The legal case between Eco-Sud and Pointe d’Esny Lakeside Company Ltd (PDLC) and the Compagnie de Beau Vallon Ltée (BVL), can be considered a textbook case, emblematic of the country’s environmental conflicts. The association seems to have won the day, obtaining guarantees for the survival of the wetland adjoining the Pointe d’Esny Le Village real estate project … Dominique Bellier
It all began in November 2017 when BVL and PDLC filed their EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) permit application with the Ministry of the Environment, for the Pointe d’Esny Le Village PDS(Property Development Scheme) project. Eco-Sud submits its critical comments in December 2017 shortly after those of the Ministry of theEnvironment. EIA’s permit is nevertheless granted in January 2019, but challenged by Eco-Sud before the Environmental Court, which nevertheless rejects this request for revocation in the name of locus standi, considering that the association is not entitled to appear. It would have no “interest in acting” in this case…
The battle began against the Ministry of theEnvironment… The association found the support it needed to demonstrate its legitimacy in the Supreme Court, and even before the Privy Council, which finally ruled in its favor in early July 2024… Negotiations between Eco-Sud and BVL continued until an agreement was signed on February 19, 2025. Persistence pays off.
23 arpents and 38 perches of land were declared non-constructible and two non-constructible ecological corridors were created to preserve ecological continuity between land, marsh and lagoon. This struggle has also led to a change in jurisprudence in Mauritius, but as hydrogeologist Sébastien Martial explains on the association’s channel, Les Gardiens du Vivant, our island’s hydrological system needs to be more finely tuned…
