Too many environmental impact statements (EIAs) are failing to stop environmental calamaties. Here’s what we need to do.
A tsunami of development projects is sweeping across the planet. It’s in the form of new roads, dams, mines, housing estates, and other infrastructure projects. The governments enabling these projects tell us not to worry: although the details vary from country to country, nearly all sizable projects must undergo an environmental impact assessment (EIA) to ensure no lasting harm.
But the sad fact is, those assessments are increasingly not worth the paper they’re printed on.
EIAs just don’t work
The EIA is the frontline of environmental protection in most countries. It’s a legal requirement placed on a developer to measure the impact on nature of their proposed development. If that impact includes anything the government has pledged to protect, such as a threatened species, then the development may be halted or redesigned to avoid the impact.
Or that’s the idea, anyway. The only problem is that the EIAs are rarely stopping bad projects. All around the world we see a growing catalog of cases where EIAs are giving green lights to developments that should never see the light of day — projects that are destroying irreplaceable habitat or threatening the last representatives of endangered species. For example:
One EIA gave the thumbs-up on a housing project being carved out of Panama’s tropical forest because it reported only 12 common bird species present in the area. But a bird expert did his own survey of the same area and and identified 121 bird species — including several rare and threatened species.
Another EIA for a 900-kilometer (500-mile) highway slicing through the heart of Brazil’s Amazonian rainforest concluded that the project would cause no net increase in deforestation. Yet independent analyses suggest that by 2050 this project will provoke additional forest losses of up to 39 million hectares (96 million acres) — an area larger than Japan.
The approval of a hydropower project in North Sumatra was based on an EIA that was so utterly rife with inaccuracies and misrepresentations that 24 other scientists from around the world and I wrote directly to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, decrying its blatant distortions. Today, this project is bulldozing ahead, cutting across the scarce remaining habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan — the rarest great ape species in the world.
Designed for Failure
Why aren’t EIAs doing their job? Here are four big reasons:
Inadequate Investment.
Rigorous assessment takes time, effort and resources. For example, detecting threatened species— one of the main things EIAs are supposed to do — is technically challenging and expensive. Limiting EIAs to “quick and dirty” assessments saves money and also helps avoid detecting rare species that might block the development.
Insufficient Scope.
The impacts of any development are rarely confined to its planned footprint. Large mining projects in the Amazon, for example, have caused sharply increased deforestation up to 70 kilometers (43 miles) outside of mine sites. This is because the mines require new forest roads and those, in turn, promote illegal land encroachment and forest loss. Similarly, few EIAs in Malaysia consider the chronic increases in poaching, habitat fragmentation and other human pressures that occur when a new road slices into a forest. And in the Amazon, roads create broad “deforestation halos” — with 95 percent of all deforestation occurring within 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) of a legal or illegal road. In yet another example, EIAs for large dams in Brazilian Amazonia have consistently underestimated the size of the area that will drown under reservoirs — by 65 percent, on average.
Vested Interests.
Why don’t EIA assessors simply try harder, do the job properly, and extend their assessment to incorporate all impacts related to the development? In short, vested interests. Most governments require the developer to fund the EIA. And the last thing the developer wants is an EIA that stops it dead in its tracks. Assessors (mostly private consultants) who conduct stringent EIAs may be blacklisted by other developers in the future.
On occasion, one even sees EIA consultants defending and promoting the project in public — which is like the judge in a murder trial testifying for the defense. In northern Queensland, for example, experts were stunned last year to see an EIA consultant publicly defending a major resort development, known as KUR-World, that he was being paid to be objectively assessing.
Poor Governance.
How do developers get away with such poor outcomes? The answer is inadequate governance. Governments responsible for ensuring the integrity of the EIA process are failing to ensure it actually happens at the level required. Governments have vested interests, too. Development is usually equated with economic growth and jobs, and politicians can turn these benefits into votes. Add to that bribery and corruption, which is rife in many developing countries, and it’s easy to see how developers often gain an unhealthy hold over political and governance processes, including the EIA.
Prepare for the Tsunami
In the coming years our planet will see incredible development pressure, including 25 million kilometers of new paved roads and over 3,700 major hydropower projects.
Assessing such impacts in a way that prevents or greatly limits their environmental impacts is technically doable; the science is available. A greater challenge, however, is demanding appropriate transparency, accountability, and compliance around our assessment efforts. Without those ingredients, we are hopelessly unprepared for the development tsunami.
Eight things to do!
Here are eight things we can do to help:
- Demand EIAs be made freely available online, and that anyone be allowed to comment on them. Governments often allow only local residents to comment on EIAs, but many projects have regional or global effects. Limiting comments also excludes top international experts, such as hydro dam or mining specialists, from providing critical advice.
- Expect bribery in big projects. Many projects that should never be approved get the thumbs up because key decision-makers have been secretly paid off by the project proponent or land developers.
- Insist the public be allowed to comment on projects early in the approvals process, before a project gains momentum. Many developers try to ram projects rapidly through the approvals process – and by the time the public is allowed to raise concerns, the project is virtually a fait accompli.
- Call out EIAs that recommend approving projects with only minor “tweaks” that make the project seem palatable but are actually superficial and minimally effective. Fish ladders around big dams, and underpasses beneath highways, are examples of expensive measures that have only small benefits for sensitive wildlife.
- Say “no” far more often. Many proposed projects are simply a bad idea — with spates of serious environmental, economic, social and financial risks — and should be canceled altogether. Saying ‘yes’ to bad investments was how the Global Financial Crisis happened.
- Few things are more powerful than citizens who are livid and determined to stop a bad project.Watch the government closely. Just because an EIA recommends certain mitigation measures doesn’t mean the developer will be compelled to do them. Government agencies that oversee development are overwhelmed and sometimes compromised by big money behind projects. Governments do better when they are scrutinized.
- Support groups trying to fight ill-advised projects. Environmental and public-interest groups are often overwhelmed and in dire need of financial help and volunteers.
- Get involved and get organized. Few things are more powerful than citizens who are livid and determined to stop a bad project. Make up placards and get grandma and the kids involved in a public protest. Nobody will defend your own backyard better than you will.
The Bottom line
Don’t trust EIAs. A few EIAs are strong and some are mediocre. But far too many are just boilerplate documents that fall apart on close inspection. Expect EIAs to be full of holes, take a close look and be ready to campaign hard to ensure they truly protect our environment.
Editor’s note: Portions of this essay appeared previously at ALERT. The views expressed here are those of the authors and not necessarily of Ensia. We present them to further discussion around important topics. We encourage you to respond with a comment below, following our commenting guidelines, which can be found here. In addition, you might consider submitting a Voices piece of your own. See Ensia’s “Contact” page for submission guidelines.
This article was published by Ensia on 6 December 2018 and is republished in accordance Creative Commons’ Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.
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12 Comments
To Brian,
The issues you and perhaps previous respondents have raised could reframe a review very different to the Hawke Review of the EPBC Act and to EIA Textbooks . The RFGM initiatives have a basis for reinstatement The Strategic Environmental Assessment for SEQ from DSDMIP has limited draft Terms of Reference and little circulation of the list of future “stakeholders “or the due process, or an agreement with the Federal Government to date . The timing, threats and the purposes of the SEA pushed by thedevelopment industry are not wholesome in a deteriorating planning hierarchy with 1980s outcomes, w ithout 3 SEQRegional Plan Consultation Reports and without Climate Change Instruments. Some of the liabilities of the SEA in 2 depleted public services include 1. a Qld State Of Environment Report 2016 without an apparent accessible South East Queensland Chapter or data base, 2. A draft Biodiversity Planning Assessment for the SEQ Bioregion 2016 with Recommendations on State Values for plants,animals, and Invertebrates ignored. 3 Other International Biodiversity DataBases, Biosphere Reserves and National Reserve System Nominations (and their data)pigeonholed and ignored(2013). 4. A critical Qld Auditor Generals Report2018 of the Department of Environment and Science which amazingly missed Koalas, Land clearing , the Taxonomy, Invertebrates and another dozen Benchmark Items . 5 The Report by EHP (DES) made to DSDMIP for the SEQ Regional Plan ,’ The Draft Biodiversity Conservation Prioritisation Framework 2016′,lost a wealth of data which did not make it to the SEQ Regional Plan and about a dozen important ecosystem and other mapping layers missing. 6 The SEA has to logically undertake monitoring of Threatened and Common Species and Invertebrates as DES has little recent monitoring (besides wildnet) of; . these species, Biodiversity, Endemism , Food Webs and Invertebrates.7. The Biodiversity and Endemism Report is not there and should be there. IE McPherson Macleay Overlap 1969/, RFA Biodiversity & Old Growth Mapping1998, Three Environmental data bases of the greater Sunshine Coast Councils circa 2000 vaporised in Amalgamations, East Coast Forests of Australia and Anhat CSIRO Mapping Williams et al,2011.
Contemporary losses of Birds has been raised by Academics and locally but the gliders ,small mammals, frogs and Invertebrates appear to be in worse situations only documented by SLATS land clearing and RSPCA record native animal admissions(24,000). 8 The EPBC Act is seen as a trojan horse in most quarters , and is a tick and flick process which should not be granted for C/W approval delegations to the Qld Government for a one stop shop with Russ Hinze type outcomes (Planning Acts , PDAs, SARA , DSDMIP). Other fundamental work on the landclearing, fragmentation , biodiversity and mapping is needed before being trampled by Climate Change programs. The budget of $5M or more? is not enough. Perhaps a substitute of more peculiar modelling and dubious elicitation for an unacceptable desktop study is proposed? Biodiversity protection is not done well in Qld and we have the best and most of it here and it is being unsustainably terraformed logged and chipped.The wedge case against the SEA starts now.
Other EIA issues raised and deterioration of planning,governance and consultation do need discussion and strategising .
Hi Olivia
I wonder if the Strategic Environmental Assessment for SEQ (under the EPBC Act I think) is shutting the door after the horse has bolted. I’d say there should have been much better assessment of potential environmental impacts BEFORE the ShapingSEQ regional plan was produced.
In the EU, it is mandatory that plans have to be assessed for potential environmental impacts during preparation http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eia/sea-legalcontext.htm. This includes consideration of alternatives. Something like this was attempted for the Regional Framework for Growth Management for SEQ in the early 1990s
I’d say the urgent need is to systematically incorporate strategic environmental assessments of this kind into land use/development plans like ShapingSEQ. At the moment, these types of assessments are haphazardly used during plan preparation and not in a transparent way. The EU SEA process requires consideration of alternatives and justification of the preferred alternative out in the open for all to see.
Brian
The SLATS Land clearing Reports for 2016-2018 have been published in short and spread sheet forms, but do not relate adequately to Environmental Assessment (or EISs)in Queensland and SEQ. The overall clearing has jumped to 392,000 ha with Ipswich clearing for 2016-2017 peaking at 298 ha for Urban and Infrastructure and Logan at 299ha for 2017-2018. These include Priority Development Areas like Toondah Harbour as well as missing or arguably deficient EISs.
While greater Sunshine Coast Roading, clearing, fragmentation and core area loss is only 161 ha the loss of Biodiversity and Endemism is reflected in several other measures.
A. Total Native Animal Admissions to RSPCA is a record 24 ,000 animals
B. Appalling lack of Koala Surveys ,and profusion of assembly line abysmal EISs in SCRC
C. Loss of nearly the full spectrum of Ecosystems
D. Record number of DAs lodged and approved in Sunshine Coast Regional Council. See accumulative Development Approval Map on Planning on line.
E No invertebrate surveys are ever done on freehold including CSIRO
Some of the larger EISs indicate “no detailed Fauna Survey was undertaken”
Similar EISs attack the veracity of Vegetation Mapping at 3 levels of Government without due process of map changes.
These lead to tick and flick approvals, because of the lack of OC and ERE referrals by despicable rules of SARA to DES (nil)and to the EPBC Act for federally protected species and Ecosystems. The Land Clearing of the Urban Footprint and environs (and Regional Biodiversity Values) is unsustainable,facilitated by the SEQ Regional Plan and arguably the worst EISs and approvals ever seen.
Toni, I agree that there would still be some risks but it would be a big improvement on what happens now.
I found this paper, which is along the same lines https://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/EIS.html
….and this is the process Mayor Williams and Andrew Laming have told us to have faith in so that the science and experts can decide the fate of Toondah!
We have already seen the science and the experts decided that the EPBC referral by Walkers would have unacceptable impacts on the site’s Ramsar values and threatened shorebirds. But the Minister decided to ignore his expert advice because of lobbying by the Queensland Government AND Redland City Council. So why didn’t these organisations put their faith in science and the experts?
Clearly, the Council needs to explain its attempt to interfere in the process….ratepayers should be told and importantly were all Councillors involved in the decision to go behind the backs of the community and lobby the Minister?
What a tangled mess of claim and counter claim…Frydenberg’s revelations to the ABC are just icing on the cake. It is time for an inquiry!
It’s a fact of life that people tend to favour financial self interest. This a major theme in Cameron Murray’s book Game of Mates.
The practical solution is to change the incentives so that there’s less advantage for doing the wrong thing. For EIAs, I’d say part of the answer is to have the assessment manager hire and manage the consultant as I wrote in my earlier comment
Brian, I question whether I would feel comfortable with Assessment Managers choosing a consultant. So many substandard developments are being approved now by some Council officers, it may only mean moving the goal posts from developers paying consultants to get the RIGHT outcome to paying Assessment Managers to pick the consultant to get the RIGHT outcome. Some developers never lose, always get the answer they want.
Vested Interests. a few good examples I have witnessed in local Government. A developer employs a consultant to do an EIS, the consultant ex Council officer who still has many friends in the Council especially in the DA department. The consultant talks up the value of the development, recommends a whole range of positive conditions including replanting thousands of trees after clearing old growth forests, installing tunnels under the road for wildlife crossings, no dog and cat clause. The application comes to Council, yahooo what a great developer, the community appeals the approval and negotiation takes place but the community does not have the same money to defend the appeal. The developer is cashed up has top solicitor and the environmental conditions are removed. Some token conditions remain but Council makes no effort to make the developer comply?
A consultant that does many developer EIS reports tells me that if he wants more work from developers he has to do what the company who pay him want and expect. So consultants usually have a degree in environmental science but sell their soul and I reckon a Grade 3 student could do the same, these consultants could just accept what they are given by the developer and put it on the consultants letterhead.
We already see evidence of money being donated to political parties from a range of developers so why stop with politicians, there are many in the food chain who have sold their souls as the developers say all the money spend to get the expected outcome is factored into the price of the product they sell. Bottom line and its all about money
Have a view at EISs on EPBC Website and Sunshine Coast Regional Council . How come these academics have not told the Australian Stories? If protected species and areas are not referred to the Feds and not referred by SARA (DSDMIP) to Department of Environment and Science ( Planning ,Qld Herbarium, Threatened Species, Biodiversity Unit , koala Unit , Wetland Unit and Qld Museum) what chance does Biodiversity and Endemism have in the East Coast Forests of Australia Williams et al (2011)? EISs are a trojan horse to get approvals, get CODE approvals, & get unsustainable offsets
Very important post. Thank you.
‘Assessors (mostly private consultants) who conduct stringent EIAs may be blacklisted by other developers in the future.’
This is a very important point. One way to reduce the conflict of interest for consultants (and get more objective EIAs) would be to have the developer fund the EIA but have the EIA carried out under the direction of the assessment manager (council or state/federal government). I’ve been told this is the practice in many other countries. The consultant would be chosen by the assessment manager from a suitably qualified panel of consultants. This would not completely eliminate the conflict of interest as the consultants would be looking for other work from developers in the future and wouldn’t want to be seen as too ‘green.’
There would be additional workload for the assessment manager but some of this oversight role could be outsourced if the assessment manager has sufficient expertise to control the process.
There is also an issue with the scope of the specialist reports eg groundwater. Too often, these reports start with disclaimers stating that the report is based on a particular data set and that broader conclusions cannot necessarily be drawn about the possible impacts (see Impact assessments for the LNG projects). This backside covering is common.
How refreshing to read an honest assessment of EIAs. As a professional ecologist who has been involved in writing some EIAs as well as assessing many more, I agree wholeheartedly with the points made by the authors.
To improve the quality and reliabiility of EIAs, I believe that EIAs should also be reassessed after a project has been competed at different time intervals to determine how accurate were the predictions made by person(s) who wrote the EIA. This quality control measure would enable a record of the accuracy and relibility of the work of the various people, groups etc who do EIAs could be maintained. From those assessments we would know which people and or groups provided the most accurate and reliable EIAs and which ones provided the shonky EIAs.
Such a quality control process would also enable ecologists, engineers et al. to improve their assessments through the feedback from the findings. This would be a major advance in improving the quality of EIAs and avoiding the problems that we currently have with poor quality EIAs that we currently experience.
Who would assess the EIAs to check the accuracy of the predicitions made in the original EIA? There are many professional ecologists, engineers, hydrologists etc who would be able to do the assessment. The next question is how would the work be funded? This could be included in the cost of the project. It would add a few hundred thousand to multimillion dollar projects
and therefore feasible.
As long as we do not have such a quality control of EIAs in place we lose valuable information that would increase our understanding of the complex processes that affect the ecosystems being impacted by our development projects.
Surely the idea of our development projects are to provide infrastructure that are ecologically sustainable and also benefit the human community? Unfortunately, most of our current projects have not been developed with that sort of thinking behind them. A little more thought could make some of the projects beneficial to all of the stakeholders, We humans have to remember we are part of the environment and not separate from it.