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Cares, Rocio A., Franco, Aldina M. A. 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6055-7378 and Bond, Alan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3809-5805
(2023)
Investigating the implementation of the mitigation hierarchy approach in environmental impact assessment in relation to biodiversity impacts.
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 102.
ISSN 0195-9255
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Abstract
Global loss of biodiversity has directly and indirectly been caused by human activities. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) attempts to address the loss of biodiversity caused by development projects, by avoiding, reducing or compensating the loss (in that order following the mitigation hierarchy approach). Evidence suggests that in practice the mitigation hierarchy is not always applied correctly, and that monitoring is frequently absent, or flawed, meaning that the success of the mitigation measures, and their associated biodiversity outcomes, remain unknown. However, there is no literature that has systematically examined the application of the mitigation hierarchy and assessed the effectiveness of associated monitoring in an EIA system. This study fills that gap using Chile as an example because of its high biodiversity setting, and ease of access to EIA-related data. The results indicate that the use of compensation measures exceeded what would be expected from correct implementation of the mitigation hierarchy, and that there was also some misclassification of the measures. Monitoring studies focused on inspecting implementation of mitigation measures rather than measuring biodiversity outcomes (meaning that mitigation effectiveness cannot be fully evaluated). Further, there was a focus on specific elements of ecosystems and lack of consideration for broader biodiversity implications. Thus, the findings raise some concerns over the ability of EIA to achieve its goals of zero net loss of biodiversity. We make suggestions to improve the mitigation and monitoring aspects of the EIA process in Chile and would suggest that the recommendations are likely to have wider relevance to other jurisdictions.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Acknowledgements: The first author gratefully acknowledges ANID (Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Chile) - Scholarship ID 72200153 for the support to this research. Data availability: Data will be made available on request. |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Social Sciences |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 20 Jul 2023 09:30 |
| Last Modified: | 20 Jul 2023 09:30 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/92632 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.eiar.2023.107214 |
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