PDF: Biodiversity Impact Assessment

Citation
Bagri, A., and Vorhies, F. (1997). Biodiversity and Impact assessment, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland.

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Summary
Impact assessment is a tool for integrating environmental and social concerns into decision making processes. This paper examines the potential of existing impact assessment techniques to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The analysis reveals that impact assessment can be developed in two ways to make it a better tool for implementing the CBD. First existing techniques should be revised to address biodiversity and second a new tool is needed to extend impact assessment to initial planning stages.

Biodiversity Impact Assessment (BIA) is a new technique which helps existing techniques achieve the CBD's three objectives. Introducing biodiversity concerns into conceptual stages of planning, BIA achieves the integration needed to spur innovative solutions which place biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and equitable sharing at the core of planning processes.

This paper provides a brief survey of the state of affairs in impact assessment, judges how well existing techniques meet the three objectives of the CBD, establishes BIA as a supporting tool of assessment, and proposes an outline methodology for the new technique. The paper is meant as a catalyst for ideas about BIA and the role of biodiversity in existing impact assessment techniques.

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