Regulators' perceptions of environmental impact assessment (EIA) benefits in a sustainable development context

Roos, Claudine; Cilliers, Dirk; Retief, François; Alberts, Reece; Bond, Alan

doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2019.106360

Cited by 30 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been conducted internationally and in South Africa since the 1970s and is recognised as one of the most successful environmental policy interventions of the 20th century (Kidd, Retief & Alberts 2018;Morgan 2012;Roos et al 2020). Originally conceived as an instrument to protect and conserve the biophysical environment, its mandate has since been broadened in many countries to also include the promotion of sustainable development more broadly (Cilliers et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Environmental Impact Assessment report quality in South African national parks

Sandham

Huysamen

Retief

et al. 2020

KOEDOE - African Protected Area Conservation and Science

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Conservation implications:The results show that EIA reports for developments in South African national parks are generally of sufficient quality for decision-making that benefits conservation. However, weaker performance regarding waste, significance determination, water-related impacts and a lack of consideration of strategic context requires a conservation-specific EIA report quality review package to improve report quality in the areas of weakness and thereby increase the value of EIA as an instrument for environmental governance and sustainable development in conservation areas.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Environmental Impact Assessment report quality in South African national parks

Sandham

Huysamen

Retief

et al. 2020

KOEDOE - African Protected Area Conservation and Science

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“…This diversity 'opens the possibility' that perceptions and practices may well differ about the adequacy of an EIA system (Morgan et al, 2012), possibly with contested opinions. Numerous perception studies have been utilised as one means by which to investigate effectiveness of EIA in many different jurisdictions including: a comparative study of the United Kingdom and France designed to better understand the interpretation and tensions associated with a specific cross-jurisdictional 'harmonisation' objective of the European Union (Glasson and Bellanger, 2003); Morrison-Saunders and Bailey's 2003 study examined practitioner perspectives of the importance and quality of science in a Western Australian context (Morrison-Saunders and Bailey, 2009), a Polish study canvassed the opinions of experts as to the usefulness of EIA guidelines and instructions (Tokarczyk-Dorociak et al, 2019); in South Africa regulators were surveyed to ascertain perceptions about the benefits of EIA (Roos et al, 2020); and in Brazil, Duarte et al (2017) present the findings of a survey that explored the perceptions of the Brazilian system (its process and quality of EISs). All these studies present the respective positions of those engaged and were able to illustrate specific elements perceived to be of success or otherwise.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

EIA effectiveness in Vietnam: key stakeholder perceptions

Clarke

2021

Heliyon

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In line with its rapidly transforming economy, thousands of development proposals undergo Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in Vietnam each year. Since its inception in 1993, Vietnam's EIA system has undergone numerous amendments via a suite of legislative reforms to the Law on Environmental Protection (LEP) and its associated Circulars and Decrees, a testament to the Government's will to improve environmental performance. Here we evaluate the effectiveness of Vietnam's EIA system through a unique empirical study focusing on those engaged in the EIA system undertaken in Hanoi in 2016 comprising 20 semi-structured interviews with respondents from government, NGOs, academia, and industry. By evaluating the effectiveness of the EIA system in Vietnam from the stakeholder perspective, this paper aims to identify where, how, and why the EIA system is effective or otherwise. Stakeholders vary in their perceptions of the system. Those external to it identified several inhibiting characteristics. Results suggest that like other developing countries and jurisdictions, Vietnam's EIA procedural performance falls short of EIA goals. Criticisms of discordant dual planning law and environmental management laws, fragmented decision making, conflicts of interest in appraisal committee appointments, and information deprivation that impedes public participation suggest that like other developing countries and jurisdictions, Vietnam's EIA performance, in practice, faces several challenges that potentially undermine its role in environmental protection.

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“…The protection of species through CaC has obvious relevance to the wealth of biodiversity in the PRF, highlighted in previous sections. While the CaC arrangements are considered critical for any conservation regime, failures of CaC instruments are well documented in the literature [118,119]. The strengths of CaC are that it provides a high level of certainty by defining for example boundaries of PAs and prescribing behaviour in relation to listed species and ecosystems.…”

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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Regulators' perceptions of environmental impact assessment (EIA) benefits in a sustainable development context

Cited by 30 publications

References 66 publications

Evaluating Environmental Impact Assessment report quality in South African national parks

Evaluating Environmental Impact Assessment report quality in South African national parks

EIA effectiveness in Vietnam: key stakeholder perceptions

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

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