International biodiversity-related treaties and impact assessment how can they help each other?

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1 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: International biodiversity-related treaties and impact assessment how can they help each other? Dave Pritchard To cite this article: Dave Pritchard (2005) International biodiversity-related treaties and impact assessment how can they help each other?, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 23:1, 7-16, DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 20 Feb Submit your article to this journal Article views: 460 View related articles Citing articles: 3 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [ ] Date: 18 November 2017, At: 07:59

2 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, volume 23, number 1, March 2005, pages 7 16, Beech Tree Publishing, 10 Watford Close, Guildford, Surrey GU1 2EP, UK Biodiversity-related treaties International biodiversity-related treaties and impact assessment how can they help each other? Downloaded by [ ] at 07:59 18 November 2017 Dave Pritchard This paper briefly introduces the biodiversityrelated treaties or conventions, and their rather basic provisions (but deeper implications) regarding impact assessment. Some initiatives in the past decade to develop this area are reviewed, in particular, the building of linkages between the conventions world and the environmental impact assessment/strategic environmental assessment (EIA/SEA) world, adoption of decisions and guidance, and project activities. The paper reflects on what EIA/SEA can offer to implementation of conventions, and in turn what conventions can offer to the application and advancement of EIA/SEA. Some future directions and opportunities are highlighted. Keywords: biodiversity; international conventions; linkages; guidance Dave Pritchard is Adviser on International Treaties with BirdLife International/RSPB, The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL, UK; Tel: ; Fax: ; dave.pritchard@rspb.org.uk. INTERNATIONAL TREATY-MAKING is as old as civilisation. Although the authority of the United Nations is currently cause for debate, increasing globalisation demands ever more mutual policy-making among sovereign states. Treaties or conventions (the two are used synonymously here) are the mutual law-making that underpins this. In the environment field, this generally does not feature global courts, enforcement police or sanctions, relying instead on political opprobrium to deal with abuses, and on a shared understanding of the real costs of non-compliance to encourage the right action. Much happens at the level of soft law, that is, pronouncements from intergovernmental conferences and the like, although it is erroneous to apply this term to the conventions themselves, since they are as legally binding as any other legislation. Although conventions are legally binding treaties among nations, they also function as talking-shops and problem-solving fora, and this in itself is part of their value. Self-evidently, the natural world does not organise itself according to humankind s political maps, and the fate of biodiversity values cannot be secured by what individual countries might do acting alone. This is especially obvious in the case of ecosystems or populations that straddle country borders, or of animals that migrate as part of their natural cycle. Over 200 multilateral agreements have been concluded among governments on environmental issues. Some of these are within the framework of the United Nations, while others are independent of it. The majority of them concern pollution or the use of Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March /05/ US$08.00 IAIA

3 natural resources. Only a few say anything about conservation of wildlife or biological diversity, and fewer still have this as their primary focus. However, these few are hugely important in defining shared concerns, common frameworks of understanding, agreement about courses of action, regulation of limits and conditions of conduct among states (and sometimes among others too) concerning the variety of life on the planet, known in shorthand nowadays as biodiversity. The main global conventions normally considered as biodiversity-related are: The Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992 (the CBD, or Biodiversity Convention); The Convention on Wetlands, 1971 (the Ramsar Convention); The Convention on Migratory Species, 1979 (the CMS, or Bonn Convention), and its subsidiary agreements; The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, 1973 (CITES); The Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 1972 (the World Heritage Convention). Many others are relevant at a sub-global or regional level. These include measures for Antarctic marine living resources, for African nature and natural resources, for European wildlife and natural habitats, for nature and wildlife in the western hemisphere, and several bilateral bird agreements. The International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling is global in scope, but is not considered further in this paper. While, on the one hand, the needs are growing (mounting pressures of development and resource exploitation; increased public appreciation of global threats and response options) and international action is increasingly the norm, paradoxically, on the other hand, in some ways it is becoming harder to advance. After 30 years or more, these endeavours perhaps no longer have the novelty value that may have driven early enthusiasms. Defining the agenda is one thing. Grappling with the vagaries of risk and uncertainty, knowledge gaps, the fact that commitments are not cost-free (and the issues of equity that arise thereby) and that different sectors and vested interests may conflict, all make the business of implementation more challenging. As more intractable aspects come to the fore and complexity grows, as vested interests become more familiar with the field and hence more expert at championing their particular causes, as commitments accepted by governments are seen to add up (notwithstanding their positive cost benefit ratios), and as vague legal tenets are increasingly clarified through interpretation and national case law, voices of political resistance are heard speaking against continued proliferation of environmental treaty-making. One positive dimension of this is the current search for synergies and joint efforts across disciplines, about which more is written below. Also on the positive side, there has been time for some of the long-term benefits to become apparent, and for the picture of needs and solutions to be refined. Many early frameworks, for issues such as protection of important sites, were based mainly on identifying important areas and defending them against damage, for example by encouraging the creation of nature reserves. In later years, environmental conservation objectives have come to be defined more in terms of giving the environment due levels of recognition in day-to-day decision-making and policy-making across a range of sectors that may have an influence. On this basis, the approach is not to seek to get biodiversity interests to win every time by special pleading. Instead, it is to have a rational process for weighing up and taking into account the true significance of different legitimate public interest objectives, to acquire enough information to make sensible choices, and to give a transparent audit trail of the reasons and justifications behind decided outcomes. In the process, parameters are defined for minimising undesirable impacts, and for managing the consequences of actions. These are exactly the functions offered by good impact assessment. It therefore provides a readymade discipline that can meet some of the key operational needs of conventions. It will do this best where (as is beginning to happen) its ethos is integrated into the mainstream of international policy and law. The sections that follow explore how impact assessment has been developed and promoted in this way, as a tool for assisting the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity through relevant conventions. IA in conventions and other frameworks In the last two decades, references to environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) have increasingly been An obvious risk in trying to codify principles that can apply to any country in the world is that they will be so basic and general as not to make much of a difference: nonetheless, many important fundamentals have been agreed by governments internationally 8 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2005

4 built into international policy and law, as an assumed component of sustainable development. An obvious risk in trying to codify principles that can apply to any country in the world is that they will be so basic and general as not to make much of a difference. Nonetheless, many important fundamentals have been agreed by governments internationally. EIA and SEA systems themselves are the subject of international agreements. At a regional level, the European Union (EU), for example, has agreed on harmonisation of laws on EIA under a Directive dating from 1985, and on SEA under a Directive adopted in The UN Economic Commission for Europe agreed the Espoo Convention on Environmental Assessment in 1991, and added an SEA protocol to it in In the EU again, the 1992 Directive on Flora, Fauna and Habitats includes an assessment procedure (known as Article 6 assessment or appropriate assessment ) relating to proposals affecting protected sites, which also applies to sites designated under the earlier Directive on Wild Birds (1979). This has similarities with EIA, but focuses on implications for the conservation objectives of the sites. Global agencies such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Environment Programme, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank have produced guidelines and other materials on EIA, sometimes with direct reference to environmental conventions. EIA has also been applied to the operation of trade agreements. Two important milestones were Agenda 21 and the Rio Summit Declaration from the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, both of which contained provisions calling for EIAs to be undertaken for proposed activities likely to impact adversely on the environment. The successor World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 produced a Plan of Implementation that includes only a single phrase referring to using EIA procedures at all levels. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is more specific. Article 14 requires its contracting parties (the signatory governments) to introduce appropriate procedures for EIA of proposals that might have effects on biological diversity, and to ensure they have ways of taking biodiversity impacts of programmes and policies into account. Some other parts of the Convention may be read as implying a requirement for impact assessment, such as Article 3, which seeks to ensure that activities within one state s jurisdiction do not cause damage to another. The CBD is dealt with in more detail below. Such implied EIA requirements can be found in many international treaties. Another example is the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (also dealt with in more detail below). Here, Article 3.2 requires its contracting parties to detect, and then take certain actions in response to, change or likely change in the ecological character of important wetlands. This implies a need to have the capability to anticipate and predict the effects of actions on wetland ecosystems, and, it could be argued, a need to go through a process of the kind typically embodied by EIA. Explicit or implied EIA provisions can be found in conventions on the Antarctic, the Law of the Sea, air pollution, transboundary watercourses, agreements under the Convention on Migratory Species and others. The World Heritage Convention has an implied requirement in Article 5 that addresses, among other things, the integration by states of heritage protection into comprehensive planning programmes (relevant therefore to SEA) and the development by states of studies and research to enable them to counteract threats to the heritage. Article 4 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) provides for impact assessment of measures taken to mitigate, or adapt to, climate change; this is a reminder that environmental programmes themselves may often need to be assessed. Bridging the gap between two worlds Despite a clear role for impact assessment being spelled out in several convention texts or otherwise encouraged among their parties, for the greater part of the history of both the conventions and EIA, there has been a striking separateness of these two worlds in terms of their processes and the people involved. Many individuals engaged internationally in biodiversity conservation have been aware that EIA has value to offer them, and many in the international community of EIA practitioners have known that biodiversity conservation is one of the fields that can benefit from what they do. However, until relatively recently, there were no real institutional or policy linkages between them. Non-governmental organisations have been instrumental in building the bridge. BirdLife International and IUCN (the World Conservation Union) were responsible for some early initiatives. The author conducted a review of the issue in early 1994, and led a workshop at the International Conference on Wetlands and Development in 1995 (Pritchard, 1995a). The workshop welcomed the idea that some common global standards on EIA relevant to wetlands might be adopted under the Ramsar Convention, and a policy debate was launched. The following year, the author led a session on EIA at the Conference of Ramsar Parties (Pritchard, 1996), and a conference recommendation was adopted addressing good practice principles and the question of guidelines (Ramsar Convention Bureau, 1996). A key step was then to present effectively the same review to impact assessment practitioners at the annual meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) in 1997 (Pritchard, 1997). Since then, a series of liaison processes, joint work programmes and substantive agenda debates Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March

5 have developed in the conventions, with involvement from IAIA, IUCN and BirdLife International. This has included analyses of treaty requirements, awareness-raising events at conferences, provision of resource materials and adoption of resolutions and guidance materials on EIA. Elements have also been integrated into joint work plans and other arrangements that link together the conventions themselves. Among EIA professionals, there is a growing awareness of conventions as a policy context for significant parts of their work. This trend includes developing connections among networks of experts. IAIA, as a professionals forum, is a key vehicle for this. Links are being promoted, for example, between the Association s roster of experts and the Ramsar Convention s Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP) National Focal Point network. Similar possibilities exist with the Biodiversity Convention. IAIA has memoranda of co-operation with Ramsar and the Convention on Biological Diversity. In recent years, it has been directly involved in relevant parts of the STRP s work, and has also provided assistance to the CBD s equivalent Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA). Following IAIA s 1997 workshop, several of its annual meeting programmes have included attention to the biodiversity-related conventions. A culmination of this was the workshop stream at the June 2003 meeting led by the Association s Biodiversity and Ecology Section, which, for the first time, included contributions from staff of the secretariats of the Ramsar Convention and the CBD. With events such as this, the bridge between two worlds, which was absent less than a decade before, can truly be said to have been built. IAIA members have for some time debated elements of a co-ordinated programme of work that they could undertake on biodiversity issues, including advice to the conventions. More recently, funding has been secured for a three-year project to build capacity in developing countries for improving the attention given to biodiversity considerations in EIA. The Ramsar and CBD secretariats are participating in this project, and convention implementation will be an important context for sustaining its benefits in the long term. Example 1: Ramsar Convention The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance was adopted at Ramsar, Iran, in It was the first of the global nature conservation conventions, and the only one to deal with a specific ecosystem type. There were 141 contracting parties in October The prime objective of the Convention is to stem the progressive encroachment on, and loss of, wetlands now and in the future. Key obligations that signatories accept are: to list wetland sites of international importance; to formulate and implement planning so as to promote the wise (sustainable) use of wetlands generally, to act if there is change in the ecological character of listed sites, and to promote nature reserves, training and international co-operation. This agenda covers largescale questions of global water resources management and sustainable human interactions with all elements of the environment. Every three years, the parties governing conference meets. In addition to taking the necessary governance decisions, these occasions are used to debate solutions to wetland problems, and to elaborate thinking on concepts such as wise use and ecological change. Around 210 resolutions and recommendations have been adopted over the years, expressing political commitment to various actions. On issues such as criteria for defining international importance, management planning for sites, and wise use of wetlands, guidelines have been adopted embodying the best international thinking. It could be argued that, from the beginning, impact assessment in some form or other was always a part of what is implied in Article 3.2 of the Convention by arrang[ing] to be informed if the ecological character of any [listed] wetland is likely to change as the result of technological developments, pollution or other human interference. This clearly entails anticipation, and a need to predict effects. In addition, EIA is increasingly understood to make a contribution to the obligation in Article 3.1 to formulate and implement planning so as to promote the conservation of wetlands. Since at least 1980, strategic implementation frameworks for the Ramsar Convention and recommendations adopted by its Conference of Parties (COP) have contained references to the idea of evaluating environmental effects before taking decisions leading to significant transformation of wetlands. In 1995, the author carried out the first analysis of adopted Ramsar texts of relevance to EIA (Pritchard, 1995b) (due to be updated in 2005). This showed a significant body of thinking already agreed by the Parties, which gave them a useful starting-point but which had never been made explicit in a consolidated way. It recognised that the thinking that evolved under the Convention on wise use provides a helpful frame of reference for the judgements that have to be made when carrying out EIAs relating to wetlands. Emphasis is given to the view that EIA should not be restricted to the site of the proposed development, or the defined wetland, but should address upstream and downstream influences, and interactions among components of the water system at the catchment level. As mentioned above, the 1996 Ramsar COP (COP 6) adopted a recommendation on EIA; this was followed by more detailed resolutions at COP 7 in 1999 (Ramsar Convention Bureau, 1999) and COP 8 in 2002 (Ramsar Convention Bureau, 2002); with an 10 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2005

6 associated review paper at COP 7 (Bagri and Vorhies, 1999). The COP 7 resolution addressed strategic, environmental and social assessment, reflecting increasing moves to integrate these disciplines. These decisions call for a number of actions by parties to strengthen the attention they give to wetland values in EIA/SEA, and they identify a range of tools and mechanisms to help. Co-operation initiatives are also specified, and the Scientific and Technical Review Panel is tasked with elaboration of further technical aspects. The STRP set up an impact assessment working group in 1999, and created an internet-based resource kit as part of its work. A second edition of a handbook with advice on EIA and SEA was published recently (Ramsar Convention Bureau, 2004a). Guidance on the relationship among EIA, SEA, wetland risk assessment and vulnerability assessment is in preparation. Since 1996, the overall direction and objectives of the Convention have been set out in a Strategic Plan. This contains specific items on impact assessment, including integrated assessment. Other frameworks adopted under the Convention include guidance on national wetland policies, and on methods for reviewing national laws and institutions from a wetland perspective: these could also be regarded as tools to help with aspects of SEA. In the context of the co-operation encouraged by COP resolutions, contributions have been made by the Ramsar Convention to work on impact assessment under the CBD. An example is the development of guidelines on the screening and scoping stages of EIA that the CBD parties adopted in 2002 (CBD Secretariat, 2002a). The full value of a synergistic relationship between the conventions was then realised by the Ramsar Convention in turn adapting the CBD guidelines for special relevance to wetlands, and adopting them at COP 8 later the same year (Ramsar Convention Bureau, 2002). Such approaches help significantly to reduce duplication of effort. A further interesting link with Ramsar is made by the influential World Bank sourcebook on impact assessment. A 2002 supplement to the sourcebook, on EIA of Bank-funded projects affecting wetlands Contributions have been made by the Ramsar Convention to work on impact assessment under the CBD and the Ramsar Convention in turn adapted the CBD guidelines for special relevance to wetlands: such approaches help to reduce duplication of effort (World Bank, 2002), gives a checklist of action points that include aligning projects with national wetland policies. National wetland policies are a key implementation mechanism of Ramsar, on which the Convention itself has published detailed guidance. Procedural and policy linkages of this kind are crucial to good coherence across sectors. Example 2: Convention on Biological Diversity The CBD dates from 1992 and, in October 2004, had 188 parties. It has three principal aims: the conservation of biological diversity; the sustainable use of its components; and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. Obligations assumed under the Convention relate not just to species, but to all levels from genes to ecosystems. The CBD specifically refers to impact assessment in its substantive text. Article 14 requires contracting parties to introduce appropriate procedures for assessment of proposals that might have effects on biological diversity. There is reference to public participation, taking environmental consequences into account in programmes and policies, and international co-operation. Liability issues are covered by the same Article. A series of decisions has been adopted by the CBD on impact assessment and Article 14. These cover similar issues to those addressed by Ramsar, such as integration of impact assessment into sectoral activities, co-operation initiatives, integrated assessments, and tools including case studies and guidelines. There is particular emphasis on strategic environmental assessment (SEA). Particularly significant was COP 4 in 1998, where, with input from BirdLife International, IUCN and IAIA, a decision was made that triggered a range of activities including formally mandated collaboration with other conventions and with IAIA (CBD Secretariat, 1998a). COP 5 in 2000 amplified this further (CBD Secretariat, 2000a). With substantial assistance from IAIA, the CBD s SBSTTA in 2001 considered issues of good practice, case experience and explanatory material on impact assessment, and forwarded proposals to COP 6 in 2002 where new guidelines on incorporating biodiversity-related issues into environmental impact assessment legislation and/or processes and in strategic environmental assessment were adopted (CBD Secretariat, 2002a). The treatment of biodiversity in EIA/SEA is generally seen as one of its weaker areas to date, so this formal intergovernmental encouragement to improve it is a significant step. Among other things, it strengthens the case for funding agencies to resource the work required. At present, the guidelines focus on screening and scoping stages of the assessment process, but work is in hand to extend them to cover other aspects. It is these guidelines that were adapted and then adopted Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March

7 by the Ramsar parties later the same year, as mentioned above. CBD COP 6 also adopted Recommendations for the conduct of cultural, environmental and social impact assessments regarding developments proposed to take place on, or which are likely to impact on, sacred sites and on lands and waters traditionally occupied or used by indigenous and local communities (CBD Secretariat, 2002b). Part of the CBD s agenda is concerned with assessments in terms of inventory and evaluation of biodiversity resources. Here it would appear there is a need for another bridge to be built between two communities of specialists on the one hand, those conducting this kind of assessment and, on the other, the EIA/SEA community which has a need for the resulting baseline information. It is worth emphasising the way in which other conventions, such as Ramsar or the CMS, help with delivery of the CBD s Article 14 by formalising agreement about which sites, species and other environmental values are at stake. The CBD in 1996 formally nominated the Ramsar Convention as its lead partner on wetland-related issues, and a memorandum of co-operation was signed. Joint CBD Ramsar work plans have been agreed, and currently the third such plan is in effect for the period Impact assessment is one of the issues covered. The CMS in 2002 was also acknowledged as a lead partner of CBD, with respect to migratory species. Example 3: Convention on Migratory Species The Convention on Migratory Species, or Bonn Convention, was adopted in 1979, and had 86 parties in October It aims to conserve migratory species and their habitats, especially species with unfavourable conservation status, through co-operation between the states in the species range. A key part of this is the conclusion of subsidiary intergovernmental agreements, on particular species or groups of species with issues in common. Some of these CMS agreements make reference to impact assessment. With assistance from BirdLife International, the CMS has recently developed its position on EIA, in line with the developments under Ramsar and the CBD (Pritchard, 2002a). CMS COP 7 in 2002 adopted a resolution that, among other things, relates the use of EIA and SEA to the Convention s provisions, promotes co-operation with other conventions and with IAIA (now occurring), and urges parties to make use as appropriate of the CBD guidelines (CMS Secretariat, 2002). Thus, three global conventions have now formally endorsed effectively the same single source of principles and advice: in this respect, EIA has been the focus of pioneering endeavours. The CMS has a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and a joint work plan with the Ramsar Convention. In the MoU, impact assessment is identified as an item for institutional co-operation, in particular regarding future work on guidelines. IA helping conventions to work effectively A key dimension of the relationship between impact assessment and the biodiversity-related conventions concerns the way in which assessment systems pay regard to objectives relating to the vulnerabilities of particular species, the functional needs of particular ecosystems or the values of biodiversity for people. This can be done at screening stages, when it is decided which classes of activity should be subject to EIA. In the context of wetlands, the presence of a listed Ramsar site could be used as an indicator of particular environmental sensitivity, which would trigger EIA as a mandatory requirement for proposals potentially affecting these sites. Some systems already do this. In scoping stages, when decisions are made about the types of environmental effects that need to be examined, again using the wetland example, the EIA system could require that, when a wetland is involved, some of this examination should be on a water catchment basis, hence addressing a wider area than might otherwise be the case. In some cases, the local land zoning, decree, or other planning instrument that creates the Ramsar site designation, can specify the circumstances that might lead to an EIA being required, and the issues the assessment should address. These are simple points, but, once they are officially enshrined, more sophisticated approaches can be built onto them. It often needs emphasising to the conventions constituency that, while preventing environmental degradation is certainly one of the aims of impact assessment, it only contributes a first part of this. Its job is to give planners and decisionmakers better information about the consequences of actions on the environment. The subsequent step, of making sure that weight is given to this information, and that decisions are taken in a direction that produces an environmentally favourable result, depends on having a separate set of policies or laws expressing the aim of securing an environmentally favourable result. Conservationists may need reminding that effectiveness of EIA relates to decisions being well-informed: the end result of a well-informed decision might still be damage to the environment, and the amount of environmental damage is not an indicator of the effectiveness of the EIA system. As mentioned above in relation to the Ramsar Convention, EIA is a tool that helps in knowing how to achieve the implementation of Article 3.1 (on conservation of sites) and Article 3.2 (on detecting and reporting change). Further, EIA offers a way of organising the questions and the thinking required to proceed through a sequence of first striving to avoid deterioration to wetlands, then mitigating what cannot 12 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2005

8 be avoided, and only then compensating for what cannot be mitigated, in line with Article 2.5, Article 4.2 and recent COP decisions on compensation (Pritchard 2002b). Other principles concerning issues of alternatives, mitigation and compensation, which have been developed through the evolution of impact assessment practice, could have wider significance for what some conventions are seeking to do in relation to networks of protected areas. There are good links to be made between impact assessment and the monitoring frameworks in place under some conventions. Convention parties have for some time been indicating that impact assessment can help them achieve their aims. The guidance products now emerging, which both capture the best practice coming from the profession, and present it so as to fit the way conventions organise their work, represent a good step forward. Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) can be used in reviewing and amending legislation, institutions and practices to ensure that biodiversity conservation objectives expressed at strategic level, including by conventions, are honoured adequately in national and local systems. In particular, SEA can help integrate biodiversity conservation and sustainable use into sectoral policies and programmes. Consideration of the implications of individual site impacts for wider site network objectives can also be assisted through SEA. There is particular benefit when the impact assessment process does not stop at merely making a statement about impacts on the values of a site, but also elaborates the implications of a plan or project for helping or hindering the achievement of policy objectives adopted under a convention. Similarly, EIA can play a role in checking conformity with regulations, rather than merely addressing physical impacts. One further idea is included in the Ramsar COP 8 Resolution on EIA referred to above. This suggests that EIA, when it spawns mitigation efforts, can be an excellent way of seizing opportunities to contribute to achieving strategic targets for conservation, or to stimulate the adoption of such targets where they do not exist. Such targets include those in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans under the CBD, and could relate to the extent of rehabilitated habitats or population levels of recovering species. Conventions helping IA to work effectively Globalisation of a shared impact assessment agenda is desirable if, as seems reasonable, systematic and consistent IA regimes help to create stable and reliable operating conditions over a wide area, and reduce bias and abuses of planning systems. It is also desirable to prevent environmentally damaging activities concentrating in those countries that have the weakest standards of protection. Minimum agreed common standards help to reduce this risk. The biodiversity-related conventions potentially have a key role, not so much in pushing forward the frontiers of the best evolving practice (although they can certainly make a contribution there), but in raising the minimum standard as high as it can be agreed to go, throughout the whole geographical and political range of a given convention s influence. Inevitably the thinking involved has to be recast in each convention s particular language, and must evolve in such a way that those concerned feel a sense of ownership of it. Whether or not this is reinventing the wheel, it is probably a necessary part of the process of broadening the constituency. One of the most important functions of the conventions is to create essential mandates and imperatives for biodiversity conservation, and these often feed into IA processes. From this can flow legislation and guidelines for ensuring that biodiversity issues are adequately addressed in assessments, and authoritative processes for identifying priorities, for example among sites and species. These all help to make more explicit, in advance, what is valued and why, and what its particular vulnerabilities might be. Reference has already been made to the fact that some conventions have produced frameworks of targets that their parties are supposed to be working towards, and EIAs can be guided by questions as to whether particular proposals or actions will move towards, or away from, the desired target end-state for sites, species or ecosystems. Systems of protected areas are a familiar example of a frame of reference that helps with judgements about significance. Ramsar sites, for example, provide a consistent and officially recognised basis for screening judgements, such that any project, programme, plan or policy affecting a listed site can be required to undergo an impact assessment. The stated reasons for the site s designation, formalised explanations of the status of its values, functions and attributes, its conservation objectives and any management plan that exists, will in addition give a robust basis for scoping decisions about the factors the assessment should address. Conventions have also done much to promote public participation and the involvement of local and The biodiversity-related conventions potentially have a key role, not so much in pushing forward the frontiers of the best evolving practice, but in raising the minimum standard as high as it can be agreed to go, throughout the whole geographical and political range of a given convention s influence Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March

9 indigenous peoples in management and decisionmaking processes, including impact assessment (see, for example, Ramsar Convention Bureau (2004b), and CBD COP decisions IV/9 (CBD Secretariat, 1998b), V/16 (CBD Secretariat, 2000) and VI/10 (CBD Secretariat, 2002b)). Conventions offer especially good help with SEA (Pritchard, 1999). Coherent approaches in transboundary situations, attention to cumulative impacts (viewed from a supranational perspective), looking at downstream indirect effects where there are hydrological linkages between areas, addressing the river basin/water catchment, or a species distribution range (such as a bird flyway) as the unit of assessment, evaluating impacts on the broad scale of a species population or a site network, are all examples where a convention can help define the strategic perspectives required. The Ramsar Convention s Article 3.1, which requires parties to formulate and implement their planning so as to promote the conservation of wetlands, could offer a basis for defining the need for SEA, for example, requiring environmental assessment of programmes, plans and policies (as well as projects) potentially having a negative impact on attempts to conserve wetlands or use them wisely. The Convention on Biological Diversity offers an opportunity to bring together the considerations applying to the genetic, species and ecosystem levels of biodiversity. Initiatives under the CBD are addressing areas of technical weakness that currently hamper assessment, such as taxonomy, and areas of resource weakness, such as capacity in less developed countries. Tools and mechanisms New tools and mechanisms are evolving in this area. The need for common standards and guidance has been mentioned above. Despite the existence of 300 or more sets of national, international and sectoral guidelines on impact assessment, demand continues for the best wisdom to be updated or tailored in new ways, and increasingly to be mainstreamed into primary policy sectors. The true nature of this need, however, has sometimes been unclear. The Ramsar Parties in 1996 cautiously opted to review existing guidance before deciding whether anything more was needed for their purposes. The eventual consensus was that the case for newly-tailored IA guidelines was not compelling (though later, as described above, CBD guidance was adapted for Ramsar use). The CBD followed a more confusing path. In 1998, it referred a decision about the need for guidance to its technical body, SBSTTA. The following year SBSTTA decided to ask the COP to ask it to develop guidelines on biodiversity and EIA, but curiously without really evaluating the question of need. The COP duly did ask SBSTTA to develop guidelines, on the narrower issue of biodiversity and strategic EA, but what was ultimately produced went wider than this. The COP also asked the Convention Secretariat to compile and evaluate existing guidelines, which it did in It is fair to say that those calling for guidelines in the context of the conventions have not been very specific in their view of the gap that needs filling. While a gap almost certainly exists, efforts to date have been somewhat supply-driven, and could benefit in future from better needs assessment and ground-truthing. Some needs are uncomplicated. Glossaries of terms and key citations indexes can be very useful, and IAIA has indicated interest in developing these. Procedural, analytical or conceptual guidance can be more complex, but is clearly important when the limiting factors lie in these areas. If, however, the limiting factor is the moral support of knowing that particular approaches represent good practice, or the reassurance that advocated theory is feasible in real life, then case studies may be a more useful tool. The convention resolutions referred to have indeed requested case studies, whether new ones or collations of what already exists. Specific responses have been rather few, but nevertheless a good deal of relevant material does exist and is accessible to varying degrees. What is much rarer, however, is good drawing-out of the lessons learned from the case examples, showing how specific experiences can be applied more widely. Again this probably results from a rather supply-driven approach, and insufficient analysis of the exact nature of the recipients needs. There also tends to be some circularity: when individual cases are described, the response is often to ask what general principles they exemplify, which becomes a call for guidelines, and, when guidelines are provided, the response is often to ask for theory to be illustrated with real examples, which becomes a call for case studies. One important source of in-depth case study material, compiled with the CBD in mind, is a UN Environment Programme thematic study of the integration of biodiversity into national environmental assessment procedures (UNEP, 2002). Often the main uncertainty a contracting party representative faces is who best to turn to for help with an EA question. Rosters of expertise are therefore a significant tool, and linking (on the internet) lists and networks, such as those of IAIA and the Ramsar STRP, as mentioned earlier, makes a valuable contribution. This area, however, still requires development. Conclusions and thoughts for the future Clearly, a wholly desirable marriage of interests has now come about between international biodiversityrelated treaties and the world of impact assessment. In many respects this is still in its early evolutionary stages. 14 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2005

10 The underlying situation, confirmed by research, remains that biodiversity considerations are on the whole not as well served by impact assessment practice as they should be. With reference to the three levels considered by the Biodiversity Convention, many taxonomic groups are not well studied, ecosystem issues often escape attention, and the genetic level barely features at all, despite genetically-modified organisms being an increasingly recognised concern. Baseline data needs much work in many parts of the world, and various ongoing global assessment initiatives linked to conventions should help, provided they have IA in mind as an end-use. Officially endorsed and scientifically authoritative listings of threatened species, important areas and so on are becoming more complete and coherent, but there is still much to do on this front. Good initiatives have been taken in recent years to articulate and disseminate guidance, advice and information on impact assessment to those responsible for implementing conventions. However, as mentioned, much more needs to be done to make this user-defined and needs-driven, and to ground-truth its utility in day-to-day practice. Conventions provide an official arena for systematic reporting on progress, and much useful intelligence is gathered in this way. There are, nevertheless, key questions that are not well addressed, such as the extent to which Ramsar Convention parties use Ramsar sites as a screening trigger for EIA. Post-project monitoring of biodiversity and verification of impact predictions is often weak. It is especially important for natural systems, where there is high dynamism and high uncertainty, and where conservation objectives are long-term. Conventions may be good vehicles for elaborating protocols on monitoring and on options for responding to its results. There is great scope for more exchange of experience, and this paper has outlined some of the structures and processes that are taking shape for this. The vital area of cumulative and other strategic impacts poses tough technical, policy and legal challenges for the future, and international connections here are crucial. Reference has been made to the potential contribution that conventions can make, especially where transfrontier situations, site networks or migratory species populations are involved. The CBD s Article 14 gives a mandate for countries to conclude bilateral or multilateral arrangements for consultation specifically on biodiversity impacts. The point has been made that conservation activities will themselves often require assessment, to ensure they do not have unintended negative effects. This may become an area for greater attention in future. Globally, much innovation on issues of mitigation and compensation has been led from the wetlands sector. There is a role for the Ramsar Convention in this growth area and its link to climate change; also, opportunities exist to contribute strategically to restoration and recovery targets, such as those adopted under the CBD. To the extent that conventions are the arena for elaborating key principles of international environmental law, some of these are very relevant to IA practice. For example, IA systems can guide appropriate courses of action in decision-making when assessments reveal areas of uncertainty, and thus contribute to operationalising the precautionary principle. Impact assessments could do more to reflect ecological processes, such as population dynamics, predator prey relationships, succession, migration, nutrient cycling, speciation and so on. These processes are not in themselves, however, the object of any of the existing conventions, so here may be a legislative gap for enterprising treaty-makers of the future to tackle! This is merely a selection of pointers for the future, in an area of interaction whose time has fully arrived. As this paper has sought to show, this interaction is truly mutual: there can be no doubt that the biodiversity-related conventions need impact assessment, and impact assessment needs the conventions. References Bagri, A, and F Vorhies (1999), The Ramsar Convention and impact assessment, paper presented to Technical Session IV of the 7th Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention, San Jose, Costa Rica. CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) Secretariat (1998a), Impact assessment and minimizing adverse effects: consideration of measures for the implementation of Article 14, Proceedings of the 4th meeting of the Conference of the Parties, Part C of Decision IV/10 (CBD Secretariat, Montreal). 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11 to wetlands, paper presented to the International Conference on Wetlands and Development, Selangor, Malaysia. Pritchard, D E (1995b), Environmental impact assessment: existing references to relevant objectives and concepts in Ramsar Convention texts and related sources, unpublished paper, RSPB, Sandy. Pritchard, D E (1996), Environmental impact assessment: towards guidelines for adoption under the Ramsar Convention, paper presented to Technical Session A of the 6th Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention, Brisbane, Australia. Pritchard, D E (1997), International cooperation in applying EIA to wetland conservation, paper presented to the 17th Annual Conference of IAIA, New Orleans, USA. Pritchard, D E (1999), Environmental assessment and the biodiversity agenda; advances being made with global treaties, paper presented to the Intergovernmental Policy Forum on Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes, Glasgow, UK. Pritchard, D E (2002a), Impact assessment, paper presented to side event at 7th Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Bonn Convention, Bonn, Germany. Pritchard, D E (2002b), Where does impact assessment fit in to a framework like Ramsar?, paper presented to IAIA side event at 8th Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention, Valencia, Spain. Ramsar Convention Bureau (1996), Environmental impact assessment, Proceedings of the 6th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties, Recommendation 6.2 (Ramsar Bureau, Gland). Ramsar Convention Bureau (1999), The Ramsar Convention and impact assessment: strategic, environmental and social, Proceedings of the 7th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties, Resolution VII.16 (Ramsar Bureau, Gland). Ramsar Convention Bureau (2002), Guidelines for incorporating biodiversity-related issues into environmental impact assessment legislation and/or processes and in strategic environmental assessment adopted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and their relevance to the Ramsar Convention, Proceedings of the 8th meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties, Resolution VIII.9 (Ramsar Bureau, Gland). Ramsar Convention Bureau (2004a), Impact Assessment guidelines for incorporating biodiversity-related issues into environmental impact assessment legislation and/or processes and in strategic environmental assessment, Ramsar Handbooks for the wise use of wetlands No 11 (Ramsar Bureau, Gland, 2nd edition). Ramsar Convention Bureau (2004b), Participatory management establishing and strengthening local communities and indigenous people s participation in the management of wetlands, Ramsar Handbooks for the wise use of wetlands No 5 (Ramsar Bureau, Gland, 2nd edition). UNEP, UN Environment Programme (2002) Integrating biodiversity with national environmental assessment programmes, UNDP-UNEP-GEF Biodiversity Planning Support Programme Thematic Studies (UNEP, Nairobi), available at < unep.org/bpsp/eia%20guide.pdf>, last accessed October World Bank (2002), Environmental Assessment Sourcebook, update 28: wetlands and impact assessment (World Bank, Washington DC). 16 Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal March 2005