Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Conference that established UNEP and led to establishment of National Environ-
mental Protection Agencies (NEnPAs) in the DCs around the world. This was a
moment of great expectations, when it was generally assumed that the DC/NEnPAs
would be able, like the U.S. EPA (the role model at the time), to make effective
use of the EIA process to achieve control of all proposed development projects
(as well as existing projects) so that their potentials for causing significant envi-
ronmental damage would be brought under control. However, by the end of the
1970s and early 1980s, it became apparent that the DC/NEnPAs were not able to
achieve effective control, primarily because of the lack of governmental will to
permit this, including (1) lack of provision of effective monitoring/enforcement
mechanics for ensuring project compliance for implementing the environmental
protection measures specified in the project's EIA report, and (2) insufficient bud-
gets for the NEnPAs to attract, train, and keep personnel skilled in administering the
EIA process. This problem became painfully recognized in 1987 with publication
of the UN/Brundtland report, which made a comprehension evaluation of environ-
mental resource degradation in the DCs. It showed that the DC degradation that
occurred in the 15-year period 1972 to 1987 actually exceeded all known historical
degradation up to 1972
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.
For the reason already noted, the EIA has not yet been effectively utilized
by the DCs, despite numerous IAA-sponsored training projects to try to help,
but that didn't help much because of the low budget problem already noted
and because many of the IAA/EIA trainers were not themselves knowledge-
able in how to adapt the IC-oriented approaches to suit DC conditions. An
important breakthrough on this problem was the publication by the Asian Devel-
opment Bank in 1988 of a series of EIA guideline manuals, one for some
12 different types of developed projects, which were the first such manuals
designed to suit DC conditions
6
. This series became an ADB best seller and
was widely distributed and used by DC practitioners. These manuals were espe-
cially valuable in enabling DC/EIA practitioners, including both NEnPA staff
and the private sector and other agencies doing EIA studies, to produce EIAs
that are realistic in specifying environmental protection measures (EPMs) that
are suited to DC conditions and thus have a realistic chance for actually being
implemented.
Effective Use of EIA Process in DCs
The most effective use of the EIA process for DC projects has been (1) for
projects built by major international private-sector companies to require prepara-
tion of a competent EIA and competent implementation of the EPMs specified in
the EIA as a matter of the environmental protection policy set by the company
headquarters, and (2) for projects with financing by IAAs such as the World
Bank similar EIA requirements in order to get IAA project approval. Example
of such World Bank projects are given in
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,
162
,
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. An important step by the
World Bank, followed by the other MDBs, was the Bank's requirement that
the Executive Summary of the EIA for a proposed project be made available to
