Linking Project Appraisal And Development: The Performance Of Eia In Large-Scale Mining Projects

The use of environmental impact assessment (EIA) to address the environmental and social impacts of mining is common. At Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea, and Century mine in northern Australia, EIA failed to protect the biophysical and social environment of the mines. A detailed historical analysis was conducted to determine the chronology of the development of these projects, all internal and external decision making, and the reasons for this failure. This analysis showed that EIA was poorly timed and poorly integrated with the early phases of the mine developments. Environmental assessment expenditure and activity were concentrated in the development phase of the project and could not address impacts resulting from the earlier exploration and evaluation phases. Approval processes, such as permits and licences, that did occur in the early phases of the life of the mines, had very limited components of environmental appraisal or control. The primacy of development schedules, and the lack of communication between actors in the development of these large-scale projects, prohibited effective assessment and produced EIAs that were in many ways unrelated to the real environmental information needs of the project. In such large-scale projects it is essential to link EIA (and other approval/appraisal hoops) to environmental issues and decisions which occur throughout the continuum of mine development.