INTRODUCTION TO THE NATURE AND HISTORY OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT BY BABA ALI MUSTAPHA
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is now 50
years old. Born in the United States, it was initially ignored, then (in turn)
caused great disturbance and antagonism, began to change people’s live for the
better, settled down and learned from experience, became respectable and
eventually was extensively imitated all over the world. As concern about the
environment has grown, EIA has been widely seen as a panacea to environmental
problems. It is not. EIA is an anticipatory, participatory, interrogative
environmental management tool which has the ultimate objective of providing
decision-makers with an indication of the likely consequence of their decision
relating to new projects or to new programmes, plan or policies. Effective EIA
alters the nature of decisions or of the actions implemented to reduce their
environmental disbenefits and render them mere sustainable. If it fails to do
this, EIA is a waste of time and money.
Interest in EIA has burgeoned and there are now over
100 EIA systems in existence worldwide. While the various EIA systems all
differ in detail, their basic principles are similar and demonstrate many
common problems. Different jurisdictions have used different means to try to
solve these problems, and to improve the effectiveness of their EIA systems.
There is growing interest in learning from the experience of others whose EIA
system have elements worthy of emulation.
Nature
of Environmental Impact Assessment:
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
refer to the valuation of the effects likely to arise from a major project (or
other action) significantly affecting the natural and man-made environment.
Consultation and participation are integral to this evaluation. EIA is a
systematic and integrative process, first developed in the United States as a
result of the National Environmental Policy Act 1969 (NEPA), for considering
possible impacts prior to a decision being taken on which or not a proposal
should be given approval to proceed. NEPA requires inter alia, the publication
of an environmental impact statement (EIS) describing in detail the
environmental impacts likely to arise from an action.
The EIA process should supply decision-makers with
an indication of the likely environmental consequences of their actions.
Properly use, EIA should lead to informed decisions about potentially
significant actions, and to positive benefits to both proponents and to the
population at large. As the UK Department of the Environment, Transport and the
Region put it (FETR, 1999, Para 9, 14 Formal EIA:
Is a means of drawing together, in a systematic an
assessment of a projects likely environmental effects. This helps to ensure
that the importance of the predicted effects, and the scope of reducing them,
are properly understood by the public and the relevant competent body before it
make its decision. EIA can help to identify the likely effect of a particular
project at an early stage; this can produce improvements in the planning and
design of the development; (and) in decision-making.
As Glasson et
al (1999, P.9) have noted:
Underlying such immediate purpose is of cause the
central and ultimate role of EIA as one of the instruments to achieve
sustainable development: development that does not cost the Earth!
Sadler (1996) also asserted that EIA is a key
technique for incorporating concepts such as the precautionary principle and
the avoidance of net loss of natural capital, central to the achievement of
sustainable development into decision making.
In principle, EIA should lead to the abandonment of
environmentally unacceptable actions and to the mitigation to the point of
acceptability of the environmental effects of proposals that are approved. EIA
is thus an anticipatory, participatory environmental management tool, of which
the EIA report is only one part. The objectives of the Californian EIA system
make this very clear (Bass et al,
1999, p. 1)
1. To
disclose to decision maker and the public the significant environmental effect
of proposed activities.
2. To
identify ways to avoid or reduce environmental change.
3. To
prevent environmental damage by requiring implementation of feasible
alternative or mitigation measures.
4. To
disclose to the public reasons for agency approvals of project with significant
environmental effects.
5. To
foster interagency co-ordination in the review of projects.
6. To
enhance public participation in the planning appropriately employed, EIA is key
integration element in environmental protection policy, but only one element in
that policy (Lawrence, 1974) because EIA is part of a wider approach to environmental
protection it is influenced by the system of which it is an element. Generally,
the more committed a jurisdiction is to environmental policy, the more
influence EIA will have over decision making within that jurisdiction.
EIA as science or a planning tool has to do with the
methodologies and techniques for identifying, predicting and evaluating the
environmental impacts associated with particular development actions. EIA as
art or procedure for decision-making has to do with those mechanisms for
ensuring an environmental analysis of such action and influencing the
decision-making process.
Caldwell (1989, P.9) has summarized the significance
of EIA as follows:
1. Beyond
preparation of technical reports, EIA is a means to a larger end- the
protection and improvement of the environmental quality of life.
2. It
is a procedure to discover and evaluate the effects of activities (chiefly
human) on the environment natural and social. It is not a single specific
analytic method or technique, but use many approaches as appropriate to a
problem.
3. It
is not a science, but many science (and engineering) in an integrated
interdisciplinary manner, evaluating relationships as they occur in the real
world.
4. It
should not be treated as an appendera, or add-on to a project, but regarded as
an integral part of project planning. Its costs should be calculated as a part
of adequate planning and not regarded as something extra.
5. EIA
does not “make” decisions, but its finding should be considered in policy and
decision making and should be reflected in final choices. Thus it should be
part of decision-making processes.
6.
The finding of EIA should focus on the
important or critical issues, explaining why they are important and estimating
probabilities in language that affords basis for policy decisions.
It is not clear precisely how the EIA process works.
Batlett and Kurin (1999, p. 415) suggested that writing about EIA has been
guided by assumptions and models that have been implicitly assumed rather than
explicitly and systematically explored, formulated or articulated.
They advanced six categories of implicit models used
in the EIA literature. One of those, the information processing model assumed
that the key to better decision making was the availability of high-quality
information. This model which was the
commonly used in the contemporary EIA literature, tended to underplay, or even
disregard, the influence of politics in the decision-making process in which EIA
form part. Mostert (1996, P. 191) has highlighted the subjective nature of the
supposedly rational EIA process assumed in this model: Subjectives occurs
whenever the results of EIA are influenced by the subjective norms, values and
interests of one or more of the parties involved. (Weston 2000, P. 190)
emphasized this point: “there are within the (EIA) process itself many key
decisions to be made which will almost certainly not be based upon the rational
principle of value free objectivity”.
The political nature of the decision making context
of EIA is inescable. It cannot be assumed that the provision of high quality
environmental information, of itself, will lead to decisions that are
consistently environmentally friendly; it is increasingly acknowledged that the
information generated by the EIA process is considered within a political
decision making arena, and is therefore influenced by its norms and values, as
well as by its procedures. Any changes to the decision making process that
result from EIA will be changes made as a consequence of the evolution of the
values and prospective held by elected decision makers and by their advisers or
as a result of successful public intervention.
It should be emphasized that EIA is not a procedure
for preventing actions with significant environmental impacts from being
implemented, although in certain circumstances this could be the appropriate
outcome of the process. Rather the intention is that actions are authorized in
the full knowledge of their environmental consequences. Because EIA takes place
in a political context, it is therefore inevitable that economic, social or
political factors will outweigh environmental factors in many instances. This
is why the mitigation of environmental impacts is so central to EIA: decisions
on proposals in which the environmental effects have palpably been ameliorated
are much easier to make and justify than those in which mitigation has not been
achieved.
This article briefly describes the evolution and
diffusion of EIA from its origins in U.S National Environmental Policy Act
1969. It goes on to discuss the elements of the EIA process.
Evolution
and Diffusion of EIA
California was the first of the American states to
introduce an effective little NEPA, in 1970 (Bass et al 1999). (The majority of U.S. State have still not done so).
International attention was soon being directed to EIA as a result of several
celebrated legal cases in the United States which clarified NEPA significance.
The ramifications of NEPA were beginning to be accepted at a time of
unprecedented interest in the environment occasioned by the United Nations
Conference on the environment in Stockholm in 1972. The problems of burgeoning
development, pollution and destruction of the natural environment that NEPA was
intended to address were perceived as universal. The rigorous project by
project evaluation of significant impacts inherent in EIA was seized upon as a
solution to many of those environmental problems by many other jurisdictions
and elements of the U.S EIA process were adopted by them. Most were, however,
cautious about importing NEPA-style litigation with EIA and made strenuous
efforts to avoid doing so.
The methods of adoption varied, cabinet resolution,
advisory procedures, regulations and laws were employed. Probably the first
overseas jurisdiction to declare an extremely rudimentary environmental impact
policy (Fowler, 1982, P.8) was the Australian State of New-South Wales in
January 1972). The Commonwealth of Australia announced on EIA policy in May
1972 and passed the Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act in
December 1974, Canada preceded Australia, approving a federal cabinet directive
on EIA in 1973. New Zealand instituted EIA procedures by cabinet minute in
1974. Columbia (Veocai Moreira, 1988) and Thailand (Nagay Htun, 1988
established EIA systems through specific legislation in 1974 and 1975,
respectively followed by France in 1976, Ireland passed legislation that
permitted but did not require EIA in 1976 and the cabinet of West German
government approved an EIA procedure by minute in the same year. The Netherland
governmental standpoint on EIA followed in 1979. The Nigerian established EIA
decree No. 86 of 1992. There was also considerable EIA activity in numerous
developing countries (Biswas and Agarwala, 1992; Lee and George, 2000). The
diffusion of EIA was gathering pace and has continued unabated.
Several International agencies have involved
themselves with EIA. In 1974, the organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) recommended that member governments adopt EIA procedures and
methods and more recently that use EIA in the process of granting aid to
developing countries (OECD, 1992). In addition, in 1985, the council of the
European communities adopted a directive that required member states to
implement formal EIA procedures by 1988. The procedures were strengthened by a
further directive that came into effect in 1999.
In 1989 the World Bank ruled that EIA for major
projects should normally be undertaken by the borrowers country under the
Bank’s supervision (Council on Environmental Quality-CEQ, 1990, P.45). The
World Bank (1999) has recently updated its guidance on EIA. The United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP) also recommendations to member states regarding
the establishment of EIA procedures established goals and principles for EIA. Its
subsequently issued guidance on EIA in developing countries (UNEP, 1988). The
1992 Earth summit provided additional momentum to these development: Principle 17
of the Rio Declaration (In Sadler, 1996, p. 24) states that:
Environmental Impact Assessment , as a national
instrument, shall be undertaken for proposed activities that are likely to have
a significant adverse impact on the environment and are subject to a decision
of a competent national authority.
EIA is now practiced in more than one hundred
countries (Donnelly et al, 1998).
This diffusion of EIA has resulted in a diverse vocabulary. In the Netherlands,
EIA is known as MER (Milieu-effectrapportage) and in Canada as environmental
assessment. The EIS (EIA Report) becomes an environmental statement in Britain,
and an environmental impact report in South Africa and under the original New
Zealand provision. The Commonwealth of Australia has both on EIS and public
environment report. New Zealand requires an AEE ( assessment of environmental
effects) document and Canada utilize both the EIS and the comprehensive study.
As EIA has spread, so has its nature been,
elaborated and clarified. There have been, perhaps, seven main themes as EIA
has evolved over the years:
1. An
early concern with the methodology of impact forecasting and decision making
gave way first to an emphasis on administrative procedures for EIA, second to a
recognition of the crucial relationship of EIA to its broader decision making
and environmental management context, and then more recently, to an
acknowledgement of the subjective and political nature of the EIA process.
2. A
tendency to codification and away from discretion. This is evident in CEQ
graduating from the use of guidelines to regulations in United States and in
the enactment of Federal Canadian EIA procedures. New Zealand and South Africa
provide additional examples of the codification of discretionary procedures and
Australia has further refined, in considerable detail, procedures that were sketchily
legislation 25 years previously.
3. The
refinement of EIA systems by the adoption of additional elements as experience
has been guided. These include detail procedures for determining which projects
should be subject to EIA (screening) (in the UK as a result of amendments to
the European directive) and for determining the coverage of EIAs (scoping)
(first in the United State and then in for example, South Africa).
4. A
concern to increase the quality of EIA by for example, improving EIA reports,
providing more opportunities for consultation and participation, emphasizing
linkage with sustainable development and increasing the weight given to EIA in
decision making.
5. A
concern to increase the effectiveness of EIA in reducing adverse environmental
impact and to ensure efficiency in term of cost in time, money and manpower.
6. The
linkage of EIA with ongoing environmental management systems by for example,
insistence on the use of environmental management plan to implement the
mitigation measures contained in EIA report.
7. The
recognition that many variables are already resolved by the time the EIA report
of project take place and thus that some form of EIA of policies, plans and
programmes (strategic assessment) is necessary.
Element
of the EIA Process
While not all EIA system contain very element, the
EIA process emanating from NEPA and subsequently diffused around the world can
be represented as series of interative steps:
1. Consideration
of alternative means of achieving objectives.
2. Designing
the selected proposal.
3. Determining
whether an EIA is necessary in a particular case (screening)
4. Deciding
on the topic to be covered in the EIA (scoping).
5. Preparing
the EIA report (i.e. inter alia, describing the proposal and the environment
affected by it and assessing the magnitude and significance of impacts)
6. Reviewing
the EIA report to check its adequacy.
7. Making
a decision on the proposal, using the EIA report and opinions expressed about
it.
8. Monitoring
the impact of the proposal, if it is implemented.
Most
of those steps (for example screening) require a decision to be taken quite
apart from the proposal approval decision. As indicated in Figure 1, which
summarizes these steps, the EIA process is cyclical. This, it consideration of
the environmental effects of alternative means of achieving the proponent’s
aims and the detailed design of the action are inextricably linked. Again, the
results of consultation at the scoping stage or later may require the proponent
in return to the design stage to increase the mitigation of impacts. Consultation
and public participation should be important inputs at each stage or the EIA
process, though the people and bodies invited, or enabled, to comment on the
proposal may vary. Equally, the mitigation of environmental impacts should take
place at each step in the process. Not every step in the process shown in
Figure 1 take place avertly (or indeed, at all) in every EIA system. As
mentioned above, scoping and project monitoring were not part of the original
conception of EIA in NEPA and are still not required in many EIA systems.
Indeed, there is a consideration diversity of views about the essential
elements of an effective EIA system which should, in any event, be tailored to
individual national circumstances.
Fig 1: The Environmental Impact Assessment Process
Baba Ali Mustapha is with the Department of
Planning/Research, Ministry of Environment, Maiduguri, Borno State.
Reference:
Introduction to Project Planning and Evaluation by
Ijeoma Georgiana Umahi, Lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional
Planning, Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri, Borno State-Nigeria Published by
Paraclete Publishers, Yola, Adamawa State-Nigeria (2002)
Environmental Impact Assessment. A Comparative
Review by Christopher Wood, Published by Pearson Education Limited, Edinbugh
Gate, Harlow Essex CM20 ZJE England. (2003).
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