The Bias of Environmental Impact Assessment - Essay Example

The Bias of Environmental Impact Assessment There has been much interest in sustainable development during the past decades. In light of the apparentenvironment degradation occurring globally, proposed development actions now require a systematic process that examines in advance their environmental impacts in order to make sure that these projects are amenable from an environmental perspective. Such a process looks into the significant effects of a project or development on the environment. These effects are identified, assessed and taken into account by the competent authority in the decision making process. Such a process is called Environmental Impact Assessment or EIA (Colombo, 1992). The need to conduct an EIA was initiated in Europe in 1975 when the European Commission stated that an EIA procedure should be drawn up and adopted under the second action programme (Sheate, 1994). Since then, EIA has not only served merely as a defensive tool to protect the environment but has also become a means to contribute to environmental sustainability in a more holistic manner with feedback loops to and from Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA). EIA likewise provides provisions in considering location, design and environmental issues in parallel, potentially leading to improved relationship between the developer, the planning authority and the local community. The statutory requirements in the EIA process are generally designed such that they can be adapted to different situations and circumstances. As such, the EIA is a tool that constantly develops within countries’ institutional structures and the decisions made reflect their prevailing environmental politics (Sheate, 1994). When done right, EIA is indeed a very powerful tool that would limit the detrimental effects that most developmental projects contribute to the environment. Unfortunately, while EIA is a very promising concept in theory, it tends to become smoke and mirrors in practice, deceiving most stakeholders and not really achieving what it ought to accomplish in the first place. This is so because the effectiveness of an EIA is heavily influenced by the legislation of specific jurisdictions and the influence of affected development groups upon such legislation and so while EIA is such an attractive concept in theory, it fails miserably in reality. Environmental Impact Assessment follows a particular process. It starts with the screening of proposed developments to identify national environmental significance. This is followed by scoping to give involved parties the opportunity to take all principles of Environment and Sustainable Development (ESD) into consideration in order to identify the issues and impacts that are likely to be important and to establish terms of reference for EIA. This step should involve the identified stakeholders as well as the proponent to supposedly balance the interests of all involved. Then, alternatives are examined to give the proponent the opportunity to establish the preferred or most environmentally friendly option for achieving proposal objectives. Impact analysis then follows in order to identify and predict the likely environmental, social and other related effects of the proposal (Alexander & Fairbridge, 1999). In these steps, shortcomings in the EIA process are met when the supposed authority in identifying the adverse environmental impacts of the project is affected by a bias towards the implementation of the project rather than actual impact assessment. More often than not, EIA does not take into account the effects of several minor developments that tend to accumulate over time. Mitigation and impact management follows after impact analysis. The EIA process creates measures to avoid, minimize or offset predicted adverse impacts and incorporating of these into an environmental management plan should result in such impacts becoming almost negligible. The significance of these impacts, together with proposed measures for mitigation and the concerns of the stakeholder are documented in the Environmental Impact Statement or EIS. The EIS is then reviewed to determine whether the report meets its terms of reference, provides a satisfactory assessment of the proposal and contains the information required for decision-making (Alexander & Fairbridge, 1999). Typically, EIA is most effective when it occurs before the commencement of development, because this allows the precautionary principle to play a significant role (Saldanha, et al, 2007). Obviously, it is far more costly, both environmentally and financially, to shut down and clean up after a development than prevent or modify a proposed development. Unfortunately, EIA does not occur when it is most useful and is rather done late in the planning process. Thus, the project proponents have most likely already committed considerable financial resources to a particular option at a particular site. The EIS at this stage becomes another obstacle in a field of bureaucratic hurdles on the way to their end goal. Naturally, they will want that document to emphasise the advantages of the project to the community and to down play the disadvantages. Thus, some proponents may lead to either leaving out vital information or completely falsify results (Glasson, Therivel, & Chadwick, 2005). And so, when the EIA process moves on to decision-making, the primary concerns of the stakeholders are set aside to give way to the demands of the proponents. More importantly, the last part of the EIA process which is the follow up is often left out due to the cost and inconvenience that it entails (Alexander & Fairbridge, 1999). Indeed, Environmental Impact Assessment has become a biased process, mostly churning out decisions that are favorable to project proponents rather than for the true stakeholders of the impact assessment process. This can be partly explained because the firms or individuals that are responsible for conducting the assessment are most often hired by the project proponent themselves. Thus, it is but typical for these consultants to make their choices and judgments as favorable as possible to the ‘hand that feeds them’ while still trying to maintain their so-called ‘scientific credibility.’ Incidentally, EIA can be made more credible if the involvement of primary stakeholders and the transparency of the EIS are much more encouraged and given due importance. Of course, it has to be emphasized that certain steps must be taken to ensure that the process of EIA does contain appropriate checks and balances that would limit the omission of undesirable results and falsification or distortion of data. Only when these measures are taken into consideration can Environmental Impact Assessment truly serve its purpose and direct development projects towards the road of environmental sustainability. Bibliography Alexander, D., & Fairbridge, R., 1999. Encyclopedia of environmental science. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Colombo, A., 1992. Environmental impact assessment. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Glasson, J., Therivel, R., & Chadwick, A., 2005. Introduction to environmental impact assessment. New York, NY: Routledge. Saldanha, L., et al., 2007. Green tapism: a review of the environmental impact assessment notification. Bangalore, India: Environment Support Group. Sheate, W., 1994. Making an impact: a guide to EIA law and policy. London: Cameron May. Read More