Lessons from the "Counter-Environmental Impact Assessment": A Reflection on the Methods of Community Science

Abstract:In 2017 San Miguel Corporation proposed the construction of a ₱735-billion "New Manila International Airport" (NMIA), which would destroy 2,500 hectares of coastal environment in northern Manila Bay. Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) should evaluate such large-scale projects; as a scientific process EIAs arguably benefit certain social groups by reserving assessments to accredited scientists but exclude the affected communities. Motivated by the struggles of coastal communities, we facilitated a participatory process, later coined counter-EIA, a practice of community science that is a knowledge coproduction process between university-based "scientist-activists" and "community scientists" from the fishing communities affected by the NMIA. Its potentials and limits as resistance to knowledge production inequities and development aggression are explored in this article.