THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION FOR SIA AND EIA IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Public participation is an essential element in the decision-making process of social impact assessments (SIA) for proposed developments that are located near to the community. It assists the panel of evaluators in deciding whether to approve the assessment through the information obtained from the affected community. This medium is also applied to other assessments, such as environmental impact assessments (EIA), and its implementation varies according to the nature of the assessment. However, the objective of public participation remains the same: to protect the interests of the public. Thus, this paper will analyse the implementation of public participation between SIA and EIA in Malaysia using qualitative methods, library research, and comparative analysis. The results show that EIA and SIA each have their own implementations in public participation.