Workshop

Title: Environmental, Social, and Health Impact Assessments: Fundamental Tools for Understanding and Sustaining Biodiversity

Organizer: Ecology and Environment Inc. and SUNY Buffalo, Richard V. Lee

Organizer:
Richard V. Lee, M.D., Medical Director, Ecology and Environment Inc.  (PowerPoint)
Presentation Topic: "Anatomy, physiology, and life cycles of development projects"
Sally A. Lahm, Chief Environmental Scientist, Ecology and Environment Inc. Assistant Professor, State University of New York at Buffalo (PowerPoint)
Presentation Topic: "Hazards, strategic adaptive planning, and other key issues of concern for effective ESIAs and biodiversity conservation in African countries."

Additional Discussants:
Assheton L.S. Carter ,Vice President for Corporate Community Engagement Pact (PowerPoint)
Presentation Topic: "Plugging the gaps in the mitigation hierarchy and ESIAs: Avoiding Biodiversity Impacts and Compensating for Biodiversity Loss."
Peter Neame,   Principal Environmental Specialist and Program Manager, International Finance Corpration (PowerPoint)
Presentation Topic: "The IFC's approach to incorporating biodiversity in its project review process: Difficulties encountered and the way forward to effectively address these issues."
Mark Thurber, General and Technical Manager, Walsh Environmental Scientists and Engineers LLC, Quito, Ecuador
Presentation Topic: "Petroleum development and biodiversity action plans in Ecuador and Yemen." (PowerPoint)

Summary:
Environmental impact assessments used for major development project by industry and government have over the past decade included evaluation of human social and health parameters, important factors in biodiversity and sustainability. A growing awareness of the expanding circumference of development project impact has expanded the obligation of environmental impact assessors to examine the complex and subtle series of interactions between native and imported flora and fauna, human populations and the constructed project over time and distance. The growth of urban centers, industrial agriculture, and resources extraction are three of the most powerful trends that contribute to rapid changes in the land and environment. ‘Development’ has an anatomy and physiology, a dynamic life cycle. Defining the constituents of the ‘development’ life cycle is essential for impact assessments. There are two ‘environments’ produced by human activity:
1) The human environments that are composed of the buildings and land use that constitute and encompass the settlement. These integrated microenvironments can be small as in the small farming villages of medieval Europe, present day India, China, and much of Africa, South America and Asia. Or they can be gigantic as in the megalopolis-the giant cities of Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Nairobi, Mumbai, ChongQing, and the Eastern coastal cities of the United States.
2) The macroenvironment in which the settlement/projet exists: the forests, steppes, coastal plains, and desert in which dams, oilfields and pipelines, agriculture, and cities are built. In older times the macroenvironment was pristine- the wilderness that has become a potent symbol for protection and preservation.
It is increasingly common for new development to occur in regions already extensively transformed by human activity; regions that have acquired a flora and fauna, a unique ecology which will be impacted by new construction, and movement of plants, animals, and people. Environmental impact assessments must be tailored to the existing environment, not a distant, perhaps, mythic environment. There is a sequence of succession of biota in both macro and micro environments as there is in ponds and fields. Migration of flora and fauna into and out of the microenvironment sets in motion alterations in the populations and balance of wildlife, marine, and land plants and trees, disease carrying vectors and reservoirs, and animal and human pathogens. The numbers and distribution of the sentinel animals is an important environmental measure: white tailed deer, chimpanzees, white footed mice, migratory ducks- all are important in assessing environmental events in their habitat regions. Similarly the species and biology of mosquitoes and ticks has enormous importance in understanding the consequences of ‘development.’
This workshop will assist participants in identifying and planning for the key components of environmental assessments with emphasis on understanding and sustaining biodiversity. Using illustrative case studies the multidisciplinary faculty will illustrate the importance of integrating the knowledge of several key disciplines in preparing and performing environmental impact assessments.

Location:

World Wildlife Fund Inc.
1250 24th St NW # 6
Washington, DC 20037
(202) 293-4800