Tengy Cement appeal Director of Environment’s EIA decision
The Environment Tribunal will deliver its ruling in January in an appeal case filed by Tengy Cement Limited against the Director of Environment’s decision to decline Tengy’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) application. Tengy Cement had applied to the Department of Environment seeking EIA to be conducted at an old village site formally known as Cirikoteri, now called Naivicula Village in the district of Sawakasa in Tailevu.
Tengy Cement made an application for an EIA proposing Wainivilimi limestone extraction.
Upon the inspection by the Department of Environment, ancestral human remains were found in the area when the EIA was conducted. The Director of Environment Sandeep K. Singh declined Tengy Cement’s EIA.
The Department also wrote to the Commissioner of Police that human skeletal remains were found at the site.
In a letter to the Police Commissioner which was tendered in the Tribunal, the Department of Environment highlighted that the village headman confirmed the remains had been of their ancestors who settled in the area originally.
The letter stated that officers from Tailevu Provincial Office and a representative from the Fiji Museum supervised and assisted the villagers with the safe translocation of the archaeological remains to the Naivicula Village burial grounds for proper burial. The EIA inspection and report prepared by Finau Yaubula Environmental Services (Fiji) for Tengy Cement was also tendered in the Tribunal.
The report stated that the remains were found at the site.
Their report also stated that during the course of the inspection, an endangered species of a tree dwelling frog known locally as the Ula was also found within the surveyed property. These endangered frog species could be found only on certain parts of Viti Levu, Vanua Levu, and Ovalau. Following the decision of the Director Environment in declining the EIA, Tengy Cement took the matter to the Tribunal appealing the Director’s decision.
Tribunal Magistrate Ropate Green would deliver the ruling on January 27.