Progress
is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds
cannot change anything
- Francis Bacon
3.0 Introduction The history of sustainable development, - as
has been put on record in the previous chapter -, has become largely an occidental
narrative, because such is the nature of available published literature. Moreover,
because of their political dominance, economic strength and scientific superiority,
the West almost invariably steered the agenda of international summits and
conferences. Although the voice of dissent from the developing world had been
raised all along, it was in the Stockholm Conference, UNCHE 1972, where first
serious attempt was made to reconcile the views of the North and the South.
The Stockholm declaration endorsed 26 principles which were largely in line
with the currently talked about 'sustainable development' and 'EIA'. Although
formalisation of EIA in the USA predates the Stockholm conference, neither
the word nor any of its close synonyms appear in the declaration. The term
'sustainable development' was coined in 1980, eight years after UNCHE'72.
The Brundtland Report (WCED 1987) stressed the need for poverty alleviation
and economic growth in South by making it an inseparable agenda of sustainable
development program. Till 1992 the science and art of EIA grew almost independent
of the growing international shift towards sustainable development paradigm.
The Brundtland Report (WCED 1987) accentuated the crucial importance of sustainable
development and EIA to the future well being of society (Gilpin 1994).
The Earth Summit (The UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio-de-Janeiro,
June 1992), surprisingly, did not make any specific mention of EIA in the
Agenda 21. The Rio Declaration, - a set of 27 non-binding principles on environmental
and development issues, however, devoted principle 17 to the national instrument
of EIA.
As is true with any other growing discipline, EIA lacks clear definition.
In fact much of the EIA terminology is still at the formative stage (Glasson
et al. 1994). This chapter therefore seeks to logically define the key EIA
terms, keeping in perspective the central objective of this study. This chapter
also reviews the development of EIA as a process and looks for possible answers
to implement EIA as an instrument of environmental sustainability.
3.1 Definition of EIA
Definitions of EIA abound. Munn (1979) defined EIA as a process 'to identify
and predict the impacts on the environment and on man's health and well being
of legislative proposals, policies programmes projects and operational procedures,
and to interpret and communicate information about the impacts '. This definition
can be modified to describe EIA 'as a process for identifying the likely consequences
for the biogeophysical environment and for man's health and welfare of implementing
particular activities and for conveying this information, at a stage when
it can materially affect their decision, to those responsible for sanctioning
the proposals' (Wathern 1988). International donor agencies, development banks,
governments, development planners and even environmentalists have often argued
in favour of including socio-economic effects to provide for a unified approach.
USEPA (1993) defined environmental assessment (EA) as 'the systematic, reproducible,
and interdisciplinary evaluation of the potential effects of a proposed action
and its practical alternatives on the physical, biological, cultural and socio-economic
attributes of a particular geographical area'. Gilpin (1994) felt that EIA
should be the proponent's responsibility and accordingly he defined EIA as
'the official appraisal of the likely effects of a proposed policy, program,
or project on the environment, alternatives to the proposal; and measures
to be adopted to protect the environment'.
The council of the European Communities defined environmental assessment as
'the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the
environment' and stressed that 'the environmental impact assessment will identify,
describe and assess in an appropriate manner, in the light of each individual
case, the direct and indirect effects of a project on the following factors:
* human beings, fauna and flora;
* soil, water, air, climate and the landscape;
* the interaction between the factors mentioned in the first and second indents;
and,
* material assets and the cultural heritage.
The UN Economic Commission for Europe (1991) has somewhat retained the EC
concept by defining EIA as 'an assessment of the impact of a planned activity'.
While adopting the EC directive on EIA, the UK Department of Environment (DOE)
has given an operational definition by stating that "The term environmental
assessment describes a technique and a process by which information about
the environmental effects of a project is collected, both by the developer
and from other sources, and taken into account by planning authority in forming
their judgements on whether the development should go ahead" (UK DOE 1989).
Jain et al., (1977, 1993) defined EIA in a simple way as 'a study of probable
changes in the various socio-economic and biophysical characteristics of the
environment which may result from a proposed or impending action'.
UNEP (1978) defined EIA as a process 'to identify, predict and to describe
in appropriate terms the pros and cons (penalties and benefits) of a proposed
development. To be useful, the assessment needs to be communicated in terms
understandable by the community and decision-makers and the pros and cons
should be identified on the basis of criteria relevant to the communities
affected '. Subsequently this definition was simplified as a 'formal study
process used to predict the environmental consequences of a proposed project',
(UNEP 1982). This definition has later been further extended to definite EIA
as 'a process to predict and consider both positive and negative environmental
and social consequences of a proposed development project' (UNEP 1994).
Remaining within the project level, EIA may also be defined as 'an assessment
of all relevant environmental and resulting social effects which would result
from a project' (Battelle Institute 1978).
A more focussed definition of EIA was given by Heer and Hagerty (1977) as
an activity that aims 'in establishing quantitative values for selected parameters
which indicate the quality of environment before, during and after an action'.
If studied carefully the above definitions of EIA will reveal the following
common aspects, -
1. These definitions often look towards EIA as a project level activity
2. The word environment is often not clearly set, leaving options wide open
to include everything from a very small (project boundary) to a very large
(the entire biosphere) area.
3. EIA is at best a process, enabling relative ranking of projects against
environmental desirability point of view.
4. The environmental desirability is limited to short term 'standard' attainment
and little or no emphasis is placed on the long-term goal of attaining environmental
sustainability.