Improving Environmental Impact Assessment in enhancing sustainable development in Bhutan : a review of EIA procedures

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an important environmental management toolessential for the achievement of sustainable development. The environmental and socialconsequences of the development actions must be predicted and mitigated within thescope of the project by integrating EIA into the process of designing and implementingthe project.In Bhutan, environmental conservation has been embraced as one of the four pillars ofGross National Happiness (GNH) - the other three pillars being good governance, socioeconomicdevelopment and cultural preservation.Like many other developing countries, Bhutan is on a rapid pace of socio-economicdevelopment where it is likely to cause most damaging effect on the environment. Awareof the problems that uncontrolled economic development can cause, and recognizing theimportance of sustainable development for Bhutan with its fragile mountain ecosystemsand extremely high level of biodiversity, the Royal Government has chosen the ""middlepath"" of sustainable development. This is development that recognizes the need to raisethe living standards of the present population without compromising the country'scultural integrity, historical heritage or the quality of life for future generations. To ensurethat socio-economic development in Bhutan is consistent with the ""middle path"" ofsustainable development, EIA Act in 2000 was adopted which ensures that theenvironmental impact assessments are carried out for all the development activities in thecountry.The review of the current practices of EIA in Bhutan showed that it is still at a veryconceptual stage where it is not well developed to help achieving the environmentalconservation and sustainable development. The factors that are believed to be affectingthe effectiveness of EIA in Bhutan are the quality of information in EIA guidelines andEIA Reports/ Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) as well as the quality ofimplementation and follow-up of EIA recommendations. This study looks at thesystematic review of the EIA guidelines, EIA reports and the implementation of EIArecommendations of development projects in Bhutan in order to generate reliable qualityinformation that could be used for formulating strategies to improve the quality of theseelements.The methodologies used for this study are literature review, questionnaires, a comparativeanalysis with UNEP guidelines and a recognized review package to review the EIAreports. In addition, a small case study of environmental friendly road constructionproject was reviewed and assessed to get a better overview of EIA where this conceptwas used to ensure environmental sustainability with EIA as a sustainable tool.The application of these methodologies resulted in some information on the quality ofEIA process in Bhutan. The review of the institutional arrangements for EIA indicatedthat environmental management framework had satisfactory quality but morestrengthening of institutional capacity in the implementing agency is required. Thereview of the EIA guidelines showed that Bhutan EIA procedures had stages and contents of key elements in general similar to the generic procedure provided in UNEP guidelinesthough the Bhutan guidelines lacked detailed description of the elements of EIA process.The review of a hydropower EIA report by the review package indicated that the reporthad just satisfactory overall quality with some deficiencies and omissions in few areas. Inaddition the report had sufficient quality for all the sub-components- general description,evaluation of key impacts, analysis of alternatives and mitigation, and communication ofresults. In the assessment of the implementation of EIA recommendations, it was foundthat the environmental management plans (EMP) were prepared well and had satisfactoryquality but the verification of implementation of EMP was not covered in this study dueto some constraints.The research comes up with the overall conclusion that EIA is seen as a projectmanagement tool to enhance the sustainable development by integrating EIA effectivelyin the design process and the implementation of the project. Though, EIA in Bhutan isstill at its infancy stage, it is important to improve the institutional arrangements for EIA,quality of EIA guidelines, EIA reports and implementation of EIA recommendations inorder to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. The measures recommended in thisstudy can help to improve the EIA process in Bhutan