UNECE Environmental Performance Reviews

Transcription

welcome again today we continue to stay on track towards the completion of the IB Environmental systems and societies syllabus topic two point seven point three describe and evaluate the use of environmental impact assessments pristine climax forest nestled in the mountains a developing society needing a source of energy the question should a rich coal deposit in these hills be exploited at the expense of the rich and diverse climax forest do you think that it's worth clearing some of the forest to develop and what are some reasons for your perspective the government of this area however subscribes to this principle sustainable development development to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs the classic balancing act between having some development and having some environmental protection though it is with sustainable development as the goal that we have EIA environmental impact assessment an EIA is a method of detailed survey required in many countries before a major development ideally it should be independent of but paid for by the developer such as survey should include a baseline study a measure of environmental conditions before development commences and to identify areas and species of conservation importance the report produced like the one below is known environmental impact assessment or sometimes as an environmental impact or an EIS the monitoring of this should continue for some time after the development and as you can see here an EIA is a very extensive document sometimes taking over two years to prepare or sometimes being prepared hastily after the developments already begun it depends on the conditions and the levels of transparency and integrity within each administration but in general an EIA is a comprehensive document prepared by a team of experts so back to our question should we exploit this pristine climax forest the administration that runs this region have decided to focus on sustainable development they have decided to conduct an environmental impact assessment it's not that EIA is required for every project but if a project meets certain criteria it's necessary to investigate the environmental impacts in a bit more detail and suggest alternatives and to examine ways of preventing as much as possible the impacts while allowing the project to proceed or perhaps not even a lot of the project to proceed this initial phase of looking at what the project entails the scale of it and deciding whether or not a full environmental impact assessment is required it's what we call screening where the laws of the country will decide what scale project requires a full environmental impact assessment in most countries with EIA a project of the scale shown here in this map with these two peaks representing our mountains and all of this area here the pristine climax forest and a railway line for connecting town a to town b where you will have coal mining a project of this scale is likely to qualify for full environmental impact assessment and what follows from this is a phase of the process referred to as scoping a very relevant phase for the environmental systems and societies student because it involves a coming together of stakeholders from all areas to identify the issues and as you can see here this involves a range of groups that have to come together to share their expertise and their ideas as we focus in on some of the special areas of concern the scoping this followed by a collection of the baseline data where is the environment right now? and where has it been going for the last few years what are some trends? and now that the project is being proposed what are some likely changes or impacts with option a maybe or with option b_ or with option c what would be the business as usual or the trend assuming that no project is allowed this point of predicting what would happen in the future requires another kind of input but it's very important to document where things are before we look at predicting where things might go in the future this process of documenting the current state of the environment the pre development state of the environment is referred to as the baseline data collection following this through expert input of all kinds impacts are predicted possible alternatives are discussed and ways to reduce the impact are considered what then are some tools available for the prediction off the impact of this railway line from a to b for the purpose of exploiting coal in this pristine forest its first necessary to document the current state of the environment and perhaps this state has already been documented perhaps we already have some data of (about) the kind of trees and the diversity and the populations of different species that live in this area and perhaps if there are any man made things like gas lines and utility lines running through this area underground if there is a river running through the area and documenting and bringing together information on the present state of the environment is what we call that baseline data collection in years gone by it was necessary to overlay several maps from different sources to bring together a composite picture of the environment but in the modern age of computer technology information from different sources about a particular area can all be lumped together in what we term the geographic information system the g_i_s_ and this is a bringing together a composite of everything that we know about an area so that environmental managers can quickly document the information that's already there and available about the area added to this of course is the power of satellite imagery which can give us high quality resolution images of all areas of the earth this however does not mean that we would not go out into the field and actually verify some of this for (because) ground verification is always good way to go and then of course there is the need to include expert knowledge and knowledged of similar projects that had EIA's completed (and) were audited or reflected upon to see what actual impacts did happen versus what impacts for predicted (birds chirping) if we proceed with the project and we decided to allow our railway line to go through the pristine climax forest then we need to get onto the field and collect some baseline data so what tools have we considered so far in our course that we might (can) use to help us collect some information on the diversity of of the plants and animals in this area perhaps we might need to do a count of the number of bird species and the number of nests that are going to be disrupted throughout the length of the railway line the number of trees that would (will) have to be cut down the species of these tees what other kinds of wildlife would be affected and how what would be the level of noise in the area so there are a whole range of impacts to be considered some which may involve social issues and not just issues of endangered species and wildlife some which may involve engineering issues and with all of these issues in mind we decide whether or not the project should go forward and if and when the project does proceed then we need to monitor and monitoring should happen once approval is given it should continue throughout the project for there are certain mitigation measures that might have been proposed in the EIA and it's important for some independent regulatory body to visit the construction site to ensure that what might be written in the EIA report is actually carried out in reality for instance if there are certain special hours for the construction to proceed and special periods of the year designated for construction to proceed then it's important that some regulatory body visits the construction company to insure that what was proposed in the EIA report is translated into reality in the actual construction (sound of a train coming) finally the railway is complete and now monitoring must continue monitoring is very important now because all of the experts and all of the input and all of the effort that went into making a prediction now's the time for us to be actually test and to collect data to decide whether or not our predictions held true for we can go out into the field over the next five years ten years as the coal mine is explored firsthand information on what was the environmental impact of building ths railway line to exploit coal carrying out a post development audit a very very important part of the EIA because it is the part where we actually learn something at the very end something that could be used in other EIA's for the data that we collect in the post development audit to make any sense it's just as important for the baseline data to have been collected so we would have a knowledge of what was there pre project so that if there's a change post project we would be able to tell what the impact was documented here for you all of the phases of the EIA process it's important to note that not every project requires an EIA evaluate the use of environmental impact assessments ecocentrists reject EIA as corrupt and designed to gloss over abuse of the environment technocentrists see EIA as a waste of resources and they point to the use of advanced technologies to address all possible issues arising out of a project from pollution to species loss imagine that you are an environmental manager in charge of the public meeting the scoping phase of an EIA i want you to identify some points that you would highlight to address both the ecocentrist and technocentrist concerns