Hey, at least we’re not dead last.
A new survey by the US-based World Resources Institute has found that, out of the 70 countries polled, Malaysia has come in at 69th place on its Environmental Democracy Index – just narrowly beating that paragon of global rankings in anything, Haiti.
The index measures a country’s progress in enacting and enforcing law’s promoting transparency, acountability and public engagement in environmental issues.
The Environmental Democracy Index also tracks how well the environmental laws of a surveyed country empower the people to participate in decision-making processes, and how they allow for damages to the environment to be compensated or rectified.
According to the report accompanying this year’s index, Malaysia gets very low scores in transparency and public engagement, and only got a mediocre score in terms of how justice in environmental matters is meted out.
The index report also states that the Malaysian government and its agencies were not obliged to provide members of the public to participate in early stages of national environmental policy-making.
“The public is provided with the right to participate in environmental decision making in only a limited set of circumstances,” it said, as quoted by The Star Online‘s Patrick Lee.
The Federal Government is also accused of not making public health information easily accessible to citizens, citing as an example the case of information on Kuala Lumpur’s drinking water quality not being freely given out to the people.
The Star has learned that the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry is currently drafting a reply to the report.
Lithuania scored highest worldwide, with an overall score of 2.42, followed by Latvia at 2.31 and Russia at 2.25. The global average score is 1.42.
In Southeast Asia, Indonesia came out tops with a score of 1.8, followed by Thailand at 1.38 and the Philippines at 1.35.
There was no score given for Singapore and Brunei.
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