Abstract

THE NEED FOR A STRUCTURED ECOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT IN EVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT PROCESS BY ALKALI ABUBAKAR NMA ABSTRACT The exploitation of the environmental resources and its degradation as a result of development efforts has attracted growing concerns in recent years. These concerns about the negative consequences of development underscored the need for the planning authorities to rely on sound information on the state and value of these resources in order to make informed decisions on their preservation.

One of the tools used to satisfy this need is represented by the regulatory EIA process which involves the systematic identification and evaluation of the impacts on the environment caused by proposed development projects. As is now seen, EIA is applied worldwide as a potential instrument in attaining the sustainable development goals.

The EIA is made up of thematic studies each one addressing specifically one category of effects ( eg noise, water pollution etc) or environmental components (water, air etc). Among these components is an ecological study which focuses on the effects of the project on the viability and the value of the ecosystem, habitats and biodiversity. But going through most of the EIA reports, one gets the impression that there is no common framework to support the impact assessment on the ecological components and, therefore, the impact criteria become watery and not been given the required importance in the EIA reports as is given to other components like noise air pollution etc. which often appears to be much more structured. As a consequence, ecology is often marginalized in the EIA process.

There is, therefore, the need to scale up the current approach and efforts in evaluating the impacts of development projects on ecological components such as habitat fragmentation, loss of biodiversity etc as non-consideration or weak analysis of these ecological impacts limits the influence of these issues on the decision-making process which is the prime reason of subjecting projects to the EIA process.