I have published this article in the weekly "The Star" newspaper. I am hoping to publish a weekly environmental article in this newspaper starting next week. I hope you find it useful

By: Batir Wardam

Now, what's the big deal? The factories have been closed due to environmental pollution and this happens everywhere, every day in the world. The uniqueness of this trend is the fact that it represents the initial impacts of the national environmental law in Jordan being strongly enforced and the first time the Ministry of Environment gains the support of the cabinet to close down factories, and this is a sign of improved implementation of environmental legislation.

The Minister of Environment and the Ministry officials do not wake up in a particular morning and decide to close down factories to bring some excitement to their work. Piles of official correspondence are documented in the Ministry of Environment where the Ministry would send inspection specialists to various industries to discover their environmental faults and send them memos and warnings. Unfortunately, some factories would never take this seriously since they hold a belief that the Ministry is not able to enforce the environmental law and dose not have the political strength to advocate for closing and punishing factories in an overall economic climate of "attracting investments".

The Ministry of Environment is a new and evolving public entity, with many political and economic bottlenecks blocking its functions. But it has the legal strength of a very robust and efficient environmental law that provides the Ministry with the tool and the teeth to act. The Environmental Protection Law was one of the package of temporary laws issued in 2003 and it was officially endorsed by the parliament in 2006 and issued as the law number 52 for 2006.    

The law considers the Ministry of Environment to be the competent authority for the protection of environment in the Kingdom, and the official and national authorities shall be bound to implement the instructions and resolutions issued under the provisions of this law which gives the Ministry all the judicial powers it requires implementing the law.

Two major articles provide the Ministry with the required ammunition to save the Jordanian environment and its people's health from industrial pollution in particular. 

One of the articles gives the Ministry the legal power to inspect any facility, and according to the findings gives the Ministry the right to close the facility in order to implement mitigation measures and stop the environmental violation. This inspection system was further strengthened with the establishment of the Environmental Police in 2007 where the police is now acting as an implementation tool and a full fledged partner in the implementation of the environmental law.

Since an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure the Environmental protection law has introduced a system of an environmental“pre-emptive” assessment of all economic and developmental projects to be established in Jordan. This process is called ‘environmental impact assessment” where any developmental or economic project (factory, road, tourism project, wastewater treatment plant, etc…) should carry out a detailed scientific study of the expected environmental impacts arising from the implementation of the project, and how these impacts can be mitigated through remediation action at the technical, legislative and public levels.

The study should be done before the project is initiated and sent to the Ministry of Environment where it will be reviewed. This is a crucial step that needs the highest level of technical competency to be able to draw the correct conclusions about the project.

If the Impact assessment is approved the project will get the license and start construction and operation while adhering to the environmental mitigation and management systems specified and approved in the study. Any deviation from those guidelines would render the project to violations.

This system is proving efficient with new industries and projects, but still there is the need to manage old facilities and industries that obtained their approval without any environmental considerations. Such factories are usually small to medium scale and face a lot of technical and marketing problems and are battling for survival in a high competition market. Most of them are not interested in environmental measures and consider such requirement to be financially exhaustive with no return for investment made in the short term.

Closure of facilities is not the best solution, everyone agrees including Ministry of Environment. There has to be a system of trade-offs between the environmental law and some economic and market based incentives for environmental protection. It is a stick and carrot approach.

The Ministry of Environment should be able to engage in a difficult and time-consuming process of advocacy with other ministries and public institutes to provide economic incentives for industries and firms ready to take the path of environmental protection. Such economic incentives would mean a reduction of taxes and support in introducing appropriate environmental technology with minimum customs.

A great amount of effort should be invested also in introducing environmental protection measures and guidelines in investment promotion laws and regulations. The notion of decoupling investment promotion from environmental protection is causing a great deal of concern in the globe and in Jordan as well. The Environmental law in Jordan will risk being toothless if it will be marginalized by the more powerful and supported investment promotion laws. The task of protecting the environment in the country and implementing the environmental law will be won or lost in the framework of investment promotion and economic liberalization strategies.