Special Meeting 2 “The Future of Impact Assessment” Proposed from the Standpoint of Citizen Activities

Abstract

The social environment regarding environmental impact assessment has been dramatically changed recently. In this meeting, we invited the following four NGO members who are engaged in environment impact assessment to introduce their practices and awareness of “Better Assessment”.

・Mr. Seiichi Urashima (TANGO; Association for Protecting Nature in the Windswept Wild Mountains)

・Ms. Kaori Takeda (AM Net:Advocacy and Monitoring Network on Sustainable Development)

・Yoshihiro Natsuhara (Nature Conservation Society of Osaka)

・Hiroyuki Hasegawa (Akishima Environment Forum)

Guests were asked to summarize their remarks in advance on the following three points. a) An overview of the activities being undertaken with regard to development planning. b) What they consider to be the problems of assessment in Japan. c) Expectations for future assessments.

In common with the four guests, the NGOs themselves surveyed the region and, based on their findings, actively expressed their opinions and made recommendations on the state of development. Based on such practices. The following five points were generally raised as the way forward for future impact assessments.

(1) Promote impact assessment through community-based research and information exchange

(2) Conduct impact assessment from the perspective of sustainability of local communities

(3) Effective impact assessment from the planning stage

(4) Involvement of independent experts

(5) Support by local environmental administration for voluntary research and learning activities by local residents

62 people attended this meeting, including those online.