Multilevel planning and biodiversity protection: an impact assessment tiering agenda for Brazil

Abstract

Tiering represents a process of streaming environmental objectives between planning levels through impact assessment tools. Biodiversity protection, one of the world's environmental values most dear to humanity, is situated at a crucial moment in the negotiations of global goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Tiering and biodiversity are at the core of the current debate in impact assessment research. To reaching society needs research investments has to be directed to support decision-making processes technically and scientifically, harmonizing the development and reversal of the decline in biodiversity. The impact assessment instruments must guarantee safeguards to biodiversity - the Strategic Environmental Assessment in sectorial and land use planning and the Environmental Impact Assessment in the engineering projects resulting from these planning. This project aims to develop a research agenda for integrating biodiversity in impact assessment in the planning cycle. For this international immersion, I choose the United Kingdom because of its world protagonism in impact assessment research and its recognized leadership role in the integration of biodiversity into governmental determinations and developments in multilevel planning. The expected results are aimed at developing guidelines to promote tiering, linking strategic levels of biodiversity assessment with those of project-level assessment, both to protect biodiversity and to improve the efficiency of decision-making processes. Sectoral, urban, and regional planning is a perennial national agenda. An expected recovery of the economy should accelerate investments and consequently trigger engineering projects, confirming that the results of this research can have a direct and immediate impact on the application or review of current public policies. (AU)