Quality of environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports on biological pest control

Abstract

Decision making regarding the release of biological control agents for invasive species such as lantana, Lantana camara, requires the consideration and evaluation of environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports by a competent authority. Although various biological control agents have been authorised for release into the environment for the control of lantana, the quality of the EIA reports that form the basis for decision making has never been evaluated. The evaluation of the quality of EIA reports on the release of biological control agents by means of an adapted Lee-Colley review package was the focus of this research. The main conclusion was that the quality of the EIA reports on the release of biological control agents for the control of Lantana camara (lantana) was poor by the standards of the review package, the literature reviewed, and the legal requirements. The main deficiencies in the EIA reports related to impact identification, impact evaluation, scoping, mitigation measures and monitoring programmes, while the project descriptions, non-technical summaries and layout and presentation of information in the reports were of good quality. These results correspond to reports in literature that affirms that essential information about impact identification and evaluation and subsequent mitigation and monitoring, the crux of the EIA, is mostly insufficient in EIA reports.