The EA system was devised to balance development and
conservation. It is crucial therefore that local government plays a
major role in EA (ODPM, 2003b). Experience regarding EIA over the
last few decades has shown that negligence of implementing EIA has
sacrificed the environment at the local level. One way to get more local
government involvement is to implement EIA, which is already put in
practice, by local ordinances. The current EIA law allows local
government to enact ordinances to implement EIA. However such
enactment is rarely active because the competency of mandate given
to the local government is restricted to small development projects,
with the result that local government cannot implement EA with
their ordinance for large scale projects or administrative plans. As
such local government is less involved in EA, as a leading agency, for
important projects or plans and their active participation is reduced.
Thus, there is a need to improve EA Laws to expand the mandate of
local government (Sung, 2003a).