ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Environmental Impact Assessment can be described as a tool
that was developed to provide information to decision-makers on the impact that
a proposed project or development would have on the natural environment. The
aim of the tool is to provide the necessary information to decision-makers so
that they can make more informed decisions about whether to proceed with the
project or development. The decision to proceed depends on the sustainability
of the project in the context that it is located in; in other words, would the
proposed project or development be sustainable to the natural and biophysical
environment? Would it cause damage that is of an irreversible nature to the
environment? How are the community and people of the surrounding areas affected
by the proposed project or development? Does the proposed project or
development promote the social, natural and economic spheres of sustainable
development?
Environmental Impact Assessment is the primary, proactive decision-making
process available for the environmental assessment and management of individual
developments. Environmental Impact Assessment is used to identify, predict and
assess the impacts associated with individual development projects before implementation,
in other words, it is used early in the design phase before project
construction and operation. Effective Environmental Impact Assessment focuses
on addressing both the negative and positive impacts likely to arise from a
proposed development and it identifies mitigation measures to enhance the
positive and to avoid, minimize, rehabilitate or compensate for the negative
impacts. Positive impacts could include increased taxes and revenue for
government; increased employment and training opportunities for local
residents; or provision of improved infrastructure such as a new wharf, bridge
or road. Negative impacts might include the production of liquid waste and
pollution of local waterways; vegetation clearing and destruction of natural
habitat and loss of native species; increased traffic volume and congestion on
local roads; drawdown of local water supplies, threatening water security; and
increased dust and noise, affecting the health and amenity of local residents.
Environmental Impact Assessment is also an increasingly important
tool for examining the potential impacts of the environment on development
projects, including impacts arising from climate change, climate variability
and disasters, and for identifying appropriate adaptation or risk reduction
measures to avoid or mitigate these impacts.
The Environmental Impact
Assessment process, therefore, is applied in two ways, to assess and address:
(1) a development’s impacts on the environment; and (2) the environment’s
impacts on a development.
Two important outcomes of the Environmental Impact Assessment process
are: (1) the selection of an optimal development site and/or operational
design; and (2) the preparation and implementation of an environmental
management plan (EMP) that includes mitigation measures for addressing the
identified, potential impacts; which stipulates environmental performance
standards the proponent is expected to meet; and which establishes a framework
for measuring, monitoring and reporting on environmental performance over the
lifetime of a development, to promote the achievement of good environmental
outcomes.
FEATURES ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT
SYSTEM
The
principal legislation is Decree 86 of 1992 which made Environmental Impact
Assessment mandatory for both public and private sectors for all development
projects. It has three goals and thirteen principles for how these are to be
achieved. The goals are:
•
Before any person or authority takes a
decision to undertake or authorize the undertaking of any activity that may
likely or significantly affect the environment, prior consideration of its environmental
effects should first be taken.
•
To promote the implementation of
appropriate procedures to realize the above goal.
•
To seek the encouragement of the development
of reciprocal procedures for notification, information exchange and
consultation in activities likely to have significant trans-state (boundary) environmental
effects.
PROCESS AND PROCEDURAL FRAMEWORK
The
Environmental Impact Assessment process is the various stages a project
undergoes from proposal to approval for implementation, resulting in the
issuing of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and certificate.
The
National Procedural Guidelines show practical steps from project conception to
commissioning. The steps are:
Ø Project
proposal
Ø Initial
environmental examination (IEE)/preliminary assessment
Ø Screening:
The Environmental Impact Assessment process
begins from the very start of a project. Once a developer has identified a need
and assessed all the possible alternatives of project design and sites to
select a preferred alternative,
two important questions must be asked: 'What will be the effects of this
development on the environment? Are those effects significant?' If the answer
to the second question is 'yes', an Environmental Impact Assessment may be
required. Answering this question is a process known as screening and can be an essential first step into a formal Environmental
Impact Assessment. The Environmental Impact Assessment process is, it must be
stressed, iterative. This is demonstrated at this early stage of screening
where the requirement for a formal Environmental Impact Assessment and its
associated cost implications can lead the developer to reassess the project
design with a view to reducing the significant impacts to a level where an Environmental
Impact Assessment is not legally required (Nielsen et al 2005).
Ø Scoping:
Where it is decided that a formal Environmental
Impact Assessment is required, the next stage is to define the issues that need
to be addressed, that is, those impacts that have a significant effect on the
environment. This is known as scoping
and is essential for focusing the available resources on the relevant issues.
Ø Environmental Impact Assessment study: Following on from scoping, it is
essential to collect all relevant information on the current status of the
environment. This study is referred to as a baseline study as it
provides a baseline against which change due to a development can be measured.
Ø Impact Prediction:
Once the baseline study information
is available, the important task of impact prediction can begin. Impact
prediction involves forecasting the likely changes in the environment that will
occur as a result of the development.
Ø Impact assessment: The next phase involves the
assessment of the identified impacts - impact
assessment. This requires interpretation of the importance or significance of the impacts to provide
a conclusion, which can ultimately be used by decision-makers in determining
the fate of the project application.
Ø Mitigation: Frequently, the assessment of
impacts will reveal damaging effects upon the environment. These may be alleviated
by mitigation measures. Mitigation involves taking measures to
reduce or remove environmental impacts and it can be seen that the iterative
nature of the Environmental Impact Assessment process is well demonstrated
here. For example, successful design of mitigation measures could possibly
result in the removal of all significant impacts; hence a new screening
exercise would reveal that there might have been no need to carry out a formal Environmental
Impact Assessment had the mitigation measures been included from the start.
Ø Producing the environmental impact
statement: The outcome
of an Environmental Impact Assessment is usually a formal document, known as an
environmental impact statement (EIS), which sets out factual
information relating to the development, and all the information gathered
relating to screening, scoping, baseline study, impact prediction and
assessment, mitigation, and monitoring measures. It is quite common that a
requirement of an EIS is that it also produces a non-technical summary. This
is a summary of the information contained within the EIS, presented in a
concise non-technical format, for those who do not wish to read the detailed
documents. This is very important, as EISs are public documents intended to
inform the public of the nature and likely consequences of a development in
time to comment and/or participate in the final project design.
Ø EIS review: Once the Environmental Impact
Assessment is complete, the EIS is submitted to the competent authority.
This is the body with the authority to permit or refuse development
applications. The competent authorities are often in a position of having very
little time to make a decision and have a detailed and lengthy EIS to read
through which may contain errors, omissions, and developer bias. It is
essential, therefore, that they review the document. Review can take a
number of forms: it may be purely an ad hoc process whereby the document is
read and commented on by decision-makers; it can be more formalised and expert
opinion is sought; or it can be through the use of formal review methods
designed specifically for the purpose. Basically, the review process should
enable the decision-maker to decide whether the EIS is adequate (eg whether it
is legally compliant), whether the information is correct, and whether it is
unbiased. If it is, they are then in a position to use the EIS as information
to be considered in determining whether the project should receive consent.
This issue of review is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this module. The
competent authority is now in possession of the information they require about
the possible effects of the development on the environment. They will use this
information, in combination with all of the other details and representations
they have received, to help them come to a decision.
Ø Follow up: Follow up relates to the post-approval phase
of Environmental Impact Assessment and encompasses monitoring of impacts, the
continued environmental management of a project, and impact auditing. Without
any form of follow up Environmental Impact Assessment would operate as a linear
rather than an iterative process, and an important step towards achieving
environmental protection will also have been omitted.
Follow
up presents an opportunity both to control environmental effects and to learn
from the process and cause-effect relationships. Ideally, data generated by
monitoring and other aspects of follow up should be compared with the original
predictions and mitigation measures in the EIS to determine
1. the accuracy of the original
predictions
2. the degree of the deviation from the
predictions
3. the possible reasons for any
deviation
4. whether mitigation measures have
achieved their objective of reducing or eliminating impacts
Information
generated by this process can contribute to the improvement of future Environmental
Impact Assessment practice, for example, by enabling more accurate predictions
to be made.
Existing
Environmental Planning Process
Environmental
planning
is the process of facilitating decision making to carry out land development
with the consideration given to the natural environment, social, political,
economic and governance factors and provides a holistic framework to achieve
sustainable outcomes. A major goal of environmental planning is to create
sustainable communities, which aim to conserve and protect undeveloped land.
The
goal of the National Policy on the Environment is to ‘ensure environmental
protection and the conservation of natural resources for sustainable
development’.
Strategic
Objectives The strategic objective of the National
Policy on the Environment is to coordinate environmental protection and natural
resources conservation for sustainable development. This goal will be achieved
by the following strategic objectives:
i.
securing a quality of environment adequate
for good health and well being;
ii.
Promoting sustainable use of natural
resources and the restoration and maintenance of the biological diversity of
ecosystems;
iii.
Promoting an understanding of the
essential linkages between the environment, social and economic development
issues;
iv.
Encouraging individual and community
participation in environmental improvement initiatives;
v.
Raising public awareness and engendering a
national culture of environmental preservation; and
vi.
Building partnership among all
stakeholders, including government at all levels, international institutions
and governments, non-governmental agencies and communities on environmental
matters.
Guiding
Principles The following principles are central to
the attainment of the strategic objectives of this Policy:
i.
The Public Trust Doctrine, which
recognizes that the State is a trustee of all natural resources, the enjoyment
of which is subject to a measure of control necessary to protect the legitimate
interest of all sections and stakeholders in the larger framework of strategic
national interests;
ii.
Environmental Right, which
ensures that every Nigerian has a right to a clean and healthy environment and
a duty to safeguard and enhance the environment;
iii.
Environmental
Offsetting, which requires that where for exceptional reasons of
overriding public interest, the general obligation to protect threatened or
endangered species and natural systems that are of special importance to
sustaining life, providing livelihoods, or general well-being cannot be
provided, such cost-effective offsetting measures must be undertaken by the
proponents of an activity to restore as nearly as may be feasible the lost
environmental services to the community;
iv.
The Polluter Pays Principle, which
prescribes that the polluter should bear the cost of preventing, and
remediating pollution;
v.
The User Pays Principle in
which the cost of a resource to a user must include all the environmental costs
associated with its extraction, transformation and use (including the costs of
alternative or future uses forgone);
vi.
The Precautionary Principle, which
holds that where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, the lack
of full scientific knowledge shall not be used as a reason for postponing
cost-effective means to prevent environmental degradation;
vii.
The Subsidiarity Principle, which
reflects the a preference for making decisions at the lowest level of
government or social organization where the issue can be effectively managed –
decisions made at the local level are often viewed as more likely to take
account of local environmental conditions and the opinions of the local people
who often bear the highest environmental costs of development;
viii.
Pollution Prevention Pays Principle,
which encourages Industry to invest positively to prevent pollution;
ix.
The Principle of Inter-generational
Equity, which requires that the needs of the present
generation are met without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs;
x.
The Principle of Intra-generational
Equity, which requires that different groups of people
within the country and within the present generation have the right to benefit
equally from the exploitation of resources and that they have equal right to a
clean and healthy environment;
xi.
The Principle of Participation,
which requires that decisions should, as much as possible, be made by the
people or on their behalf by representatives chosen by them;
xii.
International Cooperation in
which the country will domesticate multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs)
and regional instruments and implement them cooperatively for better
environmental management of shared resources. In this regard, the country will
take cognizance of all relevant international agreement on the environment and
mainstream them in the protection of Nigeria’s environment;
xiii.
Good Environmental Governance in
which rule of law, effective institutions, transparency and accountability,
respect for human rights and the meaningful participation of citizens will be
integrated in environmental management;
xiv.
Integrated
Ecosystem Approach to conserving environmental resources is adopted and
enhanced to ensure that all the country’s ecosystems are managed for
sustainable development and benefits of the people.
CONCLUSION
Nigeria
has taken serious steps to develop effective environmental strategies by the
promulgation of the Environmental Impact Assessment Decree and all the
procedural guidelines. Yet there are too many regulators with similar and
identical responsibilities. Harmonization and clear allocation of
responsibilities has become necessary. FEPA is the apex regulator, and DPR in
reliance on regulations can not usurp the responsibility of FEPA nor the State
EPA when under our canon of legal interpretation, any Edict (law) in conflict
with the Decree (Act) to the extent of the conflict is void. Recognition of
this, and an eschewing of rivalries among the administrators, will encourage
co-operation among them. To be relevant the regulators (administrators) should
be better supported and, for effective compliance monitoring and enforcement,
stiffer sanctions and penalties should be prescribed and strictly adhered to.
This way environmental requirements will be met and maintained. Compliance
should be tied to renewal of licenses and consents and proponents should ensure
that staff are highly motivated with adequate equipment and capacity building
programs vigorously pursued not only by the administrators but also the
proponents.
