Cultural influences on implementing environmental impact assessment: insights from thailand, indonesia, and malaysia

FEATURES

CULTURAL INFLUENCES ONIMPLEMENTING ENVIRONMENTALIMPACT ASSESSMENT: INSIGHTSFROM THAILAND, INDONESIA,AND MALAYSIA

John BoyleSRD Sustainable Resource Development, Ottawa, Canada

In Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, political and business support for envi-ronmental impact assessment (EIA) is low, and environmental agencies arevirtually powerless compared with economic development agencies. Western-style democratic principles are weakly supported, the public is effectively ex-cluded from project planning and decision-making, mission agencies are rela-tively isolated from public demands for environmental protection, and environ-mental agencies have difficulty enforcing EIA requirements. Environmentaladvocacy is growing but is still new and largely unappreciated by government.

Whereas technical factors contribute to the consequent ineffectiveness of EIA,cultural factors provide complementary explanations. A reliance on paternalis-tic authority, hierarchy, and status as principles of social organization; a depen-dence on patron–client relationships for ensuring loyalty and advancementamong political, bureaucratic, and private-sector actors; and a strong desire toavoid conflict and maintain face all reinforce the power of political and businesselites and circumscribe that of individuals and communities. They also resultin government bureaucracies where low-status environment agencies have littlepower or authority and the interagency cooperation needed for effective EIAis lacking. The article demonstrates that it is vital to consider cultural as wellas technical factors when examining the difficulties of implementing policiesor programs like EIA, which are invented in the West and transferred to anotherculture with very different social and political heritages and practices. 1998Elsevier Science Inc.

Address requests for reprints to: John Boyle, Agrodev Canada, 222 Somerset Street West, Suite 600,Ottawa, ON K2P 2G3, Canada.

ENVIRON IMPACT ASSES REV 1998;18:95–116 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. 0195-9255/98/$19.00655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010 PII S0195-9255(97)00082-6

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Introduction

In many fundamental respects, environment is a cultural issue. To ask howmuch environmental protection or nature conservation is enough is likeasking how much education is enough, or how much health care. The answersto such questions are shaped by the cultural characteristics of the peoplewho grapple with them and, as a consequence, their resolution is largelya sociopolitical process. Analysts have long recognized that cultural andsociopolitical factors are vital to the successful implementation of publicpolicy (e.g., Grindle 1980; Warwick 1982). However, analyses of environ-mental impact assessment (EIA) implementation difficulties in developingcountries have tended to focus on technical factors, such as the adequacyof environmental laws and regulations, institutional strength, scientific andprofessional training, and the availability of data. What has been littlerecognized and investigated is the influence of the overarching culturaland, thus, social and political factors that help or hinder the creation ofindigenous EIA programs. EIA is a planning and decision-making technol-ogy, invented in Western, industrialized democracies, which now is beingtransferred actively to industrializing nations having very different culturaland sociopolitical heritages and practices. Whereas technical factors doinfluence significantly the implementation of EIA in such countries, so toomust these other factors. To ignore them is, in effect, to ignore the peoplewho are the instruments and intended beneficiaries of EIA.

Based on research carried out in 1990–91 in Thailand, Indonesia, andMalaysia (Boyle 1993), this article is intended to begin to redress thisanalytical imbalance and to explore how the consideration of cultural factorscan contribute additional explanatory power to understanding EIA imple-mentation difficulties. Its thrust is to identify some broad cultural character-istics of the three subject countries, and to explore how these characteristicscan help to explain the difficulties these countries have had in implementingEIA technology invented in the West. And it is an exploration. In the languageof EIA, it is a “scoping” exercise intended to suggest the influence of culturalfactors very broadly, and to serve as a basis for a more comprehensive andsuccessful methodological approach to the analysis of EIA implementationoutside the cultural, social, and political context of its origins.

The article first synthesizes some principal cultural characteristics of thethree countries. It then turns to an exploration of how these characteristicscan contribute to understanding the manner in which social and politicalfactors influence the effectiveness of EIA. EIA effectiveness was assessedbased upon the extent to which specific development projects—eight inThailand, five in Indonesia, and four in Malaysia—demonstrated fundamen-tal elements of an effective EIA program listed in Table 1. In Thailand,the projects were the Bhumiphol, Sirikit, Srinagarind, Bang Lang, NamChoan, Pak Mun, and Kaeng Krung dams plus a tantalum refinery in

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TABLE 1. Fundamental Elements of an Effective EIA Program

• Environmental planning and assessment initiated early in the project cycle to proceedin concert with economic and engineering feasibility studies, planning, and design.

• Effective screening and scoping to ensure a focus on environmentally significant projectsand impacts.

• Adequate identification and prediction of likely negative impacts and measures foravoiding, mitigating, and managing them, and of potential environmental benefits.

• Consideration of alternative project locations and/or designs to avoid or mitigate negativeimpacts and capture benefits.

• Project review and approval process emphasizes the need to avoid, mitigate, or compen-sate for negative impacts and to capture environmental benefits.

• The needs and concerns of affected individuals and communities are adequately ad-dressed to ensure they benefit from a project and/or are compensated for their losses.

• Adequate surveillance, monitoring, and management measures are implemented so thatnegative impacts are avoided, mitigated, or managed, and potential benefits are realized,in the long-term.

Phuket. Indonesian projects were the Saguling, Cirata, and Kedung Ombodams, the Astra-Scott forestry project in Irian Jaya, and the Indorayonpulp/rayon mill and plantation in Sumatra. The Malaysian cases were theAsian Rare Earth radioactive waste depository and the Penang Hill devel-opment proposal.1

Worldwide, the role and influence of environmental concerns in shapingdevelopment policies and practices is a dynamic and quickly evolving field.As a consequence, readers familiar with more recent events in SoutheastAsia will undoubtedly find some of the EIA program and project case studymaterial already dated.2 To accommodate these limitations, the inferencesdrawn from the program designs and operations, and form the project casestudies, are restricted to those indicated by events prior to 1992.

Cultural Characteristics

Any attempt to discuss cultural characteristics of these three countries mustfirst address that each has a number of ethnic groups with diverse traits. Thisproblem can be dismissed in Thailand where Thais predominate. Indonesia,however, has some 300 ethnic groups that consider themselves distinct,Malaysia has significant numbers of Chinese and Indians in addition to theindigenous Malays, and Chinese tend to dominate business in both coun-tries. Still, political and governmental life is dominated by the Javanese inIndonesia (Liddle 1989; MacAndrews 1986) and by the Malays in Malaysia(Means 1991; Muzaffar 1979). Because our focus is on the implementationof EIA—a modern public-sector planning and decision-making technol-

1 See Boyle (1993) for details.2 For example, Thailand’s environmental protection system was reorganized in 1992 with the passage

of a new Environmental Quality Act (Phimolsathien 1994), and Indonesia’s EIA process was revampedin 1993 (Coutrier 1994).

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ogy—we are concerned with the national political and bureaucratic behav-ior and norms and can thus focus on the nature of Thai, Javanese, and Malayculture. The discussion of relevant cultural characteristics that follows wasdrawn from the writings of Southeast Asians and expatriates with longexperience in the region, augmented with observations of some 50 peopleinterviewed by the author in 1990–91.

A number of predominant cultural characteristics are common to thethree countries. As described below, these characteristics are “ideal types,”which can be observed generally but may not explain individual behaviorin particular situations. They do, however, represent a cultural heritagethat continues to shape the ways in which people interact with each other.In our case, these are the people who design and implement EIA programsand those who gain or lose as a result of projects where EIA is applied.The characteristics are divided into three major categories of related, notnecessarily independent, traits. The usefulness of the categorization liesprimarily in providing different viewpoints for gaining an understandingof how cultural attributes influence the behavior of individuals and thenature of their social and political relationships. In each case, a broaddiscussion of the category of related characteristics is supplemented withspecific references to information from each country.

Status, Hierarchy, and Power

The first set of cultural characteristics relates to a strong desire for paternal-istic authority and a compulsion for dependency and loyalty to a group.These characteristics are reflected in the strongly hierarchical nature ofsociety and, as a consequence, of social, political, and bureaucratic institu-tions. Pye (1985, p. 325) credits the continuing strength and authority offamily and lineage in Asia as a principal foundation of these attitudes sothat “Asians continue to accept the obligations of deference toward paternalauthority and sacrificing individual interests for the collectivity.” Thus,power and authority flow downward through a hierarchy of relationships,whereas deference to authority flows upward. People are keenly aware oftheir relative place in the hierarchy and of their status vis-a-vis others, anddeference is commonly expected by and granted to people of higher status.In return for the assurance of deference from subordinates, leaders aresupposed to perform the roles expected of the powerful. Status is a pervasiveorganizing principle in all social relationships and is based on such criteriaas family background, age, education level, professional rank, and the num-ber of one’s subordinates or dependents. Maintaining and enhancing one’sstatus is a principal motivational factor, because a person’s power andinfluence rises or falls in concert with it.

The patterns of contemporary social and political relations in Thailandwere, in many respects, established over the seven centuries of absolute


monarchy before the 1932 transition to a constitutional monarchy (Vichit-Vadakan 1989; Nakata and Dhiravegin 1989; Wedel and Wedel 1987). Thehierarchical sakdina system assigned stratified ranks to all males accordingto an individual’s relationship by blood or service to the king, and deter-mined each individual’s rights, wealth, political power, and responsibilitiesto the state and the rest of society. Status and deference remain strong andpervasive organizing principles in contemporary Thai social relationships(Vichit-Vadakan 1989; Girling 1981), and Thais are prone to exercise abso-lute power if they can; to defer, obey, and submit to those in power; andto seek to belong to groups forming around a leader or patron with greaterpower or wealth (Nakata and Dhiravegin 1989). As a consequence in gov-ernment, lower-ranking officials have difficulty standing up to higher-rank-ing officials, even those from another ministry, and special requests fromhigher-ups for “consideration” or “cooperation” are difficult to refuse eventhough they evidently hide ulterior motives (Vichit-Vadakan 1989).

In Indonesia, “the Javanese . . . political elite must be the most statusconscious and hierarchically minded in the world” (Liddle 1989). The notionprevails that society should be hierarchical and that all men and womenare inherently unequal at birth, in the marketplace, before the law, andespecially in the halls of government. Here, each official is either the supe-rior or the inferior of another, and the apparent orderly structure of powerand authority is based on tiers of personally related groups organizedhierarchically according to their leaders’ keen sense of their relative status(Jackson 1978; Pye 1985). Status is the principal social objective amongJavanese, and the exchange of gifts and wealth for loyalty and obligationis the process by which affluence is transformed into status, respect, andpower (Jackson 1987). Power and status are closely related. The traditionaland continuing concept of power in Javanese culture is that it should beconcentrated and husbanded rather than diffused and exercised, and thata leader’s power is dissipated through delegation or through mobilizationof the people (MacAndrews 1986; Anderson 1972; Jackson 1978). Today,this conception of power is reflected in Indonesia’s highly centralized, pater-nalistic and authoritarian central government dominated by the Javanese.

In Malaysia, Pye (1985) observed that Malays have an instinctive under-standing for the finest gradations of status and hierarchy and are neverconfused as to who outranks or owes deference to whom. Muzaffar (1979)traced these instincts to traditional Malay society, which was strongly hierar-chical with ruling and subject classes, an acute consciousness of rank andstatus, and an unquestioning loyalty of subjects to rulers; subjects wereobliged to serve rulers without questioning the rationality of or motivesbehind their wishes. In return, rulers provided protection. Today, Malay-sians continue to rely on structures of status and hierarchy to establish andreinforce power relationships and to deliver the benefits of an industrializingsociety. In the political arena, there is a general belief that order and

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social harmony ultimately depend on unconditional deference to a politicalhierarchy having a powerful and benevolent leader at its apex, and on abelief that a prime minister armed with extraordinary powers is necessaryto the solution of nearly all political and social problems (Means 1991;Esman 1972). Consequently, Malays display highly deferential behavior tosustain a society structured on status and hierarchy, and accede to harshdiscipline and arbitrary command from their rulers (Means 1991).

Personalism, Patrons, and Clients

The second set of traits refers to the tendency to cultivate and rely onfeelings of obligation and indebtedness in personal relationships, partly asa reflection of the urge for paternalistic authority, dependency, and loyaltyto a collectivity (Pye 1985) and partly because, in such structured societies,personal relationships are relied on for getting things done. These relation-ships often take a patron–client form where the patron provides protection,security of position and income, social connections, or economic or otheropportunities in exchange for deference, loyalty, support, gifts, or laborfrom a client or dependent. In government, the relations between superiorsand subordinates often take this form. In business, the necessity and rewardsfor having the right patron–client connections have risen dramatically sinceWorld War II with the thrust for industrialization and the withdrawal ofthe colonial powers. Governments of all three countries control and activelyparticipate in the economy, and it has become almost impossible to becomewealthy without personal political connections (Pye 1985). Patron–clientrelationships hold together and give structure to formally designated bu-reaus or offices, link together different principal figures along lines thatmay or may not follow the formal hierarchy of an organization, and createallegiances that can strongly influence decision-making and the distributionof power and its benefits. In addition to these relationships establishedand nurtured for specific, functional reasons, family, religious, ethnic, andeducational connections play a more diffuse but important role in establish-ing bonds of trust and goodwill, which facilitate communication, coopera-tion, and gaining personal opportunities and advantages.

In Thailand, the modern form of the patron–client relationship is morelimited and focused on specific services than the comprehensive sakdinasystem it was several centuries ago. Clients may seek various patrons whosespheres of influence differ, and the patron–client exchange tends to beeconomic, although political loyalty and support can also be mobilized intimes of need (Vichit-Vadakan 1989). These relationships are establishedon a very personal basis, because familiarity is considered to bring goodwill and trustworthiness; people outside one’s “circle” tend not to be trusted,and those inside are protected (Nakata and Dhiravegin 1989). More gener-ally, “personalism” is one principle by which favors are granted, require-


ments are waived, and tedious procedures are bypassed (Vichit-Vadakan1989). The reliance on personal relationships is also evident in the politicalarena where groups coalesce around the initiative of certain personalitiesrather than guiding systems, ideologies, or principles (Nakata and Dhira-vegin 1989).

In Indonesia, bapakism (literally “fatherism”) describes the complexsystem of relatively autonomous groupings bound together by highly per-sonal and reciprocal patron–client relationships, which dominate Javanesesocial life (Jackson 1978). The bapak is the leader of a circle of dependentsand is expected to care for their material, spiritual, and emotional needs.In turn, dependents are expected to reciprocate by being loyal, payingdeference, and carrying out tasks. In the public sector, Jackson (1978)observes that it is legitimate for a bapak to use state resources to improvethe living standards of subordinates, and it is unjust and corrupt to appro-priate them for excessive personal benefit; injustice and corruption are feltonly if the bapak fails to redistribute his wealth or abandons his responsibili-ties. These personal relationships, based most importantly on family andethnic loyalties, shared school or university experiences, and religious affil-iations, create linkages at all levels of Indonesian society. In government,they ease communication and cooperation between even apparently stronglydivided sectoral departments, and strongly influence decision-making(MacAndrews 1986).

Analyses of patron–client relationships in contemporary Malaysia havefocused primarily on their role in the functioning of government and itsinteractions with the private sector. Politically, tensions between the Malayand Chinese communities and the substantial concentration of power inthe prime minister’s hands have been accompanied by a greater opportunityand, indeed, need to reward supporters with patronage and privilege aswell as to deny resources to critics and opponents (Means 1991). In recentdecades, greatly expanded government agencies and public bodies haveprovided the vehicle for extending patron–client networks beyond immedi-ate loyalties and friendships to key political actors in each communal group.At middle and lower levels, patron–client linkages often extend beyondethnic boundaries and involve multiethnic cooperation to protect and ad-vance shared interests (Means 1991).

Self-Control, Avoidance of Conflict, Face

The final set of cultural characteristics concerns the compulsion to containinner feelings, to avoid any overt criticism, conflict, disagreement and con-troversy, and to conduct all interpersonal relations in a smooth, unthreaten-ing manner. Self-control is considered a preeminent virtue. Personal emo-tions should be hidden with social graces, flawless etiquette, and perfectmanners. Thus, the Southeast Asian style of dealing with unpleasant or

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even dangerous situations is avoidance and silence, repressing emotions inthe hope that the problem will go away if matters are smoothed over(Pye 1985). Related to maintaining self-respect and status, and to avoidingconflict and embarrassment, is the importance of saving or gaining face.When face is threatened, the substantive matter at the heart of a disagree-ment can quickly lose importance as attention turns to avoiding embar-rassment for all involved.

Nakata and Dhiravegin (1989) characterize Thais as generally keen toavoid conflict, not prone to violence, patient and tolerant toward injustices,and modest, considerate and averse to criticizing others in their presence.They strive to achieve interpersonal harmony, relying on the social gracesto achieve smooth face-to-face interactions and disguising or suppressingtrue feelings, aggression, and disagreement with others (Vichit-Vadakan1989). To a large extent, these characteristics find their roots in Buddhistprinciples, which pervade Thai life, especially sai klaang (“middle path”),which prompts Thais to compromise rather than hurt another’s feelingsthrough criticism, disagreement, or a decisive act (Nakata and Dhiravegin1989). Exercising sai klaang requires achieving and maintaining balancebetween two central yet opposing social values—krengcai, being considerateor reluctant to impose on others, and ching chai, being sincere in one’srelationships and straightforward in one’s dealings with others (French1988). Balancing these two values requires self-control and maintaining thepresence of mind, even under stress, to think first and consider all potentialconsequences before acting. Related to both status and avoiding conflictis the concept of face (naa). Concerns for gaining, losing, and saving faceare all related to maintaining self-respect and striving for prestige andhonour. French (1988) maintains that face appears to be closer to a basicneed in Thailand than in Western cultures.

In Indonesia, Jackson (1978) places a desire to isolate internal feelings,and a desire for the most refined, smooth, and civilized (halus) manners,among the basic forces motivating social and political behavior. Self-controlis a preeminent Javanese value in interpersonal relations, the goal beingto control one’s emotions at a constant, reserved pitch, to never let thembecome direct and apparent in outward activities, and to mask personalmotives with ritualized etiquette and perfect manners (Jackson 1978). Asa corollary, overt conflict indicates a breakdown of halus and is to beavoided assiduously. Indirectness, subtlety, and the repression of openemotion are valued while any obvious expression of disagreement, espe-cially with the ideas or plans of a superior, is frowned upon. Thus, frankopposition is socially incorrect, active and open criticism is unusual, andcommunication often takes the form of tacit understandings in which muchis left unsaid (Pye 1985; MacAndrews 1986). Acting in concert with thedesire to achieve halus and the dislike of confrontation are the concern foravoiding embarrassment and saving face. Thus, Indonesians usually do not


request something directly in order to avoid a direct “no,” embarrassmentfor both parties and loss of face. Conversely, there is a tendency to agreewhen one really does not and to say “yes” when there is no intention offulfilling a request. This apparent lack of sincerity is less important to theJavanese than concealing signs of disagreement for as long as possible(Jackson 1978). Closely related to these characteristics is that the Javaneseare a consensus-seeking culture with a strong tradition in decision-makingof mufaket (unanimous consent of all involved) through musyawarak (in-tensive deliberation). Thus, extended discussion precedes any decision, andany premature taking of positions, criticism, and confrontation is avoided.Consensus itself is considered to be an important goal, even though it may bebased on faulty or incomplete information or lead to no or ineffective action.

Like the Indonesians and Thais, the Malays aspire to avoid harshness andto seek gentleness and refinement in human relations (Pye 1985). Moreover,difficulties in the relations between the Malays and Chinese have madeavoiding controversies that might arouse passions into a cardinal rule ofgovernance to the point that troublesome or delicate ethnic issues are offi-cially taboo as subjects for public discussion.

Cultural Influences on Implementing EIA

To appreciate how these cultural characteristics, and the social and politicalbehaviors they influence, can shape EIA implementation, it is importantto recognize that the creation of environmental policies and programs indeveloping countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia has beenmotivated by quite different factors and, thus, has proceeded quite differ-ently than in Western countries where EIA originated. In the West, environ-mental policies and programs resulted from demands by the general popu-lace—they were “bottom up” initiatives. Environmental degradation becamean issue and then a priority on the political and institutional agenda onlyafter and as a consequence of becoming prominent on the social agenda.

In contrast, environmental policies and programs created in developingcountries since the mid-1970s have largely been “top down” initiatives bygovernments themselves, not because of a “perceived necessity but as afashionable response to Western developments” (Roque 1986, p. 154).Among the most significant of these influences have been international“peer pressures” to respond to environmental problems, particularly asarticulated at the 1972 Stockholm and 1992 Rio international environmentconferences, and efforts by bi- and multilateral development agencies topromote environmental protection through their loan and aid programs.

Thus, developing country leaders committed genuinely to addressingenvironmental problems face a much more difficult challenge than theirdeveloped country counterparts. Not only must they contend with powerfuldevelopment interests, as in developed countries, but they must do so with

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TABLE 2. Democratic Principles Reflected in Western EIA

• Politicians and governments are accountable to the public.• Political and business elites do not have an unfettered right to do as they please.• Government bureaucratic and decision-making processes must be open and responsive

to public concerns.• Resources considered a nation’s common heritage—air, water, health, forests, wildlife,

landscape beauty—cannot be unilaterally appropriated for private purposes.• Individuals and communities affected by projects have an inherent right to information,

to question the need for and design of projects, and to participate in the planning anddecision-making process.

much more limited political resources. They cannot rely on an educated,informed, and mobilized public both to demand and support governmentaction to the extent that is possible in developed countries. Though thereis great variation in the prominence of environmental issues on the socialagenda in developing countries, they tend to be present at lower levelsthan in developed countries. They also tend to be based much more onprotecting livelihoods dependent on natural resources rather than on ideasof protecting wild lands, endangered species, and biodiversity, which moti-vate Western environmentalists. Not only is the social agenda for environ-mental protection much weaker than in the West, but there are also manyfewer opportunities for that agenda to be articulated and reflected inchanges to the political agenda. The democratic principles inherent in West-ern EIA (Table 2) are not strongly shared by many developing countrygovernments. Thus, the social agenda for environmental protection is bothrelatively weak and not accorded much legitimacy by political leaders.Poverty, illiteracy, lack of information, insufficient public interest aggregat-ing structures, powerful political and economic elite interests, and repres-sive, authoritarian political regimes are factors commonly used to explainthis situation (e.g., Moreira 1988; Roque 1986; Grindle 1980).

Within this broader context, the influence of cultural factors on EIAimplementation in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia is explored belowfrom several viewpoints. In each case, the discussion is preceded by a broadassessment of EIA effectiveness that draws on examples from the projectexperiences and analysis of government institutions.

Political and Business Support for EIA

As an institutionalized process for achieving environmental objectives inthe planning and approval of major projects, EIA faced substantial resis-tance and limited support from public- and private-sector leaders and deci-sion-makers in all three countries. More specifically, all three nationalgovernments, intent on rapid industrialization and needing to translateeconomic policy into action, accorded mission agencies and business inter-


ests quite substantial power and autonomy. As a consequence, anythingthat was perceived to circumscribe economic development, like EIA, wasstarved of the political support needed to be effective. This is indicative ofthe general observation above that many developing countries adoptedEIA in response primarily to external “peer pressures” rather than togenuine domestic concerns for the environmental consequences of develop-ment activities.

The difference in environmental performance between domestically andinternationally funded projects best illustrates the weak domestic supportfor EIA. Proponents of purely domestic projects were able to pay scantattention to EIA and environmental protection requirements. This wasparticularly so in Malaysia, a country wealthy enough not to have to dependon external finance for its major projects. For example, an EIA of a radioac-tive waste disposal site proposed by Asian Rare Earth, a private firm, wasrejected in 1987 by a review panel constituted under Malaysia’s EIA pro-cess. Despite 3 years of sustained public protests over the site and the paneldecision, the government accepted the EIA and approved the project,though with an improved design. Proposed development of Penang Hill, along-cherished natural amenity, by a private firm with strong state andfederal political connections, provides another example. From a publicrecreation area under state control, Penang Hill would have been privatizedand extensively commercialized with housing, hotels, a golf course, a shop-ping/entertainment complex, and other features. In 1990, “leaked” copiesof a preliminary EIA received scathing criticism from the public and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The Department of the Environmentrejected the EIA and determined that the project would be reconsideredonly if the initial plans were modified to avoid environmental impacts andif a new EIA were submitted. However, the revised proposal required evenmore land and disruption of public amenities; the new EIA was severelycriticized for omissions and misleading analyses. By 1992, the issue wasunresolved, but the scope of the proposed development, its requirementfor the alienation of public land and facilities, and its proposed location inthe backyard of two of Malaysia’s strongest environmental NGOs graphi-cally illustrated the audacity and influence of developers in Malaysia.

In Thailand, the Thai proponent of a tantalum refinery on the outskirtsof Phuket, an internationally popular tourist area, avoided doing any EIAstudies until the plant was almost finished in 1986, then with disastrousresults when a mob burned it to the ground. A few years earlier, the Officeof the National Environment Board, which administered Thailand’s EIAprocess, had prepared an initial environmental examination of the projectand had recommended an EIA be done that included consideration ofalternate sites away from settled areas. Their advice was ignored. In Indone-sia, the domestic proponent of the Indorayon pulp/rayon mill on the AsahanRiver in North Sumatra carried out EIA studies as required by Ministry

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of Industry regulations, but they were perfunctory and incomplete. TheMinistry of State for Population and Environment found the studies to beunsuitable. Because the project involved significant forest resources andpotential for substantial pollution and land degradation in the “rice bowl”of North Sumatra, it was not supported initially by the environment andpublic works ministers, other officials, and the Asian Development Bank.Because the proponent had considerable political clout, he overcame sub-stantial, high-level political opposition and built a plant that generatedsignificant water pollution and forest degradation.

On the other hand, when foreign funds were required to implementprojects, and especially when international attention was drawn to theirenvironmental consequences, attention to environmental performance afterEIA studies was greater. Thus, in Thailand, post-evaluations of environ-mental performance on four large dam projects funded by the World Bank(Bhumiphol, Sirikit, Srinagarind, and Bang Lang completed in 1963, 1972,1980, and 1981, respectively) showed that resettlement programs had beenimproving, though progress was measured by the reducing degree to whichresettled people were less well off than they were before (Boyle 1991). OnWorld Bank loans, such resettlement programs typically are funded andmanaged domestically as part of the borrowers’ contribution to projects.At the same time, watershed management and the delivery of benefitsto local people in the reservoir areas (e.g. enhanced fishing and tourismemployment)—all domestic responsibilities not part of the loan packages—had not improved at all. The Nam Choan Dam, which would have floodedthousands of hectares of rare low-elevation forest and divided adjoiningwildlife sanctuaries into less sustainable units, was cancelled after extensivelocal protests and prominent national and international criticism from 1982to 1988. Initial designs for the Pak Mun Dam, completed in 1982, requiredthe relocation of 18,700 people. Subsequently, the project was revised sub-stantially to lower the dam height and convert it from a storage to a run-of-the-river scheme to facilitate preservation of more important recreationamenities of the river and to reduce the flooded area. Despite continuedanti-dam protests, particularly over the resettlement plans, the World Bankloan was approved by the Cabinet in 1990, and construction proceeded. InIndonesia, the Saguling, Cirata, and Kedung Ombo Dams were all fundedby the World Bank. On only the first two was sustained environmentalexpertise part of the loan package. Though there were problems, therewas also little local resistance, and both resettlement and the provision ofalternative employment in the form of floating-net fisheries for displacedpeople proceeded relatively well. The Kedung Ombo experience, however,was quite different. Local confrontations, domestic, and international criti-cism had grown since mid-1987, and by mid-1988 half of the 5,000 affectedfamilies had yet to be moved. The dam was closed in 1989 but by Junehundreds of families remained unrelocated on six islands in the rising


reservoir, and a few people had drowned. By March/April, the project hadreceived such international attention that the government was forced torespond more sympathetically to the villagers’ complaints, prompted by amuch-embarrassed World Bank. The Bank modified the project loan tofinance local resettlement, further transmigration, fisheries development inthe reservoir, and other activities.

These cases indicate that substantial political and business pressure foreconomic development existed at the highest levels in these SoutheastAsian countries, and the EIA requirements posed little constraint to domes-tic private-sector developers and not much more to public-sector propo-nents. Whereas the pressure for economic growth and the profits it generatesgoes a long way to explain the low support for EIA and environmentalmanagement in general, additional light can be shed on the situation whencultural factors are considered. First among these is the generally central-ized, paternalistic, authoritarian nature of government, which tends to iso-late mission agencies from effective criticism of their policies and activitiesby both less powerful agencies and the general public. This political andbureaucratic culture is a reflection of the generally hierarchical nature ofSoutheast Asian societies, their “top down” conception and exercise of powerand authority, and the deference expected by and paid to persons of higherstatus. In addition, the pervasive patron–client relationships among politicaland business leaders strengthens the power behind the economic develop-ment focus and makes it even more difficult for supporters of EIA inparticular and environmental conservation in general, both within and out-side government, to challenge the agenda of high status politicians andbusiness leaders. This lack of support for EIA was offset primarily byexternal demands for environmental protection, primarily through the lev-erage available to funding agencies like the World Bank and to internationalNGO networks which, catalyzed by local protests, could publicize particu-larly perverse proposals. Local communities and public interest groups hadsome effect in tempering the power of development interests, especiallywhen their country depended on external development funds and theirefforts were supported by activists at the national level and outside theirborders. However, the influence of communities and public advocacy groupswas exercised outside of the national EIA programs, which provided littleor no opportunity for public involvement.

Strength of Environmental Agencies

Environmental agencies charged with implementing EIA programs wererelatively powerless, compared with mission agencies, and had limited abil-ity to influence development planning and decision-making. None of thethree countries had a separate environment ministry. Environmental agen-cies had limited authority to require EIA studies and virtually no ability

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to enforce EIA results. Thus, in addition to (and perhaps because of) thepaucity of political and business support for EIA discussed above, suchagencies had little substantive authority to implement EIA effectively.

The agencies responsible for implementing EIA in Thailand and Malaysiawere located within larger ministries with other mandates besides environ-mental protection. Thailand’s Division of Environmental Impact Evalua-tion was within the office of the National Environment Board (NEB), itselfpart of the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Energy. The NEB hadoverall responsibility for activities concerning the conservation and promo-tion of environmental quality but its principal mandate was policy formula-tion and planning. It was not empowered to issue regulations or enforcestandards but was responsible for administering EIA nationally. Conditionsattached to EIA approvals by the NEB were supposed to be included inpermits and licenses issued to proponents but the NEB could not requirethat this be done. Similarly, Malaysia’s EIA Unit was within the Departmentof Environment, itself part of the Ministry of Science, Technology, andEnvironment. In Malaysia, the states control natural resources and theauthority of the EIA Unit was limited to areas under federal jurisdiction.This excluded almost all but industrial developments from its purview; itseffectiveness in other areas was mainly limited to what could be accom-plished through persuasion and goodwill (Ho 1990). Thus, the EIA Unithad overall responsibility to administer and enforce EIA provisions butrelied on federal or state agencies supervising and approving projects toensure that prescribed activities within their jurisdictions underwent EIAprior to their approval and implementation. In Indonesia, EIA functionswere decentralized with policy and coordinating responsibilities located inthe new Environmental Impact Management Agency (BAPEDAL), whichreported to the President. Operational EIA functions were the responsibil-ity of EIA (AMDAL) commissions located within each sectoral ministryand each province. While this structure had the potential for better integra-tion of EIA into the project cycle, it gave accountability for environmentalmanagement to agencies that focused primarily on economic development.BAPEDAL had no authority to ensure that this accountability was exer-cised in environmentally sustainable ways.

One should not take a Machiavellian view that EIA programs had beendeliberately isolated and emasculated, though it may be so. However, asthe project experiences discussed earlier and the institutional arrangementsillustrate, environmental agencies clearly had been denied the statutoryinstruments required for effective EIA, and mission agencies were isolatedfrom oversight by such agencies and public pressures that have helpedkeep them honest in Western countries. The cultural factors that help tounderstand the low level of political and business support for EIA, discussedearlier, also assist in appreciating the relative weakness of EIA agenciesin implementing EIA effectively. In particular, their low status within their


own ministries and with respect to mission agencies substantially con-strained their authority, power, and influence to implement EIA effectively.

Bureaucratic Cooperation and Coordination

Environmental management is, by necessity, an interdisciplinary and thusinteragency undertaking. For EIA to be effective, environmental and sec-toral government agencies need to coordinate their efforts, share informa-tion, and cooperate to integrate EIA into the project cycle, to scope andevaluate the environmental planning and assessment effort, and to imple-ment recommendations. This collaboration seemed to be almost completelylacking in the three countries, as evidenced by the design of their EIAprograms and by specific project experiences.

In terms of program design, the NEB in Thailand was solely responsiblefor advising proponents, establishing EIA terms of reference and reviewingEIA reports; there were no procedures for EIAs to be referred to otheragencies for comment. It was only for large dam projects falling under a 1978Cabinet “Package Project” policy that an interdepartmental committeecoordinated project planning, including its environmental aspects. The NEBwas one of 22 members on the committee. The Malaysian situation wassimilar, with the Department of Environment and its Review Panels beingsolely responsible for all EIA reviews. And in Indonesia, the sectoral AM-DAL commissions operated independently of each other and could approveEIA reports without consultation with other departments or levels of gov-ernment responsible for location, nuisance control, and activity permits.Thus, EIA programs provided little or no formal opportunity for govern-ment officials to collaborate to avoid or minimize environmental impactsduring project design and to develop any consensus around project ap-proval conditions.

Several of the project histories also illustrate the insufficiency of inter-agency cooperation for effective response to EIA results. In Thailand,the government had been unable to institute integrated management ofwatersheds behind large dams such as Srinagarind and Bang Lang despiterepeated highlighting of the need in EIA studies and post-evaluations(Boyle 1991). As a consequence, deforestation and wildlife poaching weremajor problems in these newly accessible watersheds, and the projects hadlargely failed to deliver any benefits to local people such as enhancedreservoir fisheries and tourism employment. In Indonesia, the ineffec-tiveness of coordination mechanisms among government agencies was amajor reason why many of the impact management measures attemptedon the Saguling project, such as transmigration, resettlement, and job train-ing, did not work as well as desired (Brotoisworo 1990). Coordinationproved very difficult primarily because agencies had their own programsand projects located elsewhere, substantial involvement in Saguling would

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have required major changes in their programs and budgets and affectedtheir performance under the 5-year development plan, and Saguling wasnot on their priority list.

Even in Western governments where interagency coordination is consid-ered desirable, it can be very difficult to achieve. In the countries studied,however, the cultural factors discussed above indicate society-specific rea-sons for coordination difficulties. These factors include strongly hierarchicalsocieties, where deference is expected by and paid to those of higher status,and where power and authority flow downward through the hierarchy. Aswell, patron–client relationships and the strong desire to avoid conflict andmaintain face tend to reinforce the loyalty and subordination of governmentofficials to their superiors. As a result, lateral communication betweenagencies was largely restricted to senior officials. The working-level commu-nication, coordination, and cooperation among ministries, and even amongdepartments within the same ministry, required for effective environmentalmanagement and implementation of EIA was unusual.

Public Activism and Consultation

In none of the three countries did EIA processes provide for meaningfulpublic participation in project planning and decision-making. Formal publicconsultation on proposed projects, if done at all, was generally confined toinformation-gathering surveys. In the West, where activists have a traditionof vigorously challenging development proposals, government-sponsoredpublic consultation can result in confrontation and, at times, acrimoniousdebate. Given a cultural disposition to expect people to defer to authority,to avoid confrontation and conflict, and to avoid causing persons of higherstatus to lose face, it is perhaps not surprising that these Southeast Asiangovernments have been reluctant to undertake the kinds of public participa-tion common in the West. At the same time, one would think that thesesame cultural characteristics would tend to restrain strong public protestsagainst major project proposals.

Not so. Public opposition to development projects was often vehement,occurred despite government efforts to suppress it, especially in Indonesiaand Malaysia, and produced results. In Thailand, the Phuket tantalumrefinery was destroyed and rebuilt elsewhere, and anti-dam demonstrationssucceeded in causing the redesign of the Pak Mun and cancellation of theNam Choan Dams. Protests over compensation for flooded land behindthe Kedung Ombo Dam in Indonesia succeeded in prompting more humaneresettlement action. In Malaysia, unprecedented and protracted protestsover the Asian Rare Earth waste repository resulted in a better designedfacility. Thus, the willingness of concerned citizens and public interest groupsto confront government and private developers seemed to exist, despitecultural characteristics that might have mitigated against it.


In trying to understand this unexpected result, three factors must be recog-nized. First, none of the three EIA programs provided for meaningful publicconsultation—there was no “relief valve” for the concerns of individuals,communities, and interest groups. There were no legitimate forums in whichinformation could be shared and verified, in which conflicting views, values,and proposals could be aired, and in which accommodations could be sought.Although there was no shortage of public opinion, opportunities to effectivelyexpress it varied. In all three countries, concerned citizens could readily formNGOs, though Thai groups were easily the least circumscribed in their abilityto organize, express their views, and have them taken up by the media.Malaysian and Indonesian groups had to contend with substantial govern-ment control over their ability to challenge development projects, particu-larly as the media in both countries was largely owned by government orpolitical parties and was rather more circumspect in criticizing governmentpolicies and initiatives than were their Thai counterparts. To the extentthat public concerns influenced project outcomes, it happened outside ofprescribed EIA processes.

Second, despite there usually being broader issues involved, the principalinstigators of public opposition to projects were poorer, less powerful ele-ments of society with legitimate fears for their livelihoods, health, andsafety. In these societies, the lives of such people are precarious and re-sources of all kinds are few. It is not surprising that changes that put thatsurvival at risk, changes over which the affected people had no controland for which there would likely be inadequate compensation, provokedresistance that was substantial enough to overcome any cultural reluctanceto question elite authority, risk confrontation, or cause decision-makers tolose face. Certainly, their protests carried little weight until they weresupported by domestic elites and NGOs, and by international organizations,but it was their initial challenge which provided the foundation for effectiveopposition to projects. This was clearly the case with the Nam Choan Damin Thailand and the Kedung Ombo Dam in Indonesia.

Third, overt conflict over projects was public and en masse. It seemslikely that culturally influenced behavior norms would prevail more stronglyin private interactions where public loss of face for decision-makers couldbe avoided. Several cases indicated this possibility. In Thailand, a jointNGO/government working group established after a public campaign hadthe site of a soda ash plant moved, the flood elevation of the Pak MunDam was reduced, and the Nam Choan Dam was officially shelved due toa “lack of sufficient reliable data.” In Malaysia, the Asian Rare Earthfacility was moved and improved. And in Indonesia, Irian Jayan NGOs,at the request of the national environment ministry and the proponent,decided not to oppose the massive Astra-Scott forestry project altogether,but to attempt to play an integral role in the planning and decision-makingprocess. They would focus on three major issues—marginalization of local

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people as their land was taken over, local employment in the plantationand mill, and the project’s impact on flora and fauna. Unfortunately, thisseemingly genuine and promising initiative was nipped in the bud by “sup-portive” U.S. NGOs who threatened U.S.-based Scott Paper with a con-sumer boycott. In October 1989, before EIA and social impact assessmentstudies had been completed and just as NGO studies were beginning, Scottannounced that it was pulling out of the project.

Arguably, cultural factors had led these Southeast Asian governmentsto exclude public participation in EIA as practiced in the West. Leadersexpect to make decisions on behalf of their people without being ques-tioned, and they expect people to defer to their authority, to avoid confron-tation and conflict, and to avoid causing them to lose face. In such a context,public consultation may well seem irrelevant. Clearly, however, these expec-tations are misplaced. People confronted with massive and potentially dev-astating changes to their livelihoods and communities have and will continueto protest, probably with increasing effectiveness. The indications are that,given the inherently respectful and “consensus-seeking” nature of SoutheastAsian people, the prospects for workable consultation mechanisms seemedto be better than governments had so far acknowledged.

Access to Information

Access to information about projects and their environmental consequenceswas very limited in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. EIA reports werenot released officially to the public in either Thailand or Malaysia andhad very limited distribution in Indonesia. They usually were acquiredsurreptitiously. The news media in both Indonesia and Malaysia was con-trolled closely by the government and its ability to investigate and report oncurrent environmental issues was either severely curtailed or nonexistent.Within governments, interagency sharing of information was severely ham-pered by the design of their EIA administrative structures and by thehierarchical nature of their bureaucracies.

These widespread constraints on information exchange had serious impli-cations for the effectiveness of a multi-actor undertaking like EIA. Affectedpeople and communities were denied ready access to the kinds of interdisci-plinary information available in EIA studies, and to means for constructiveinput to project planning. This made it difficult for project planners tobenefit from the wealth of knowledge about environmental conditions andimpact mitigation opportunities typically held by local people. Both thepeople and planners had to contend with situations where rumors, inaccu-rate information, suspicion, distrust and, often, public protest and confron-tation strongly colored the whole project preparation process. And withinbureaucracies, a dearth of information sharing, cooperation, and coordina-tion constrained interagency awareness of the environmental implicationsof projects and cooperative initiatives to manage them.


Given the paternalistic, authoritarian nature of governments in thesethree countries and the cultural influences that have shaped them, it is notsurprising to find severe restrictions on the availability of information. Tothe extent that adversely affected individuals and groups can be kept igno-rant, government agencies, private investors and their political patrons canprotect their freedom of action. This is especially true where governmentshave the power, and the willingness to use it, to break up or suppress anyovert opposition to their activities. The intimidation of villagers in theKedung Ombo reservoir area of Indonesia, and of demonstrators againstthe Asian Rare Earth waste repository in Malaysia, illustrate the point.

Apart from the sheer utility of withholding and releasing informationfor the benefit of particular interests, the control of information can alsobe appreciated in cultural terms. As we have seen earlier, the peoples ofThailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia exhibit a strong desire for paternalisticauthority and group dependence. In return for the deference of subordi-nates, leaders are expected to be powerful, to determine what is best andto act. Subordinates are expected to acquiesce to the leader’s decisionswithout complaint. In this cultural context, leaders may well feel little orno need to share information with their subordinates or the public, to solicittheir ideas and opinions, or to justify decisions. Although this kind ofrelationship is undoubtedly an idealized type, it does represent a real cul-tural heritage in Southeast Asia, which continues to shape human interac-tion. In Malaysia, for example, the political leadership was quick to brandany criticism of its policies or practices as “ingratitude” or “disloyalty” andto suppress it whenever possible.

Taking Stock

While by the early 1990s EIA had been undertaken in Thailand, Indonesia,and Malaysia for well over a decade and had been institutionalized substan-tially in all three countries, the characteristics of effective EIA programswere largely absent and EIA had not been implemented particularly effec-tively. Domestic political pressures for economic development and thesubstantial patron–client relationships among political, bureaucratic, andprivate-sector actors that strengthened them had resulted in considerablepower and authority being vested in mission agencies. Relatively littlehad been given to agencies whose mandate was to engender improvedenvironmental and natural resources management. Thus, environmentalagencies were quite circumscribed in their ability to enforce EIA require-ments; individuals, communities, and public-interest groups were excludedfrom participating in project planning and decision-making through EIAprograms; and the activities of mission agencies charged with promotingor carrying out economic development projects were isolated almost com-pletely from pressures that might have propelled them into taking genuine

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account of environmental concerns. Except in Thailand, the ability of con-cerned individuals and groups to influence decision-makers through publicadvocacy supported by the media was very limited. Where extranationalinfluences were significant determinants of EIA performance, its effective-ness had been better than where these influences were absent.

There is little doubt that a variety of technical factors contributed to thelow level of EIA effectiveness in the three countries. At the same time,cultural factors provide complementary explanations for why EIA had notperformed effectively. The reliance on paternalistic authority, hierarchy,and status as principles of social organization; the dependence on patron–client relationships for ensuring loyalty and advancement; and the desireto avoid conflict and maintain face in personal relations are all culturalcharacteristics that tended to isolate decision-makers from the concerns ofpeople and communities affected by major projects, and reinforce theirpower to act in their own or the “national” interest. These factors effectivelycircumscribed the ability of individuals, communities, and public-interestgroups to participate constructively in the process of project planning anddecision-making. Moreover, they resulted in government bureaucracies thatwere strongly hierarchical with little opportunity for the interagency com-munication, cooperation, and coordination needed for integrated environ-mental and natural resource management in general and effective EIA inparticular. The net effect was that, because political, bureaucratic, andbusiness leaders provided little support for EIA and rather more for eco-nomic development, government agencies charged with implementing EIAwere virtually bereft of the power and authority needed to do so effectively.

Although social pressures for environmental protection were growing,they were still weak by Western standards, largely unappreciated by govern-ment, and relatively ineffective in challenging specific project proposalsunless supported by the extraordinary resistance of local people and thepublicizing efforts of domestic and foreign NGOs. The ability of ordinarypeople and NGOs to learn about the environmental consequences of proj-ects and take action to protect their health, safety, and livelihoods washampered by poverty, illiteracy, a lack of access to information, substantialgovernment suppression of free speech, and timid media. While these condi-tions were rather more prevalent in Indonesia and Malaysia than in Thai-land, in no case were there effective, institutionalized means for people tointervene in and contribute to project planning and decision-makingthrough EIA programs. Thus, government environmental agencies, alreadylacking the statutory instruments and power needed to fulfil their mandates,were also wanting for the support of an informed, active public, which hasserved to keep EIA programs elsewhere in the world true to their aims.

Thus, cultural factors provide useful insights into the difficulties Thailand,Indonesia, and Malaysia have had with implementing EIA effectively. Thisis not to say that these complementary insights can be readily figured into


a deterministic calculus for improving EIA programs. The intention of thisarticle is to encourage the development of a more holistic assessment ofwhat it might take to implement EIA effectively in societies with culturalcharacteristics like those of the three Southeast Asian countries studied.

This article is based on research funded by the International Development Research Centreof Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Research Council.

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Cultural influences on implementing environmental impact assessment: insights from thailand, indonesia, and malaysia