An administrative justice perspective on improving EIA effectiveness

Retief, François; Fischer, Thomas B.; Alberts, Reece; Roos, Claudine; Cilliers, Dirk

doi:10.1080/14615517.2019.1680042

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…These include biodiversity management agreements or contractual agreements between private or communal landowners and the state. The conservation status of private or communal land can also be formalised trough different kinds of protected areas such as Private Nature Reserves (PNRs) and Protected Environments [121]. An extension of the latter in recent years has been so-called community-based conservation (CBC) and conservation stewardship programmes that are considered the most integrated conservation instruments combining CaC, fiscal-and civil-based approaches-see 'D' in Figure 12.…”

Section: Conceptualising Conservation Approaches For the Prfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conserving Freshwater Biodiversity in an African Subtropical Wetland: South Africa’s Lower Phongolo River and Floodplain

Acosta¹,

Netherlands²,

Retief³

et al. 2021

Managing Wildlife in a Changing World

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Freshwater biodiversity is under constant threat from a range of anthropogenic stressors. Using South Africa's Phongolo River and floodplain (PRF) as a study case, the aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the conservation and management of freshwater biodiversity in a highly diverse subtropical ecosystem. The PRF is the largest floodplain system in South Africa which is severely threatened by irregularly controlled flood releases from a large upstream dam, prolonged drought, deteriorating water quality, organic pollutants and the increasing dependence of the local communities. Based on a decade of survey of the PRF conducted from 2010 to 2020, this chapter highlights the current diversity of aquatic organisms (invertebrates, fishes, frogs and their parasitic fauna), followed by an overview of their biological and physical stressors. The current challenges in the management of the aquatic biodiversity of this region and a way forward to conservation strategies are also addressed in this chapter.

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Section: Conceptualising Conservation Approaches For the Prfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conserving Freshwater Biodiversity in an African Subtropical Wetland: South Africa’s Lower Phongolo River and Floodplain

Acosta¹,

Netherlands²,

Retief³

et al. 2021

Managing Wildlife in a Changing World

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“…Being a decision support and policy implementation instrument, the very nature of EIA processes entails the exercising of administrative functions (Kotz e and Van Der Walt 2003;Arts et al 2012;Jha-Thakur and Fischer 2016;Bond, Fischer, and Fothergill 2017;Kidd, Retief, and Alberts 2018;Retief, Fischer, et al 2020). With EIA essentially being an administrative procedure, it is accordingly by implication subject to the principles of administrative justice.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With EIA essentially being an administrative procedure, it is accordingly by implication subject to the principles of administrative justice. Although administrative justice is widely researched in other fields such as law and political sciences, the relationship between EIA and just administrative actions and/or just administrative decisions (administrative justice, in short) has been surprisingly neglected in the EIA literature (Retief, Fischer, et al 2020). The authors were not able to find any published empirical research determining whether actual EIA processes and subsequent decisions comply with the principles of administrative justice.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The aim of this paper is, thus, to use empirical data gathered from a comprehensive EIA system review process in South Africa, to determine the extent to which EIA decision making complies with the principles of administrative justice. In addressing the aim of the paper, the following sub research questions are explored, relating to the internationally recognized administrative justice principles of lawfulness, procedural fairness, and reasonableness (Retief, Fischer, et al 2020):…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Secondly, the EIA system is also well researched with a meaningful body of evaluation literature (see for example Retief 2010;Retief, Fischer, et al 2020;Hallat, Retief, and Sandham 2015;Sandham, Moloto, and Retief 2008;Sandham, Hoffman, and Retief 2008;Sandham, Carrol, and Retief 2010;Sandham et al 2013;Sandham, Van der Vyver, and Retief 2013;Sandham et al 2020;Kidd, Retief, and Alberts 2018;Swanepoel et al 2019). Finally, administrative justice in South Africa is a wellentrenched legal principle, with a specific constitutional right (in Section 33 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa) as well as national legislation protecting this right to just administrative action (Kotz e 2004;Kidd, Retief, and Alberts 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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EIA decision-making and administrative justice: an empirical analysis

Alberts

Retief

Roos

et al. 2021

Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

Self Cite

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Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is implemented in most countries as an administrative procedure. In this context, it is subject to the principles of administrative justice. However, to date, no empirical research has been conducted to determine the extent to which EIA decisions comply with the principles of administrative justice. In this paper, empirical data from 42 EIA cases in South Africa are used to establish EIA compliance with the administrative justice principles of lawfulness, procedural fairness and reasonableness. This is achieved by measuring EIA decisions against specially developed key performance indicators (KPIs). Overall, decisions were found to mostly comply with the principles of administrative justice. However, questions arise with regards to the quality and substance of the information feeding into the decision-making process and on which decisions are ultimately based.

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Analyzing the effectiveness of environmental impact assessment in Paraná, Brazil and California, United States with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and the analytical hierarchy process

Loomis,

Dziedzic

2024

Environmental Management

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Environmental impact assessment (EIA) has become one of the most widespread environmental management instruments. Despite this, EIA is routinely criticized for being ineffective at impacting decision-making. This study compared the EIA systems of Paraná, Brazil and California, United States using the effectiveness dimensions from the EIA literature. This study formats the cases into contextual conditions using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the necessary and su cient conditions that cause effective outcomes. These effectiveness outcomes are then ranked by EIA stakeholders via the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to identify stakeholder priorities and to improve stakeholder management. The results show that in Paraná stakeholders identi ed normative effectiveness as the most important dimension, while stakeholders in California identi ed this dimension as the secondmost important following substantive effectiveness. Public participation was found to be a necessary condition for both substantive and normative effectiveness to occur. Early project de nition was found to be su cient for substantive effectiveness and necessary for normative effectiveness, for which stakeholder coordination was a su cient condition. This suggests that in order for EIA to in uence decision-making and foster sustainable development, greater care needs to be taken to actively engage stakeholders in public participation, with clear roles and project design communicated early on, and a clear role for regulatory authority to promote stakeholder coordination for acceptable outcomes. These ndings suggest that some effectiveness dimensions are caused by similar conditions, which could help focus stakeholder management efforts and point to new avenues for future EIA effectiveness research.

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An administrative justice perspective on improving EIA effectiveness

Cited by 11 publications

References 17 publications

Conserving Freshwater Biodiversity in an African Subtropical Wetland: South Africa’s Lower Phongolo River and Floodplain

Conserving Freshwater Biodiversity in an African Subtropical Wetland: South Africa’s Lower Phongolo River and Floodplain

EIA decision-making and administrative justice: an empirical analysis

Analyzing the effectiveness of environmental impact assessment in Paraná, Brazil and California, United States with fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis and the analytical hierarchy process

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