Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management

This article deals with the challenge of approaching decision-making processes through strategic environmental assessment (SEA). It is argued that the interaction between policy-making and planning in strategic decision-making processes is a neglected reason for problems with applying SEA, as legislation and guidance on SEA primarily approach either the policy or plan level. To substantiate the argument, the extent of interaction is empirically investigated. Four contemporary decision-making processes in the Danish energy sector are mapped as a series of choices. Fundamental changes with considerable environmental impacts are decided these years, often without preceding SEA processes. The mapping shows a profound interaction between policy-making and planning. In this interaction, public consultation, systematic environmental analyses, and transparency on alternatives are primarily related to choices of planning character. The findings lead to a discussion of the existing SEA guidance that is challenged in terms of adequacy of the guidance to approach the interaction.

This paper establishes best practices for community-based environmental assessment (CBEA) in Kenya and Tanzania and examines what participants in community-centered approaches to environmental assessment have learned. Three CBEA cases involving water supply projects were studied using interview methods and action research. Findings show that best practices for encouraging meaningful community involvement include providing access and adequate notice to participants, fairer cost sharing, broader representation of women and youth, participant understanding of the CBEA facilitator and culturally appropriate sharing of findings. Learning outcomes attributable to the CBEA process included technical skills for erosion control, new information about environmental assessment (EA) regulations and shared values of environmental sustainability and community unity. An application of selected best practice approaches in a test case, in order to encourage greater participation and learning, had mixed success. For example, attempts at providing early notice still resulted in it being far too late for most participants and only about one-third of the participants were women. However, a pictograph functioned as an effective tool for reporting CBEA results to the community and demonstrating learning outcomes.

This article presents results from research into the perspectives on environmental assessments of Canadian indigenous peoples, in particular British Columbia's West Moberly First Nations, the Halfway River First Nation, and the Treaty 8 Tribal Association. This collaborative project interviewed First Nation government officials and staff as well as community members to determine their analyses of what worked and, more significantly, what did not work in engaging and consulting indigenous people. This research identified significant failings in Canadian and British Columbia environmental assessment processes, including substantive procedural failures, relational failures between First Nation, provincial and federal governments, and fundamental philosophical differences between assessment processes and indigenous worldviews. Based upon their review of environmental assessment failings, the collaborating First Nations recommend a fundamental revision of environmental assessment processes so as to protect into the future their Treaty and Aboriginal rights and to ensure their survival as distinct and viable cultures upon the land.

Community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) is increasingly perceived as a bottom-up alternative approach to the traditional top-down rational model of local environmental conservation planning. Although many studies have discussed the effectiveness of these two models in environmental planning, little research has been done to empirically determine the influence of these two principles on local environmental conservation planning. This study analyses 54 cities' local environmental conservation plans to quantitatively measure the conceptual plan components, then uses regression models to detect the factors influencing local environmental conservation plan quality. Descriptive results indicate that local plans have a relatively low awareness of strategic-level conservation items, a medium level of analysis for regional conservation items, and a high level of community-based conservation efforts. Regression results further highlight that the governance capacity has significant influence on local environmental conservation plan quality; however, the community-based participation capacity was not statistically significant.

The aim of this paper is to explore regional variation in the implementation of Environmental Impact Assessment follow-up in India and to identify causes of such variations. In doing so, forty-three semi-structured interviews were carried out across the Indian mining and environment sector. The findings from the interviews confirm that regional variation in follow-up implementation is a result of social, environmental, economical and political factors. To further explore these factors, three case studies of open cast coal mining were conducted. The findings of the case studies offer insight as to how the factors identified during the interviews influence follow-up outcomes. Furthermore, it reflects how the nature of such variation is not always true to what is perceived about them. Subsequently, the findings from the interviews and case studies help in contributing to the existing best practice of EIA follow-up and developing recommendations for achieving better follow-up outcomes in India.

The World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) use an instrument called country environmental analysis (CEA) to help identify a client country's key environment-development issues and their likely relevance to future lending and technical assistance. This research examines the issue of climate change in the context of international development and then reviews existing practice on addressing climate change in World Bank and ADB CEAs between 2003 and 2009. It shows much greater attention over time to projected climate change impacts and climate change in relation to particular sectors. There is an overall upward trend toward increasing attention to climate change in other aspects as well. Based on review of CEA documents, resulting baseline data, and relevant literature, climate change review categories and guiding principles are proposed as a basis for the possible development of guidance materials and toward more systematic incorporation of the issue of climate change in future CEAs.

This paper discusses high-level environmental policy objectives under the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), and their relation to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). It reviews the need for SEA in Antarctica; discusses existing ATS strategic processes and the impediments to achieving the high-level environmental policy objectives agreed within the ATS, and suggests ways to improve strategic consideration of environmental issues. Whilst the concept of a strategic approach is already accepted in principle within the ATS, there remain difficulties in realising this. These include, inter alia, limitations in the established processes addressing environmental issues (particularly cumulative impacts), and ongoing tensions between the nominally agreed international objectives and national interests (including issues around unresolved territorial sovereignty claims) in practice. The article contends that given growing pressures on the Antarctic environment, high-level environmental policy objectives cannot be achieved through accumulated reactive ad hoc measures, or by industry self-regulation, but requires a systematic approach to strategic environmental considerations.