THROUGH THE EYES OF AN EAP

NEMA, EA, EIA, WULA, GA, BA, BID, NID, NWA, NHRA, HWC… You get the point. As an EAP (Environmental Assessment Practitioner) you must deal with legislation, applications or assessments in some form or another, almost daily (not forgetting all the acronyms that come with it). You must sometimes read through legislation, follow legislation, facilitate applications based on legislation, guide engineers’ designs based on legislation and ensure legislation is followed before, during and after construction.

However, another large part of an EAPs responsibilities has become increasingly more important – Stakeholder Engagement and Public Participation. If you work in or around the built environment industry, you have surely heard at least one of these terms. While public participation forms part of certain statutory processes, we find ourselves these days more often encountering projects where clients encourage stakeholder engagement and public participation, prior to implementing the project, and even getting input into the final designs. There are many reasons for this, but the main objective is to ensure where infrastructure is being developed for the public, or in or around public spaces, the infrastructure meets the needs and/or accommodates the public and stakeholders involved.

One of the more recent examples of this is the Upgrade of the Vygekraal River in Bridgetown, Cape Town, where Lukhozi Consulting Engineers has been appointed to carry out and facilitate the necessary statutory environmental processes and applications. This project forms part of the Liveable Urban Waterways Programme (LUWP) which, apart from many other important objectives, encourages stakeholder engagement which by and large is facilitated by the EAP, assisted by landscape architects.

For this project, three stakeholder engagement sessions (workshops) were planned with the following objectives:

1. Workshop 1: To engage with the community and stakeholders surrounding the Vygekraal River and to introduce the project and share the objectives of the Liveable Urban Waterway Programme.
2. Workshop 2: This is a Co-Design Workshop to provide the various stakeholders the opportunity to be actively involved in the design of the river corridor. An experienced social facilitator was brought in to ensure that the stakeholders were guided throughout the day.
3. Workshop 3: To provide feedback to the stakeholders of the concept design developed by the professional team with the input received during the Co-Design Workshop.

To date, two of the three workshops above have been successfully carried out, with the third workshop scheduled to take place during the second half of 2024. The information gathered and input received from the various stakeholders during these workshops have proven to be invaluable in the development of the concept design for the Upgrade of the Vygekraal River.

As an EAP, it is always encouraging to see stakeholders getting involved in projects to ensure that they are carried out sustainably and successfully for the benefit of all involved, including the most important stakeholder of them all, the Environment…