More specifically, the following issues and process elements were lacking in most ESIAs: • Land governance Most of the ESIAs failed to describe seasonal access and user rights, such as grazing, hunting, fisheries, and the collection of water, firewood and building materials. The variety in tenure rights, both formalised and customary, was sometimes described in general terms. Indigenous rights were not mentioned and traditional rights were described infrequently. • Consultation and grievance mechanism Most of the ESIAs did not describe either the decision-making and stakeholder engagement process followed while preparing the ESIA/decision or the participatory process to be followed during realisation and exploitation. There were very few mentions of grievance mechanisms, rule of law (or its absence) or of possible discord between national legislation and traditional laws. • Economic justification for the port development (the ‘business case’ or ‘viability’) Even though the justification itself does not necessarily have to be in the ESIA, reference must be made to it to enable a conclusion to be drawn on whether the economic opportunities outweigh the often significant environmental and social consequences. • Alternatives for site selection, layout of the port and mitigating measures If a site has already been decided on at strategic level, the decision and its justification must be properly referred to in the ESIA at project level. • Relevant baseline data Most of the ESIAs exhaustively listed the available data but paid scant attention to their relevance for the assessment of impacts, to their interrelations and to baseline dynamics. Gaps in the data and risks related to these gaps were often overlooked. 21
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