Environmental Impact Assessment can be defined as:
The process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made. The aim of an assessment is to address biodiversity at all appropriate levels and allow for enough survey time to take seasonal features into account. It should focus on processes and services which are critical be conserved and protected in this context, it is essential that it is linked to the issue of securing sustainable livelihoods for local people based on biodiversity resources.
The starting point of every environmental assesssment is that biodiversity must be conserved to ensure it survives, continuing to provide services, values and benefits for current and future generations. The aim is to identify, protect and promote sustainable use of biodiversity, so that yields/harvests can be maintained over time. This involves examining the likely impacts of development on the benefits of biodiversity arising from the provision of essential life support systems and ecosystem services such as:
- water yield;
- water purification;
- breakdown of wastes;
- flood control;
- storm and coastal protection;
- soil formation and conservation;
- sedimentation processes;
- nutrient cycling;
- carbon storage;
- and climatic regulation.
An assessment process also takes into account the costs of replacing these services.
Areas with "important biodiversity" are those that:
- Support endemic, rare, declining habitats/species/genotypes.
- Support genotypes and species whose presence is a prerequisite for the persistence of other species.
- Act as a buffer, linking habitat or ecological corridor, or play an important part in maintaining environmental quality.
- Have important seasonal uses or are critical for migration.
- Support habitats, species populations, ecosystems that are vulnerable, threatened throughout their range and slow to recover.
- Support particularly large or continuous areas of previously undisturbed habitat.
- Act as refugia for biodiversity during climate change, enabling persistence and continuation of evolutionary processes.
- Support biodiversity for which mitigation is difficult or its effectiveness unproven including habitats that take a long time to develop characteristic biodiversity.
- Are currently poor in biodiversity but have potential to develop high biodiversity with appropriate intervention.
In 2005 the International Association for Impact Assessment published a public document on the guiding principles intended to promote "biodiversity-inclusive" impact assessment (IA), including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for projects, and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) for policies, plans and programs.
The aim was to help practitioners to integrate biodiversity in IA, decision-makers to commission and review IAs, and other stakeholders to ensure their biodiversity interests are addressed in development planning. This document serves as a useful introduction to the concept.
It centralises biodiversity as a cross-cutting theme relevant to all fields of IA, where the aim for conservation is to work to biodiversity-related Conventions that are based on the premise that further loss of biodiversity is unacceptable.
Impacts of development projects are assessed in terms of:
- avoiding irreversible losses of biodiversity.
- seeking alternative solutions that minimize biodiversity losses.
- mitigation to restore any loss of biodiversity.
- compensation for unavoidable loss by providing substitutes of at least similar biodiversity value.
- highlighting opportunities for enhancement.
This approach can be called "positive planning for biodiversity." It helps achieve no net loss of biodiversity by ensuring:
- Priorities and targets for biodiversity at international, national, regional and local level are respected, and a positive contribution to achieving them is made.
- Damage is avoided to unique, endemic, threatened or declining species, habitats and ecosystems; to species of high cultural value to society, and to ecosystems providing important services.
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