Environmental Impact Assessment - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 69

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Environmental Impact
Assessment

Protection Before Exploitation

Environmental assessment is a planning, decision-making, and management process
spanning the entire life-cycle of a mining project. The Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) study is only one part of the process, usually applied in the
feasibility and design stage, or sometimes even in the conceptual stage of mine
development. The aim of an EIA is to ensure that potentially adverse environmental
impacts are foreseen and addressed at an early stage in the planning cycle so as
to pre-empt negative environmental or social issues during mine construction
and operation. An equally important aim is to ensure that consequent project
opportunities are maximized and project benefi ts are justly distributed. In brief, the
EIA aims to eliminate the negative and to accentuate the positive project impacts.

The success of environmental assessment depends on the implementation of agreed-upon
environmental and social mitigation measures during mine construction and operation.
A lack of continuity between the EIA study and subsequent environmental management
practices at the mine operation reduces the environmental impact assessment to a mere per-
mitting exercise designed to obtain regulatory project clearance and/or project i nancing.
The following chapter illustrates how environmental assessment integrates with the
mine life-cycle, and then outlines the purpose and nature of an EIA and its implementa-
tion. These topics are dealt with briel y since there are numerous texts on EIA available
for those requiring in-depth information. As interest in impact assessment has grown,
the volume of impact assessment guidelines has increased. Most OECD countries, and a
growing number of developing countries, have prepared guidelines for assessing project
and development impacts. In addition, as impact assessment processes have evolved and
become increasingly complex, the number of agencies involved in impact assessment
within countries has increased, with many of these producing their own guidelines.
Almost all bilateral, multilateral, and United Nations agencies have also prepared inter-
nal guidelines applicable when they become stakeholders, or providing reference points

The EIA aims to eliminate the
negative and to accentuate the
positive project impacts.