Trang chủBiodiversity impact assessment in the process of implementing environmental impact assessments of projects is considered necessary and should be promoted to preserve, develop and sustainably use biodiversity in Vietnam. Male.
Vietnam is recognized as one of the countries with high biodiversity and ranked 16th in the world. Vietnam’s biodiversity is expressed in a variety of natural ecosystems, biological species, and rich and endemic genetic resources.
Recognizing the importance of biodiversity and its role in maintaining the sustainable development of lives, livelihoods and the economy, Vietnam has recently included in legal documents regulations requiring Requires investment projects with a high risk of negative impact on the environment and some investment projects with the risk of negative impact on the environment to carry out biodiversity impact assessment. The content of this requirement has been detailed in Decree No. 08/2022/ND-CP dated January 10, 2022 and Circular No. 02/2022/TT-BTNMT dated January 10, 2022.
Biodiversity impact assessment aims to identify biodiversity factors during the implementation stages to minimize negative impacts of the project on biodiversity and promote biodiversity conservation solutions. biodiversity, sustainable use and equitable sharing of biodiversity benefits, and environmental protection during the implementation of projects that affect biodiversity.
The 2020 Law on Environmental Protection also clearly stipulates that the content of the EIA report must identify and evaluate flora and fauna, considering the relationship between organisms and the ecosystem. Assess the level of biodiversity impact on the region, the ecosystem, the current status of use and interventions on biodiversity conservation. In particular, the EIA report must evaluate and identify environmental incidents that may occur; Assess the conformity of the investment project with the national environmental protection planning, regional planning, provincial planning, legal regulations on environmental protection and other relevant legal regulations.
According to Associate Professor. Dr. Le Xuan Canh – Vietnam Association for the Protection of Nature and Environment: Compared to the 2014 Law on Environmental Protection, the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection has clear and transparent regulations in the direction of administrative reform, ensuring the quality of appraisal. In addition, the content and quality of biodiversity impact assessment reports are increasingly improving. Based on the EIA report appraisal process, a number of investment projects in different fields had to change locations or were not approved because they did not meet the requirements for biodiversity conservation and forest area conversion. nature. Thus, it can be seen that EIA becomes a useful tool when attaching project owners’ responsibilities to environmental protection and biodiversity conservation.
However, currently biodiversity impact assessment still has some limitations such as the quality of the report depends on the investor, consulting unit, project type, implementation resources, and council. , appraisal agencies. There are cases where the biodiversity impact assessment process has not properly predicted or anticipated sensitive and complex environmental issues of the project. Budget investment for biodiversity impact assessment is still limited, there is not enough funding to build a database on biodiversity.
Along with that, data information on biodiversity nationwide is still scattered, incomplete and unsystematic. There is no close coordination between the project owner and the consultant. In many cases, project owners have contracted and left it up to consultants to carry out biodiversity impact assessments, while the legal responsibility for the content of the EIA report lies with the project owner.
In addition, Vietnam has not yet applied the EIA consulting practice certificate system and about 80% of consulting units do not have biodiversity experts participating.
In order to enhance the effectiveness of biodiversity impact assessment, according to Associate Professor. Dr. Le Xuan Canh, in the coming time, Vietnam needs to issue detailed technical guidance for biodiversity impact assessment in EIA so that investors and consulting units can organize the development of EIA reports and Competent appraisal agencies have a basis for implementation. Promulgate a set of national biodiversity indicators as a basis for collecting data, assessing the current status and assessing impacts through comparing the level of biodiversity change compared to the current status before implementing the Project. judgment.
In addition, there are specific regulations on the content of community consultation on biodiversity in EIA reports and how to collect information and local knowledge on biodiversity. Specific technical guidance on biodiversity monitoring. Open many training classes related to biodiversity impact assessment, instructions on how to approach and steps to integrate biodiversity impact assessment in EIA, impact mitigation measures and biodiversity management. biodiversity, content of appraisal and assessment of biodiversity impacts integrated in EIA.