THE potential impact of environmental policies is being analysed by experts from the West Asia region at a three-day workshop, which opened in Bahrain yesterday.

Bahrain is particularly interested in policies related to waste management, water scarcity, coastal and land degradation as well as marine pollution.

"We are concerned with booming of the economy," Public Commission Assessment and Planning Directorate senior environment specialist Suzan Al Ajjawi told the GDN.

"A lot of companies are coming into the Gulf and so we need to see what industries we are accepting, because of air pollution.

"In order to enhance the environment we need to know more about the traffic situation and see how we can reduce air pollution."

Ms Al Ajjawi said waste management was another issue the public commission was tackling.

She said an industrial-hazardous waste landfill site had been established in Askar in 2002 and there was another in the same area for domestic waste. "We try to make people more aware of the environment and try to change consumption habits," she explained.

"The problem (of waste) is growing as we become a consuming nation. We do a lot of awareness campaigns in schools and societies and teach people about recycling, reducing water consumption and lifestyle."

Ms Al Ajjawi was speaking on the sidelines of the train the trainers workshop on the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) Resource Book on Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA), which is organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Around 40 governmental experts and representatives of institutions from the West Asia region are attending the event, which is being held at the Sheraton Hotel until tomorrow.

IEA is defined as the process of producing and communicating future-oriented, policy-relevant information on key interactions between the natural environment and human society.

The workshop aims to train experts from collaborating centres and key partner institutions in West Asia to be trainers in the GEO Approach to IEA.

The traditional State of the Environment report did not analyse the causes of an environment problem and how this is linked to the impact of current policy, said UNEP West Asia Division of Early Warning and Assessment regional co-ordinator Dr Adel Abdel-Kader on the sidelines of the event.

While the GEO methodology of IEA looked at the condition and trends of the environment and the root causes of problems, it looks how social and economic activities, such as tourism, energy consumption, industry and war, made an impact on the environment, he added.

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