly remember that night as the darkest night of my entire civil society engagement. The public consultation meeting was ordered by the president's office, but it remotely resembled a discussion forum. It was more like a muzaahiraa against a handful of us who were trying to reason against a politically charged crowd of more than 70 people. Here is my reply to in the thread which summarizes the night and the subsequent difficulties we had. In the end we gave up.
"Ahmed Nizam, we were openly against building SAARC Convention Centre in the wetland area and let that be known in the public consultation process. We were not presented with the EIA report, we were not given the benefit of a technical review, we were not even given a concept plan for the development of the convention center area. There were a handful of us (about 7 people in more than 70 people who were given wrong information abt the area, who were politically charged using the pretext of us being against development in general) and in the end the facilitators resorted to taking a popular vote which we lost by a large margin. We were harassed by a lot of people even after the public consultation meeting, at times subjected to verbal abuse. To answer your question, no I do not believe this is sustainable development."
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