Practising impact assessment: a content analysis of 20 Cultural Impact Assessment reports in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

There is potential to strengthen impact assessment as a tool for Indigenous community use in environmental management. The present research contributes to this discussion by examining the report product that has resulted from 20 recent Cultural Impact Assessments (CIA) in Aotearoa New Zealand. These reports are reviewed based on Vanstone et al.’s structured approach, which allows for a systematic evaluation of the content of reports. The research demonstrates that Cultural Impact Assessment reports can tend to place greater emphasis on cultural values than on impacts of proposed projects, indicating a difference between CIA practice and other forms of impact assessment. CIAs often appear to be less about impact analysis and more about providing an opportunity for Māori concepts and worldviews to be recognized in decision-making. This finding has implications for how CIA report quality should be evaluated in the future and contributes to our understanding of the unique purpose of CIA.