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Building upon principles for public engagement and for impact assessment (IA) follow-up, this paper distils best practice principles specific to public participation in IA follow-up. Literature review, followed by a simple survey distributed to IA follow-up and/or public engagement practitioners, helped identify key principles and related published sources. Twelve principles for public participation in IA follow-up are presented, which relate to (1) mandatory public reporting, (2) ease of access to published material, (3) full transparency, (4) clarity about the IA follow-up process, (5) input to decision-making, (6) continuous access to IA follow-up activities and feedback, (7) independent verification, (8) two-way communication, (9) partnerships, (10) Indigenous inclusion, (11) participatory monitoring, and (12) involvement in adaptive management. They form a ladder of public engagement; the initial principles pertain mainly to information provision, with increasing levels of participation and legitimacy inherent in the latter principles. The principles are intended to provide a foundation for practitioners and community members involved in IA follow-up to enhance practice at all stages of the development life cycle, helping to achieve sustainable development.

Impact Assessment (IA) has been adopted worldwide typically to ensure the achievement of its goal(s), which might be one or more of sustainable development, environmental policy integration, and democratic governance. Researchers have developed and applied effectiveness frameworks in order to evaluate whether IA achieves its goal(s). The application of these frameworks often identifies some areas of ineffectiveness, and the frameworks are rarely transferable to other cases either within or across different jurisdictions, which makes national and international comparisons problematic. Context is frequently cited as a reason why ineffectiveness is identified in a case, and yet context is not clearly understood in relation to effectiveness. Our aim in this paper is to unpack the notion of context in order to better understand how IA can achieve its goal(s). Based on literature review and a subsequent conceptualisation of context drawing, for the first time, on Integral Theory, we propose that the notion of context can be understood as a range of mediators, which act either as enablers or barriers to the ability of IA to deliver its goal(s). It is these mediators which lead to very different IA system performance in terms of goals achievement, despite applying similar procedural steps. Our conceptualisation provides a significant contribution as it clarifies the validity of claims about contextual elements in the literature, explains the nature of different elements of context, provides a framework with which they can be meaningfully considered and makes an initial attempt at identifying strategies for ensuring mediators act as enablers rather than barriers. It also potentially serves to help unify literature on the meaning of context for IA effectiveness, effectiveness dimensions, and causation in IA, thus providing clarity over the challenges of goals achievement and the appropriateness of capacity development interventions.

Mining companies are expected to return land to a stable, productive, and self‐sustaining condition by rehabilitating degraded areas to also deliver social benefits, an essential dimension of sustainable land management. This research aimed to develop a framework for mine rehabilitation planning based on an integrated analysis of the social‐ecological system provided by the ecosystem services concept to facilitate community engagement and the delivery of social benefits. An Ecosystem Services Assessment for Rehabilitation framework was tested at two bauxite mines undergoing ecological restoration. The mines are operated by the same company in two countries. Key results showed that the framework can help companies, regulators, and community members alike identify whether biophysical restoration efforts translate into key human benefits. Overall the framework provides a means for enhancing community engagement to explicitly address social benefits that, with a business as usual focus on ecological goals, may not be delivered. The ecosystem services concept provides a practical approach to link ecological and social outcomes of mine restoration.

Best Practice Principles for Impact Assessment (IA) Teaching and Training were developed for the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA). Research conducted throughout 2018 and 2019 ...

This article reflects on the potential for impact assessment (IA) to be a major vehicle for implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While it is acknowledged that the SDGs are intended to deliver broader outcomes than IA currently does, we nevertheless argue there is significant convergence between IA and the SDGs, which we explore utilising the key dimensions of sustainability assessment: comprehensiveness, strategicness and integratedness. We conclude that ‘geared up’ IA might be used as a major vehicle to facilitate achievement of the SDGs. However, IA must become more comprehensive and integrated, such that the full suite of SDGs and their relationships, including trade-offs, can be dealt with in a transparent and inclusive way

A survey on expectations for responsible tourism was administered to 201 visitors to the iconic Kruger National Park, comprising 55% South African nationals and 45% international tourists. Using Li...

Biodiversity offsets have become a widely accepted means of attempting to compensate for biodiversity loss from development, and are applied in planning and decision-making processes at many levels. Yet their use is contentious, and numerous problems with both the concept and the practice have been identified in the literature. Our starting point is the understanding that offsets are a kind of biodiversity compensation measure through which the goal of no net loss (or net gain) of biodiversity can be at least theoretically achieved. Based on a typology of compensation measures distinguishing between habitat protection, improvement (including restoration, habitat creation and improved management practices) and other compensation, we review the literature to develop a framework of conditions that must be met if habitat protection and improvement initiatives can be truly considered offsets and not merely a lesser form of compensation. It is important that such conceptual clarity is reflected in offset policy and guidance, if offsets are to be appropriately applied and to have any chance of fully compensating for biodiversity loss. Our framework can be used to support the review and ongoing development of biodiversity offset policy and guidance, with the aim of improving clarity, rigour and therefore the chances that good biodiversity outcomes can be achieved.

This research evaluates Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report quality for a selected sample of development projects in South African national parks. It applies an adapted version of an international EIA report quality review package to 24 developments within 10 national parks, across three EIA regimes. The results suggest good EIA report quality across all four quality review areas, with improvement over time, but also highlight particular weaknesses in terms of dealing with waste and, to a lesser extent, with significance and mitigation. To build on this research, the development of a sector-specific EIA report quality review package is recommended, with more emphasis on the strategic context, waste and water-related aspects. The conclusion is that EIA is well positioned to remain an important decision support instrument for developments within national parks. Conservation implications: The results show that EIA reports for developments in South African national parks are generally of sufficient quality for decision-making that benefits conservation. However, weaker performance regarding waste, significance determination, water-related impacts and a lack of consideration of strategic context requires a conservation-specific EIA report quality review package to improve report quality in the areas of weakness and thereby increase the value of EIA as an instrument for environmental governance and sustainable development in conservation areas.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a mandatory decision-support tool in every country of the world, developed 50 years ago to ensure the consideration of the environmental consequences of development decisions prior to approval decisions being made. Specifically, the aim of developing an EIA system was to make decision-making affecting the environment more accountable, through the use of objective scientific evidence. It remains the project decision-support tool of choice despite considerable research efforts failing to provide convincing evidence that it achieves this aim. Here we explain this apparent paradox by arguing that EIA supports neoliberal agendas by facilitating economic development. We present arguments based on a neo-Gramscian perspective that explains how apparent advances in the practice of EIA are sanctioned because they actually maintain the political nature of the EIA system, which continues to undermine attempts to use evidence objectively. We use a narratives of change approach to support this perspective. We conclude that EIA can only make decision-making more accountable if strategies to depoliticise it are employed, including emphasising substantive outcomes.

Understanding local community perceptions is an important first step in seeking ways to revitalize degraded urban streams. This research sought to understand community perceptions of the highly modified Parnamirim stream in the city of Recife, Brazil and to solicit perspectives on potential for revitalization of the stream before and after discussion of such possibilities using a photo-elicitation-based approach. Structured interviews were conducted with 167 residents situated close to the stream using three photographs of urban streams in various stages of modification and revitalization to prompt responses regarding preferences and opportunities for stream revitalization. While a majority of respondents overall indicated that the Parnamirim stream currently looks like a degraded stream (as depicted in one photograph), these perceptions generally matched the characteristics of the stream in their particular area of residence, indicating that people’s perceptions are influenced by the quality of their immediate environment. However, after the brief discussion of urban stream revitalization practices, there was overall positive response for Parnamirim stream to become like the photograph of the revitalized stream shown to participants. Our findings point to the power and utility of the photo-elicitation method in terms of provoking emotional and cognitive responses to local environmental conditions and in promoting changed community perceptions of possible Parnamirim stream revitalization and its future potential. The potential for social desirability bias to influence community perceptions is acknowledged regarding the post-discussion preferences and comments regarding the potential for revitalization of Parnamirim stream. Nevertheless, the research demonstrates the value of engagement in discussion and ideas sharing with community members through the use of photo-elicitation and such approaches may represent an important first step in realizing urban stream revitalization.

The aim of this paper is to test the broader utility of the sustainability assessment effectiveness framework of Bond et al. (2015) by applying it to a controversial strategic assessment case study. The effectiveness framework comprises six dimensions: procedural effectiveness, substantive effectiveness, transactive effectiveness, normative effectiveness, pluralism, and knowledge and learning. It was originally developed to evaluate sustainability assessment at a system-wide level and it has not been previously applied to a specific case study. The analysis was conducted through document review and the first-hand experience of two of the authors who were involved in the case study in different capacities. The case study selected was the strategic assessment of the proposed Browse Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Precinct in Western Australia, which was conducted over the period 2007–2015 under the strategic assessment provisions of both the Western Australian and Australian Commonwealth environmental legislation. The framework provided a useful structure within which this complex case study could be explored, its strengths and weaknesses brought to light, and the interactions between the dimensions highlighted. We also found opportunities for refinement of the framework. As a result of this analysis we propose to replace the final three dimensions of the framework with legitimacy, where a legitimate process is one which all stakeholders agree is fair and which delivers an acceptable outcome for all parties, though we acknowledge the need for further conceptualisation of this dimension. We also suggest that the concept of substantive effectiveness should be expanded to incorporate the unintended consequences of impact assessment. Our research thus makes both a useful addition to the literature already published on the Browse case study, as well as to the literature on impact assessment effectiveness.

Impact assessment (IA) is carried out as an ex ante process to inform decision-making. It includes requirements for engagement with stakeholders (including the public) regarding actions proposed by a proponent. A key issue with the various stakeholders involved is the perceived legitimacy of the IA, which can have implications both for the reputation of the proponent, and the likelihood of conflict over the decision. But the understanding of legitimacy in the IA literature has changed over time in line with an ontological shift from positivism (that scientifically generated information leads to better informed decisions) to the post-positivist acknowledgement of the limitations of scientific method whereby assumptions must be subject to transparency, deliberation and openness. This has led to an epistemological shift towards greater subjectivism which, we suggest, has created new opportunities (which have been realised in political decision-making) to subvert knowledge through the increased use of the Internet and social media. To address the potential for such subversion of legitimacy, we seek to conceptualise legitimacy in the IA context through framing IA around a critical realist ontology and a reliabilist virtue epistemology. This allows us to identify ‘knowledge legitimacy’ as an equally important component of IA legitimacy along with organisational legitimacy. We conceptualise knowledge legitimacy through literature review drawing on rich understandings of knowledge from IA and other fields of research in order to develop a four-dimensional typology. This includes the dimensions of: knowledge accuracy; knowledge restriction; knowledge diffusion; and knowledge spectrum. This is the first theoretically grounded attempt to understand legitimacy in IA. It is hoped that it will provoke discussion in the IA community to further advance theoretical understandings of IA and legitimacy of practice.

Follow-up is a vital component of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), being essential for understanding assessment outcomes. Long-standing international best practice principles for EIA follow-up are reviewed, and revisions proposed, based on workshops with academics and practitioners, literature review and self-reflection. The proposed revision of EIA follow-up principles will feature an introduction with a simple definition and explanation of objectives for follow-up, and 15 principles. The revised principles address: objective; context; early establishment; project life-cycle; transparency; accessibility; accountability; performance criteria provision; enforcement; learning; adaptive environmental management; flexible or adaptive approach; tiering; cumulative effects and overall performance evaluation. Through publishing this proposal, it is hoped to simultaneously inform or inspire EIA practitioners to enhance their own follow-up knowledge and practices, and to seek input for further refinements that might lead to a revised set of international best practice principles for EIA follow-up.

This research is an attempt to verify the notion postulated by Robert Bartlett and Lynton Caldwell that the full benefits of environmental impact assessment (EIA) would take decades to be realized. While EIA is intended to directly influence decision-making regarding new development proposals, the process is also expected to lead to organisational learning and transformation over time. Our aim was to examine the influence of EIA on a single Western Australian proponent with sustained experience in the process to understand how EIA is used within the organisation and to seek evidence of transformation of the organisation's purpose and mission. The research reviewed literature in order to identify key influences of EIA on organisations, along with semi-structured staff interviews and document analysis for the case study organisation. Ascertaining causality that involvement in EIA processes influences or effects organisational learning and transformation is a challenge in the face of other societal events. Document analysis and interviewee data indicates that the action-forcing nature of EIA did influence proponent behavior through the creation of internal processes seeking to ensure robust design of new projects that would satisfy environmental protection expectations, without the need to trigger formal EIA. Evidence of EIA values and thinking were apparent within internal documentation, including the evolving mission statement. Our research indicates that participation in the EIA process can positively influence organisational learning and transformation by guiding internal change for decision-making.

Effective management of marine environments requires a sound understanding of the relevant physical sedimentary sciences. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a key management and decision-making tool employed in Australia for coastal and marine developments. This article examines the veracity of the application of the marine physical sciences within the EIA process, using turbidity measurement and sediment transport pathways as examples. A review of EIA guidance reveals deficiencies in regulation. Turbidity measurement is poorly understood and performed in current practice, while a focus on protecting marine habitats largely ignores those physical sedimentary processes, such as long-term bed-sediment transport pathways, that create and maintain these habitats. Thus evaluations of impacts of offshore activities such as channel dredging and spoil emplacement at sea are fundamentally flawed. An extensive body of scientific knowledge is already available on marine physical processes, and equivale...

The legal framework for mine closure and rehabilitation of new and former mine sites in South Africa, including legacy abandoned sites, is comprehensive. This paper discusses legislative provisions for mine site rehabilitation and closure in South Africa with reference to established international expectations. Overall, while the South African legislative framework for mine closure and rehabilitation generally conforms with international expectations for best practice, the system is extremely complex and unwieldy. Many individual laws, regulations, and guidelines and their corresponding ministries applicable to mine closure planning and management in South Africa has created a complicated inter-connected raft of provisions and expectations. It is an open question whether the most recent amendments (December 2014), have untangled or rather added to the complexities. This historical complexity along with identified governance capacity constraints (financial, technical and experience based) likely explains why implementation of the legislative framework has fallen short of mine closure expectations and mandates. As South Africa is a jurisdiction on the African continent with much experience in mining, there are many lessons that are applicable to emerging countries in the region who wish to attract the benefits of the extractives industries and minimize their potential negative consequences.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate shrimp income losses of farmers in the four farming systems in the research areas of Ca Mau, Vietnam, and determine the vulnerability of shrimp farming income to climate change events. Design/methodology/approach Field research interviews were conducted with 100 randomly selected households across the four farming systems to access shrimp income status and vulnerability levels to climate change events. Four focus groups, each aligned to a particular farming system, were surveyed to categorise likelihood and consequences of climate change effects based on a risk matrix worksheet to derive levels of risk, adaptive capacity and vulnerability levels. Findings Shrimp farmers in the study areas have been facing shrimp income reduction recently and shrimp farming income is vulnerable to climate change events. There are some differences between farmers’ perspectives on vulnerability levels, but some linkages are evident among shrimp farmer characteristics, ramifications for each farming system, shrimp income losses and shrimp farmers’ perspectives on vulnerability levels of shrimp incomes. From an income perspective, farmers operating in intensive shrimp farming systems appear to be less vulnerable to existing and expected climate change effects relative to those in mixed production or lower density systems. Originality/value Having identified the vulnerability level of shrimp farming income to climate change events in different farming systems based on shrimp farmers’ perspectives, the paper adds new knowledge to existing research on vulnerability of the aquaculture sector to climate change. The research findings have implications for policymakers who may choose to encourage intensive shrimp farming to enhance shrimp farmer resilience to the effects of climate change as well as improving cultivation techniques for shrimp farmers. The findings could thus guide local government decision-making on climate change responses and residents of Ca Mau as well as within the wider Mekong Delta in developing suitable practical adaption measures.

This study explores the representation that owners and managers of small tourism firms ascribe to their rural destination and how non-tourism induced changes interfere with this representation and motivate coping as guided by social representations theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty-four owners and/or managers of at least one small accommodation property in Gloucester, New South Wales, Australia. The informants became involved in the area's accommodation sector primarily driven by the lifestyle goals embedded in their representation of Gloucester. The perception that mining-induced changes might transform Gloucester into a mining town as opposed to its current representation as a town with a mine has motivated many informants to cope. However, coping is impeded by feelings of powerlessness, perceived uncertainties, and distrust in both government and industry. The findings provide preliminary insight into why and how small tourism firm owners/managers cope when faced with change from the perspective of social representations.

Follow-up is an essential component of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) if the success of EIA in improving the sustainability of a project once implemented is to be determined. This paper aims to establish universally-applicable criteria for EIA follow-up to evaluate project performance once assessed and underway. A suite of 24 criteria is derived from EIA follow-up best practice principles published by the International Association for Impact Assessment. The criteria are categorized according to the five dimensions of EIA follow-up: monitoring, evaluation, management, communication and governance. Posed as questions, the criteria support qualitative assessments of EIA follow-up performance for a project. Through application of the criteria to a case study currently under construction (the Shell Cove Marina project in eastern Australia), we found they provided an effective basis for a document review process delivering a short but informative account of the follow-up performance of the case study. The more robust evaluation of some of the criteria, particularly in the governance category, would require supplementary techniques such as interviews.

Major developments can result in significant impacts on biodiversity, which the mandated process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) aims to mitigate. There has been a recent move towards the application of biodiversity offsets as a last-resort, compensatory measure when options at the earlier stages in the mitigation hierarchy of avoidance, minimisation and restoration have been exhausted. Guidance on biodiversity offset planning available in different jurisdictions, however, demonstrates a lack of consensus about when biodiversity offsets should be formally introduced into the EIA process, and previous research has highlighted the perceived risks associated with commencing detailed offset planning too early as well as too late. Here we explore the implications of how and when offset considerations are introduced within EIA. We do this by reviewing and synthesising best practice principles for biodiversity offsets from the international literature, and then exploring how and when offsets were considered in a number of case studies that draw on documentary analysis and interviews with key role players. Our case studies are based in South Africa where regional guidance on offsets exists, supporting a body of practice. The research finds that the timing of involvement of biodiversity specialists is critical in determining whether considering offsets early will reap the combined benefits of: transparency and stakeholder engagement; guaranteeing the offset before development commences; and offset enforceability without jeopardising adherence to the mitigation hierarchy. Bypassing the mitigation hierarchy was perceived as allowing proponents to ‘buy’ approvals for developments that might otherwise be found unacceptable, although there was no evidence for this in any of the case studies evaluated. Although some of our findings may be specific to the South African context, the approach taken using international best practice principles for biodiversity offsets as a benchmark can equally be applied to evaluate practice in other EIA systems. We confirm the utility of this approach by evaluating the recently released South African Draft National Biodiversity Offset Policy for its potential to support best practice biodiversity offsets in EIA.

When mining affects natural or semi-natural ecosystems such as forests, rehabilitation often aims at restoring biodiversity. However, to what extent does rehabilitation also restore cultural ecosystem services? This paper investigates the perception of two groups of recreationists that use rehabilitated bauxite mine areas in southwest Australia, bushwalkers and mountain bikers. The area has been continuously mined and progressively rehabilitated for over 50 years. Research was developed through: (i) mapping the distribution of recreation trails, mined areas and rehabilitated areas; (ii) conducting in-depth interviews with recreationists regarding perceptions and usage of forest areas and; (iii) an online survey to gauge forest characteristic preferences for recreational use. The data was subjected to statistical and qualitative analysis. Results showed that bushwalkers usually avoid mined areas while mountain bikers do not and that the recreationists’ perception of rehabilitated areas is largely shaped by the absence of large and old trees and natural landforms. We found that meeting regulatory requirements for rehabilitation, as measured by ecological indicators, does not automatically correlate with acceptable social outcomes. Conclusions highlight the value of reframing mine rehabilitation practices to accommodate cultural services in post-mining land use planning considerations alongside the well-established ecological goals so as to explicitly demonstrate the social benefits of rehabilitation.

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) was introduced in Thailand in 2005, aiming to direct decision making at the strategic level (policy, programme, plan) towards sustainable development (SD). Given reforms to the SEA requirements in 2018, it is timely to evaluate emerging SEA experience in the Thai context to inform future practice. The effectiveness of 14 SEAs was investigated based on a version of a recently published framework which substitutes ‘legitimacy’ for normative effectiveness and pluralism, modified through the addition of disaggregated sub-criteria associated with each dimension of effectiveness (procedural, substantive, transactive and legitimacy), to facilitate a richer understanding of the effectiveness of practice. This more detailed effectiveness framework enabled a comprehensive evaluation of practice, and should be transferable to other contexts. The findings suggest that SEA in Thailand currently partially achieves procedural, substantive, and transactive effectiveness. Achieving some elements of substantive effectiveness where practice is currently weak is considered to be particularly challenging, and also determinative in the achievement of legitimacy. Consequently, the majority of SEAs evaluated in this study failed to achieve legitimacy.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) and responsible tourism both aspire to contribute to sustainable development. EIA is the process of identifying, assessing and managing the potential impacts of new developments and is legally mandated in most countries of the world. Tourism developments are subject to EIA under South African legislation, which requires consideration of the full range of sustainable development objectives. This paper highlights the parallels found in the discourses of EIA and responsible tourism, identified through a focused literature review, and develops a framework comprising five characteristics that EIA should embody to maximize its contribution to responsible tourism. It tests the framework by evaluating three EIAs conducted in the Kruger National Park since 2011, when South African National Parks (SANParks) formally committed to responsible tourism. The evaluation process confirmed the utility of the framework and highlighted areas in which responsible tourism principles could be more explicitly reflected in SANParks EIAs.

Impact assessment (IA) originated as, and continues to be, an instrument that contributes towards sustainable development. In response to the considerable sustainability challenges facing our planet this article argues for the acceleration of IA’s evolutionary approach through focusing on effective practice