SECTION FIVE
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ANALYSIS
5.1 Introduction
The following sections describe the environmental impact analysis from its conceptual approach
to its cumulative impact analysis. This analysis is directly related to the environmental
manage
ment plan described in Section 6 of this document.
5.1.1 Conceptual Approach
It must be a basic premise that all developments will produce some environmental impacts and
therefore the basic question is how much is acceptable under the circumstances? The
obvious
consensus is that the country needs development but only of the kind that is sustainable and in
conformity to national development priorities. The challenge throughout is to find an acceptable
level that will strike the necessary balance between th
e need to develop and the need to protect
vital environmental processes. Also important is the planned scale of the infrastructural
development and their potential to unravel the social fabric and lifestyles of the people in the
area within which they are
based.
The impacts of this development will be felt mainly in the areas of physical alterations to the
coastal and inland ecosystem, solid and liquid waste disposal, water supply and distribution,
energy generation, effects on the native wildlife species
of the area from a combination of
factors, extraction of materials and transportation. The point has been made that no project of
this size can be successfully implemented without some negative environmental impacts,
however it is incumbent on the develop
er to reduce these to their lowest possible level, or negate
them entirely if the situation allows.
The developer will be aided in this undertaking by the impacts and mitigation discussion in the
relevant sections of this report and summarized in the tab
les below. These cover the aspects of
project activities whic
h have been identified by the DO
E as liable to produce significant
environmental impacts among others.
5.1.2 Environmental
Principles
in Impact Analysis
In principle the need to address some re
quirement(s) of the human species gives rise to the
definition and implementation of some specific dev
elopment project(s) or program
(s). In the
context of the proposed
expansion
development, the human requirement to be addressed is the
need for recreation
and knowledge of the ecosystem. In the case of the latter this relates to the
research and educational components of the project.
Inherent in de
velopment projects and program
s are activities which
alter the environment, or
cause
some “environmental dis
turbance”. These environmental disturbances have a number of
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“effects” which in turn leads to “environmental impacts”, which are categorized as being either
negative or positive.
Environmental impacts are in principle hierarchal and in this regard are de
scribed as being
sequentially ‘primary’, ‘secondary’, ‘tertiary’, etc., in orientation. An example of this impact
sequence which specifically relate to the currently proposed project is show
n
in Table
5
.1.
Primary impacts are those impacts arising immedia
tely from particular development activities
such as land clearing or dredging, and affect basic ecosystem functions such as primary
productivity, metabolic rate, mechanical damage to anatomical structures and the physical
destruction of habitats.
The ‘pr
imary impact’ parameters in turn have another level of impacts on various ecosystem
components, which are qualified by both magnitude and direction. This is unlike the ‘primary
impacts’, which within the context of the curren
t EIA varies in magnitude only
(
See EIA
Rating
Matrix outlined in Table
5.1)
.
In the case of primary impacts, this may be explained by the fact
that variations in the magnitude of these parameters in and of themselves are neither deleterious
nor beneficial. Conversely, under the curren
t analytical process outlined in the EIA Impact
Rating Matrix (See Table 5.1), although a relationship may exist, the magnitude of change of the
particular parameter may be so small or insignificant, that no discernible impact is identified.