EVALUATING IMPACT ASSESSMENT IN NON-PROFIT CONSERVATION PROJECTS
Conservation organisations strive for positive impacts from their projects, often working in difficult conditions, with limited resources. In many cases conservation projects have successfully protected species and landscapes. However, sometimes things go wrong. Nowhere is this more obvious than in cases of pro-environmental actions which have subsequently been shown to have negative impacts and effects. Conservation projects, arguably even more so than general environmental actions or legislation, should be designed to have positive effects and to avoid negative impacts. Yet, even with the best of intentions, during the protection of species or fragile ecosystems there can be opportunities for unforeseen and unexpected knock-on effects. I review 208 projects from conservation non-profit organisations across five countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom) and within five scale-classifications to establish current practice regarding prediction and assessment of conservation and non-conservation impacts. Assessments include evaluation of the “significance” (severity and duration) of impacts that are both included in, and omitted from reports. The use of parameters for assessment derived from the field of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) commonly used in planning and construction provides a method applicable to project management in non-profit conservation. The study also provides an analytical assessment of the links between organisational characteristics and the approaches to impact assessment and its level of use. This study revealed differences in the frequency and comprehensiveness of impact assessment between organisations, with certain impacts both more likely to occur and more likely to be included in project reports. However comparison of organisational characteristics including location, size and approaches to management showed minimal significant differences, suggesting that the causes of differences are universal. The key findings from the comparison are combined and used as the basis for a working demonstration of a predictive tool to assess impact significance. This has the potential to add value to conservation actions and to be applied to future projects to enhance outcomes.
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