{"id":76091,"date":"2024-08-28T10:18:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T10:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/protecting-namibias-environment-enabling-socio-economic-development"},"modified":"2024-08-28T10:18:00","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T10:18:00","slug":"protecting-namibias-environment-enabling-socio-economic-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/protecting-namibias-environment-enabling-socio-economic-development","title":{"rendered":"Protecting Namibia\u2019s environment, enabling socio-economic development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. <\/strong><\/span>Namibia is one of the few countries in the world where the protection of the environment is enshrined in its highest law, the Constitution. This clear indicator shows how seriously the Government of the Republic of Namibia (GRN) takes the preservation of its natural environment.<\/p>\n

Article 95 (l) of Namibia\u2019s Constitution provides the basis for environmental protection to guide and formulate policies, legislation and programmes that aim to preserve and maintain biodiversity and ecosystems as well as to sustainably use Namibia\u2019s natural resources for the benefit of all Namibians \u2013 now and in the future.<\/p>\n

GRN\u2019s responsibilities do not stop at preserving the environment.<\/p>\n

It has an obligation to enable Namibia\u2019s socio-economic development by growing the economy and establishing new industries to effect positive change and prospects for its people. Despite having made significant strides in improving people\u2019s lives since independence in 1990, Namibia still ranks as the second most unequal society in the world in terms of wealth and income distribution. GRN recognises the need to accelerate economic growth to address these inequalities through the Harambee Prosperity Plan II (HPPII), the 6th National Development Plan (NDP6) and Vision 2030.<\/p>\n

HPPII sets out an initiative to harness the power and potential of Namibia\u2019s exceptional renewable energy resources to drive green industrial development, including supplying green hydrogen and its derivates to global markets to help decarbonise countries around the world. NDP6, which covers the final five-year stretch to Vision 2030, will further anchor the green hydrogen sector development ambitions. As part of this strategy, the GRN tendered out two sites that it selected within the Tsau \/\/Khaeb (formerly Sperrgebiet) National Park (TKNP), in the \/\/Kharas region for the development of large-scale green hydrogen projects. This is where my company, Hyphen, intends to contribute, having been awarded the rights by GRN (subject to necessary environmental and other approvals) to develop Namibia\u2019s first large-scale green hydrogen-to-ammonia project. Hyphen\u2019s green hydrogen project aims to help the world decarbonise, cutting five to six million tonnes equivalent of C02 a year and simultaneously creating opportunities for green industrialisation in Namibia. Clearly, the development of a green hydrogen economic sector and the global drive to net zero cannot be at the expense of the TKNP\u2019s ecosystems and biodiversity. For Namibia to grow, we must strike a balance between protecting the environment and enabling economic development.<\/p>\n

For those who haven\u2019t visited Namibia, the TKNP or our project site, it\u2019s hard to imagine the sheer scale and size of the country, the 35th-largest and second-least -densely populated country in the world, with a surface area of<\/p>\n

824 000km2, much of which is arid and uninhabited with varied levels of biodiversity sensitivity. Almost half of the country is under some form of conservation management. That\u2019s an area bigger than Germany, Europe\u2019s fourth largest country.<\/p>\n

National parks account for just under half of Namibia\u2019s protected land, of which the TKNP accounts for 15%. In comparison, the maximum physical footprint of Hyphen\u2019s project within the TKNP is anticipated to be less than 0.7%. Hyphen has significant flexibility in designing the project to avoid the most sensitive areas.<\/p>\n

Impact avoidance is one of the key principles guiding the design of the Hyphen project. Based on the current Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism\u2019s TKNP management plan, which classifies the park in terms of biodiversity sensitivity, around 90% of the project\u2019s footprint would be within the lowest sensitivity land category. Any work on sites where avoidance of important biodiversity is simply not possible would be undertaken with the utmost care, guided by a bespoke Biodiversity Action Plan, which specifies strict impact mitigation measures, including effectiveness monitoring and adaptive management.<\/p>\n

From the inception of Hyphen\u2019s project, we have recognised the uniqueness of the ecosystems in the TKNP, and the need to design our project in harmony with these systems. Hyphen is committed to developing the project not only in accordance with Namibia\u2019s constitution and environmental legislation, but also to the highest international standards, most notably the International Finance Corporation\u2019s Performance Standard 6 on Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Management of Living Natural Resources, which is widely recognised as the benchmark for global best practice.<\/p>\n

Hyphen has recruited its team of environmental specialists and enlisted an external team of Namibia\u2019s and Africa\u2019s most experienced and knowledgeable environmental experts to advise and carry out studies on the most environmentally responsible ways to develop the project. Hyphen\u2019s appointed global environmental consulting firm SLR as its environmental practitioner to guide the project through the process. Namibia\u2019s legislated environmental process entails carrying out an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), which can be divided into three phases: screening, scoping, and impact assessment. To date Hyphen has carried out screening work, field work aimed at improving its understanding of the environmental baseline and planning for the scoping and impact assessment phases. The reason for this significant amount of early phase ESIA work is because we recognised that a \u201cnormal\u201d ESIA approach would be inadequate given the scale and complexity of the project and the sensitivity of the environment.<\/p>\n

The early baseline work comprised extensive ecology fieldwork to help Hyphen design the ESIA process and inform the design of the project to ensure that we avoid the most sensitive areas in the TKNP, such as rocky outcrops (including inselbergs), where biodiversity tends to cluster. We intend to follow an approach where the environmental sensitivity guides the placement of infrastructure, with solar generation infrastructure, which has the largest land requirement, to be in areas of least or lesser importance for conservation.<\/p>\n

We firmly believe that avoidance is the first step in the process of reducing the project\u2019s environmental impact to an absolute minimum. After the formal commencement of the ESIA process in the coming weeks, we will seek feedback from local communities and environmental groups, building on the environmental stakeholder roadshows Hyphen has hosted since early 2022.<\/p>\n

Hyphen has also engaged stakeholders on the socio-economic and development impacts of the project by publishing notices and news stories in newspapers and online. Hyphen has held roadshows and workshops across the country, covering nine of Namibia\u2019s 14 regions to date.<\/p>\n

Working closely with GRN and other key stakeholders, Hyphen has an enormous responsibility to protect one of Namibia\u2019s precious national parks, while enabling Namibia\u2019s continued economic growth through the development of the country\u2019s first large-scale green hydrogen project. Hyphen\u2019s goal is to establish the benchmark model for sustainable and equitable development in Namibia and across the African continent. This challenge is critical, and not unique to Namibia. As the world strives toward net zero to ensure a world for future generations, the global collective challenge is to achieve this goal without compromising environmental preservation, or sacrificing sustainable economic development.<\/p>\n

I speak for the whole Hyphen team when I say we want to work with all stakeholders for whom preserving the environment is fundamental. We look forward to speaking with people and organisations locally, nationally and internationally about how we can develop our project and ensure progress, while putting the environment first in every decision we make.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Namibia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Namibia. Namibia is one of the few countries in the world where the protection of the environment is enshrined in its highest law, the Constitution. This clear indicator shows how seriously the Government of the Republic of Namibia (GRN) takes the preservation of its natural environment. Article 95 (l) of Namibia\u2019s Constitution provides […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":76090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[234,236,233],"class_list":["post-76091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-namibia","tag-namibia"],"yoast_head":"\nProtecting Namibia\u2019s environment, enabling socio-economic development - Namibia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/namibia\/all-news\/protecting-namibias-environment-enabling-socio-economic-development\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Protecting Namibia\u2019s environment, enabling socio-economic development\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press – Namibia. Namibia is one of the few countries in the world where the protection of the environment is enshrined in its highest law, the Constitution. This clear indicator shows how seriously the Government of the Republic of Namibia (GRN) takes the preservation of its natural environment. 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