A Role for Authority Supervision in Impact Assessment? Examples from Finnish EIA Reviews

• Author: Lovisa Solbär, E. Carina H. Keskitalo
• Pages: 48-68

A Role for Authority Supervision in

Impact Assessment? Examples from

Finnish EIA Reviews

Lovisa Solba

¨r* & E. Carina H. Keskitalo

Department of Geography and Economic Histor y, Umea

˚University

Abstract

With the boom in mining in Fennoscandia, reconciliation of competing land use interests in

governance procedures such as impact assessment has come to the fore. One of the functions that

has been applied to varying degrees in national frameworks is supervision of the procedure by a

responsible authority. This paper examines review statements issued in the context of mining

project assessments in northern Finland one of the countries implementing authority supervision.

The study shows that third-party review may play a role in highlighting the importance of

competing land use interest such as reindeer herding. Attention to such interests, however, remains

limited by the application of spatial planning in the case and by consent processing, up until the

end of the period examined. Among the lessons for impact assessment is the need for

methodologies for accommodating anticipatory types of (practice-based and non-scientific)

information. Unless these types of sources are considered valid, the possibility of substantializing

anticipation and finding solutions along those lines will be missed, with the risk of making things on

the ground worse before the need for mitigation measures is comprehended in the face of

materializing impacts.

Keywords: environmental assessment;EIA;SIA;mining;reindeer husbandry;Finland

Responsible Editor: Øyvind Ravna, UiT- The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø,

Norway.

Received: January 2017; Accepted: March 2017; Published: May 2017

1. Introduction

Anticipation of the effects of resource development projects is seen to provide a key

means in promoting environmentally and socially sound, sustainable development.

Among such policy instruments, the environmental impact assessment (EIA) should

facilitate mitigation and prevention of harmful effects at source ahead of realization.

1

EIA comprises a type of instrument that seeks to stimulate modification of project

proposals through the power of information. Hence, knowledge production and the

*Correspondence to: Lovisa Solba

¨r, Department of Geography, Umea˚University,Samha

¨llsvetarhuset,

90187 Umea˚, Sweden. Email: lovisa.solbar@gmail.com

Arctic Review on Law and Politics

Vol. 8, 2017, pp. 5272

#2017 L. Solba

¨r & E. Carina H. Keskitalo. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative

Commons Attribution-NonComm ercial 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licen ses/by-nc/4.0/),

allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build

upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.

Citation: L. Solba

¨r & E. Carina H. Keskitalo. ‘‘A Role for Authority Supervision in Impact Assessment? Examples from

Finnish EIA Reviews.’’ Arctic Review on Law and Politics,Vol. 8, 2017, pp. 5272. http://dx.doi.org/10.23865/arctic.v8.661

52

integration of different types of knowledge are integral to the procedure, the results of

which should then inform the consent decision.

2

Single-project assessments tend to

produce a wealth of information, depending on the breadth of the notion of

environment implemented in terms of social, economic, and cultural aspects.

3

Weighing together different types of impact, EIA professionals are confronted with

the challenging task of knowledge integration.

There are two main sources of knowledge on the environment: the first comprises

data derived by scientific methodologies and systematic observation of environ-

mental parameters, while the second embraces the practice-based knowledge held by

local residents. The involvement of non-scientific knowledge in policy processes is

based on insight into its importance to the concerns of environmental governance

and to environmental knowledge production.

4

In keeping with this ambition, the

design of assessment procedures as a rule includes deliberative components. This

entails the risk of assessments being divided into separate procedural parts, leaving

the scientific part responsible for knowledge production and adding deliberations for

procedural reasons to satisfy democratic goals.

5

Besides this problem of knowledge

integration, the nature of impact assessment as a procedure separated from decision

making a service function, as it were, to consent processes introduces a connected

problem pertaining to the linkages of assessment practices, the repor ting of

assessment results and the effectiveness of assessment.

6

Against this background, the point of departure taken here is the assumption that a

well-performed EIA does not only rely on transparency in the presentation of data and

interests involved. Besides application of sound assessment methodologies, it also

requires an understanding of the expressed viewpoints on their own ter ms in order to

advance their contribution to the assessment at hand. This insight enables questions

about at what point during an EIA the meaning of any particular information produced

in the process should be understood. As mentioned, extended understandings of

knowledge are currently seen as vital to the field of environmental governance.

7

As argued here, understanding the significance of any practice-based knowledge

offered in deliberations must be considered a precondition for such knowledge being

well represented along the whole line of assessment and consent processing. With the

overall steering of EIA and its application lying with a responsible agency,

8

we assume

that securing the deliberative and integrative tasks must be located here.

The paper aims to examine the steering of EIA procedures by the responsible

authority by discussing the review function incorporated into the Finnish EIA one of

the national frameworks that includes pronounced non-coercive supervision of the

procedure by a public authority.

9

In the Finnish application, which only aims at

producing information for decision-makers, the responsible agency monitors the

process of assessment and evaluates its results.

10

The tool hereto is verbal and written

communication with the developer, other authorities and the interested parties.

11

Assumedly, this communication is influenced by officials’ perceptions of their mandate

(objectivity) and role (impartiality, detachment); similarly, their perceptions of

particularities at hand are likely to shape the understanding of aspects of impor tance,

which may modify what input from the parties in the process is seen as relevant.

12

Authority supervision in Finnish EIA

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