Narrow Results

Although hydropower companies and governments have promoted monetary-based Benefit-Sharing Mechanisms alone as a vector of local development for flooded municipalities, it is not possible to identify this evidence in the scientific literature. The present work investigates the quantitative influence of Financial Compensation on Human Development Indexes (HDI) in flooded municipalities over 2000–2010. The econometric analysis shows that there are no statistically significant results related to the quantities of Financial Compensation and the development variables. The findings reinforce that Financial Compensation itself could not be considered the only input to improve development processes. Management frameworks should be considered since they can provide a broader view of the affected areas, including elements such as participatory processes, adaptation management, formal and legal guidelines and stakeholder engagement. Specially in the Brazilian case, the Impact Assessment procedures and their products could provide detailed data and criteria to municipalities to manage the inflow resources.

The use of environmental impact assessment (EIA) to address the environmental and social impacts of mining is common. At Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea, and Century mine in northern Australia, EIA failed to protect the biophysical and social environment of the mines. A detailed historical analysis was conducted to determine the chronology of the development of these projects, all internal and external decision making, and the reasons for this failure. This analysis showed that EIA was poorly timed and poorly integrated with the early phases of the mine developments. Environmental assessment expenditure and activity were concentrated in the development phase of the project and could not address impacts resulting from the earlier exploration and evaluation phases. Approval processes, such as permits and licences, that did occur in the early phases of the life of the mines, had very limited components of environmental appraisal or control. The primacy of development schedules, and the lack of communication between actors in the development of these large-scale projects, prohibited effective assessment and produced EIAs that were in many ways unrelated to the real environmental information needs of the project. In such large-scale projects it is essential to link EIA (and other approval/appraisal hoops) to environmental issues and decisions which occur throughout the continuum of mine development.