Are Environmental Impact Assessments effectively addressing the biodiversity issues in Brazil?

Abstract

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is the main legal instrument for controlling the impacts of human development projects in many countries, including Brazil. However, the way biodiversity is addressed as part of the EIA process has been discussed around the world, with concerns raised about poor-quality studies and a failure to achieve evidence-based decisions. To explore these concerns, we evaluated: 1) the quality of baseline biodiversity studies used to inform EIAs; 2) the predictions made about the impacts of the development on biodiversity and their relationship to baseline studies; and 3) the relevance of the quality of these baseline studies and the predicted impacts on the decisions made by the relevant licensing agency. To do this, we collected and analyzed EIAs associated with 78 development proposals from the State of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, using medium and large-sized terrestrial mammals as indicators. We found baseline studies were basic and lacking scientific rigor, with no guiding questions or hypotheses, few ecological analyses, and that they omitted essential information about study design. The poor quality of biodiversity information in most baseline studies led to significant deficiencies in impact reports, with inadequate descriptions of the likely impacts of developments on biodiversity. Finally, we found that the shortcomings in both baseline studies and impact assessment reports had no relationship to decision-making, with poor quality EIAs still obtaining environmental licenses, which is alarming. Only in two decisions were cited some shortcoming of baseline studies as a reason for conditional approval. We conclude by providing a range of recommendations to help promote evidence-based decision-making in EIAs and improve the quality and transparency of the biodiversity data produced throughout Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and EIA.