Drawbacks of Social Impacts Assessment in Brazil: Is It Time for a New Approach?

摘要

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has shown a progressive improvement in addressing environmental impacts worldwide. However, EIA practice in Brazil and in other developing countries has been recognized as insufficient to deal with relevant issues related to the implementation of projects. One of the reasons found in the literature is related to the difficulties to integrate the biophysical environment and social issues within the decision-making process. In this paper, the practice of EIA in Brazil is analyzed in order to verify the relevance that social, cultural and economic impacts have been given for the acceptability of development projects. Firstly, a quality review of 23 randomly selected Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) from federal and state levels were checked in order to verify the range of social issues that have been encompassed. Secondly, seven EIS were scrutinized to check the adherence to international principles of Social Impact Assessment (SIA) best practices and guidelines applied to this instrument. The outcomes reveal a gap between the legal and empirical frameworks that describe the practice of SIA in Brazil and the main principles and guidelines for best practice in SIA. The paper concludes for the need to improve the effectiveness in the assessment of the social dimensions of environmental impacts in order to better inform the decisions. Also, the practice of EIA Brazil would benefit from guidelines for SIA and its integration to the EIA process.