Identifying and Evaluating Impacts - Mining and the Environment: From Ore to Metal - page 443

Regulatory Instruments to Foster Objectivity

To balance potential bias in environmental assessment, regulators have introduced various
instruments in the environmental assessment process, such as mandatory public consulta-
tion, governmental review, or independent third party review. Public consultation is gen-
erally accepted as the best instrument to objectively collect feedback from project-affected
communities. In many jurisdictions, public consultation takes the form of public hearings,
a prerequisite to obtaining environmental clearance. A public hearing provides a forum
where community members and concerned groups come face to face with the project
proponent and government authorities to voice their suggestions and concerns. A public
hearing allows participation in environmental decision-making. Effective public hearings
require efforts from all participants. The project proponent has to provide sufi cient project
information in time to prepare for the hearing. A strong moderator is necessary to allow the
opportunity for all participants to express their view-points. Unfortunately, public hearings
are easily disrupted by the presence of trouble-makers opposed to the project, who may seek
to dominate proceedings to limit the opportunities for presenting other view-points. It is
important that a public hearing be organized and conducted in accordance with local cus-
tom, which will usually effectively limit the damage that can be done by trouble-makers.
A common concern among project opponents is that the time periods available for them
to review documents and appeal decisions, are too tight to effectively enable public par-
ticipation. Similarly, there is a sense that few grassroots community groups have sufi cient
expertise and i nancial resources to effectively participate in the process, such as by hiring
their own independent consultants.
Often as mentioned above, the spirit and intention of public hearings is sabotaged by
advocacy groups who see public hearings as an opportunity to project their own general
view-points on a particular subject, controlling the hearing and distracting from project-
specii c environmental issues.
Government review committees serve as another instrument to ensure objectivity. Dep-
ending on the jurisdiction, the committee is composed of different government depart-
ment representatives, scientii c experts, community members, and/or other relevant
parties assembled based on having the collective knowledge and experience to provide an
informed review of all the signii cant issues. The i ndings of the environmental impact
assessment are presented to and scrutinized by the review committee. Such committees
operate successfully in jurisdictions as disparate as the Australian State of Victoria, and the
Kingdom of Thailand. In countries with a long mining history EIA review committees
not only have the authority but also the experience to review a proposed mining project
competently. This cannot always be said for developing countries, where it cannot always
be taken for granted that the review committee has a full appreciation of the environmental
issues involved in a particular project. Recognizing this fact, some jurisdictions such as the
national government of Papua New Guinea retain foreign experts to assist in the review
process.
Independent review by i nancial institutions, while not a regulatory requirement, is often
helpful in ensuring the objectivity of the i nal outcome of environmental assessment. It
is said that about 80 percent of all project i nancing is by banks that have adopted good
industry practices (The Equator Principles) in their environmental covenants. Banks
investing in mining projects often appoint recognized experts to provide an independent
expert opinion on the environmental assessment efforts. If past efforts fall short of expecta-
tion - that is if signii cant gaps exist between the existing EIA and requirements based on
The Equator Principles - i nancial institutions will ask for additional studies or mitigation
commitments, prior to committing funding to the project.

Public consultation is generally
accepted as the best instrument
to objectively collect feedback
from project-affected
communities.

In countries with a long mining
history EIA review committees
not only have the authority but
also the experience to review
a proposed mining project
competently.