Some of the most conflictive issues in the Pan Amazon revolve around construction of major infrastructure, industrial development, and mining.  In the 1970s, when the Tranzamazônica (BR-230) was being built and oil exploration was getting underway, the requirement to conduct an environmental impact assessment (EIA) did not exist.

This changed in the 1980s and 1990s as societies embraced environmental reforms.  Unsurprisingly, the early EIA methodologies were biased in both concept and execution.  Specialists who conducted the reviews were paid by project developers, while the regulatory agency reviewing the study was an office of the same entity that was promoting the project. Over time, the obvious conflicts of interest have been alleviated by the creation of environmental ministries that have developed an expansive corpus of regulations, while environmental science practitioners have improved the criteria and toolkits they deploy when developing an EIA or related diagnostic study.

Politicians, businessmen and bankers contend that the safeguards have led to a qualitative improvement in the design and execution of investment projects. Environmental critics, however, argue that reviews are a form of greenwashing that focuses on protecting investors’ interests rather than assessing whether projects are part of a coherent, long-term, sustainable development strategy. Like many polarized debates, there are elements of truth to both points of view.

A typical EIA compiles an inventory of a region’s natural resources and describes the communities near the project under review. This provides a baseline for identifying probable positive and negative impacts associated with the project. When done properly, an EIA offers recommendations on how to (1) avoid certain impacts; (2) mitigate those that cannot be avoided; and; (3) remediate ecological damage from impacts that cannot be effectively mitigated. When none of these three options is appropriate, an EIA should provide guidelines for (4) compensating the communities impacted by the project under review.

More important was the realization that EIAs should not be technical documents narrowly focused on impacts to the natural environment, but an intellectually honest effort to identify and mitigate the social impacts caused by the proposed project. A high-quality study now routinely examines how projects directly – or indirectly – impact communities, including potential changes in demographics, access to resources and overall quality of life. For example, an EIA must evaluate not only how air or water pollution might affect the health of local residents, but also its impact on communities downstream or downwind from the project site.

These changes were due to decades of stubborn resistance by civil society, which eventually changed the mentality of executives and managers in both the public and private sectors. Enlightened senior executives now understand that an EIA is not a regulatory box to tick on the way to project completion, but a wise expenditure on risk management to avoid costly delays when the initiation and completion of the project depend upon the execution on an Environmental Management Plan (EMP), which describes in detail specific mitigation and compensatory measures, as well as a timeline and budget for their implementation and the EMP. This regulatory procedure is relatively stringent and, according to a World Bank study, no less than fifteen to twenty per cent of the budgets of hydroelectric projects in Brazil are accounted for by environmental licensing costs.

Regulatory agencies have developed a taxonomy of rigor, where the level of scrutiny corresponds to the dimensions of potential negative impacts. For example, large-scale infrastructure projects, such as federal highways, railways, industrial-scale mines and oil and gas projects, usually (but not always) fall within the domain of a national environmental agency, as do projects located inside a national protected area or Indigenous reserve. Less controversial projects, such as regional highways, electrical transmission lines and thermoelectric power plants, are reviewed by the environmental entity within either a sectoral ministry (Peru) or a regional government (Brazil). Minimally invasive projects, such as sanitary landfills and local electricity distribution networks, are managed by municipal environment offices. Regardless of the level at which project reviews are conducted, the degree of scrutiny is determined by guidelines developed by the Environment Ministry.

Environmental review in Brazil reflects that nation’s constitutional system, with IBAMA overseeing the environmental review for interstate highways, railroads and waterways, large-scale ports and electricity facilities (> 300 MW), and the development of oil and gas fields.  State agencies have regulatory authority over mining projects, except for mines located within Indigenous territories and federal protected areas (e.g., the Carajás complex of iron ore mines), or which cross state boundaries, regional highway systems, medium to small electricity facilities and industrial infrastructure. State-level agencies delegate operational oversight for individual EIAs to sectoral entities, particularly for the transportation sector, but retain control over licensing and presumably, Class A/EIAs.

Environmental licences are the responsibility of either IBAMA or a state agency (SEMA), which reports approximately similar numbers of Class A/EIA reviews; however, the state agencies only conducted two of these detailed and rigorous studies for state highways that fall within their jurisdictional responsibilities. In contrast, information state portals for state transportation secretariats (SINFAR and SETRAN) show hundreds of construction projects, some of which would (presumably) merit a class A/EIA. This disparity strongly implies that state highway systems are not being subject to adequate environmental and social review.

Environmental review in Colombia is the responsibility of the Agencia Nacional de Licencias Ambientales (ANLA) and the Corporación Autónoma Regional (CAR). The CAR manages environmental issues within a region (see below), but is subject to oversight by ANLA, a quasi-autonomous entity within the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible. ANLA formulates national standards and policies and assumes full responsibility for large-scale projects, while the CARs handle the vast majority of environmental licences.

Peru’s maximum authority is the Servicio Nacional de Certificación Ambiental (SENACE). Like its counterparts in Colombia and Brazil, SENACE develops national standards for environmental review and assumes operational control over large-scale projects and those that impinge upon protected areas or Indigenous lands (Figure 7.1). Rather than delegating class B- and C-level reviews to regional entities, however, it assigns them to sectoral ministries.

Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela do not have autonomous entities similar to IBAMA, ANLA or SENACE, and their reviews are managed by functionaries within their environment ministries,  who coordinate reviews and decisions with sectoral and/or regional entities depending upon the complexity of the project under review. Both Guyana and Suriname have separated their environmental issues into natural resources ministries and environmental protection agencies, which oversee the licensing process. That process is broadly similar to those of other countries, except that there is no delegation to subnational jurisdictions.

Banner image: The construction of this type of infrastructure in the middle of gallery forest is being investigated by Cormacarena, due to alleged irregularities and possible lack of environmental permits. Image courtesy of Rutas del Conflicto/Mongabay Latam.

“A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” is a book by Timothy Killeen and contains the author’s viewpoints and analysis. The second edition was published by The White Horse in 2021, under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).

To read earlier chapters of the book, find Chapter One here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here, Chapter Four here,  Chapter Five here y Chapter Six here.