Enhancing biodiversity in impact assessments: practical guidance is needed to support holistic environmental decision-making

Abstract

Across the international community, impact assessment, as a key review and approval process for largescale development and resource extraction projects, is frequently identified as a mechanism for addressing biodiversity decline. This has been reiterated by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, including the recently ratified KunmingMontreal Global Biodiversity Framework, in which Target 14 calls for the full integration of biodiversity into policies, regulations, and strategies, with specific reference to impact assessment and associated processes (i.e. strategic environmental assessment and regional assessment). Despite this recognition, the consideration of biodiversity within impact assessment processes has remained inconsistent and ambiguous, relying on implicit approaches and lacking clearly articulated practical guidance. In Canada, this uncertainty has contributed to insufficient rates of progress towards fulfilling national biodiversity targets, and indicates lagging performance in the mainstreaming of biodiversity into government policies and decision-making processes. In 2019, Canada transitioned into a new impact assessment era, one defined by the introduction of the new, sustainability-driven Impact Assessment Act (IAA). The decision-making infrastructure of the new act represents one of the primary changes between the IAA and former impact assessment legislation. Previously, decisions were based almost entirely on a project’s likelihood to cause significance adverse environmental effects. Under the IAA, the approval for a project to proceed is governed by a public interest test. Within the determination of whether a project is in the public interest, the significance of adverse environmental effects is now one of several interrelated factors required for consideration. These factors include proposed mitigation measures, impact to Indigenous rights, contributions to sustainability, and interactions with national environmental obligations and climate change commitments. The application of this new decisionmaking process remains in its infancy, with only one project having received a decision under the IAA to date. How practitioners and decision makers will consider public interest factors in their assessments, including navigating potential trade-offs, appears unclear, particularly in relation to wide-reaching and complex topics such as biodiversity. To achieve full integration of biodiversity into Canada’s environmental decision-making, practical guidance on how the IAA’s public interest test will consider impacts on biodiversity is needed. Such guidance is essential to the successful utilisation of impact assessment as a conservation tool. Additionally, with the explicit inclusion of Indigenous rights as a factor to consider under the IAA, enhancing the treatment of biodiversity in impact assessments presents opportunity for positive change beyond conservation objectives. Both the IAA and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework establish the critical role of Indigenous peoples in conservation and environmental decision-making, calling for the integration of Indigenous knowledge and the protection of Indigenous rights, including the sustainable use of biological resources by Indigenous peoples. The importance of Indigenous-managed lands and environmental practices is well documented in biodiversity conservation, and there has been an emergence of Indigenous-led impact assessment in Canada. However, Indigenous peoples continue to be disproportionately impacted by biodiversity decline, and the benefits derived from the use of biological resources are unequally distributed between Indigenous and nonIndigenous populations. Enhancing the consideration of biodiversity in impact assessments through consultation and collaboration with Indigenous communities to integrate Indigenous knowledge and values can strengthen assessments, support Indigenous-led conservation strategies, and ultimately lead to more success in protecting biodiversity. As the IAA has become an arena for Canada’s efforts in both biodiversity conservation and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and considering the important social, cultural, and economic linkages between the two, it is imperative that inclusive and innovative approaches for addressing biodiversity within impact assessment are developed, including practical biodiversity-specific guidance and methods. Guidance that supports explicit and holistic BIODIVERSITY 2023, VOL. 24, NO. 3, 107–108 https://doi.org/10.1080/14888386.2023.2230946