Canada's federal impact assessment regime is undergoing significant weakening through shortened timelines, reduced application and narrow scope. These changes represent an acceleration of rollbacks that were introduced in 2012. Driven by geopolitical risks and domestic economic pressures, the recent policy shifts prioritize fast-tracking major project approvals at the federal level of government and in some provinces. This article examines recent law and policy changes, including the new Building Canada Act, a law aimed at fast-tracking projects deemed to be in the "national interest." It also describes how the federal Impact Assessment Act is being curtailed through implementation and policy measures, as well as concurrent shifts and weakening in sub-national impact assessment regimes also aimed at expediting major projects. The article explains how back-sliding toward fragmented, expedited processes risks undermining Indigenous rights, public confidence, and ability to meet international obligations regarding transboundary environmental effects. Overall, the analysis concludes that these unprecedented changes constitute a near-total abdication of federal impact assessment as a planning tool for informed decision-making and heighten the probability of negative environmental consequences and increased litigation.

It has been long articulated that the earlier the public and Indigenous peoples are engaged in project, policy and program design, the greater are the chances of achieving IA's objectives, including accomplishing more meaningful public participation. Yet, there is still no clear definition of "early" and practice remains wanting, despite recognition of the importance engagement during this phase of an IA. In this chapter we engage with the literature and practice regarding early participation in IA, design principles and best practices for achieving meaningful early engagement and consider lessons for moving forward. The techniques for achieving early participation are well articulated in the literature and in practice; they have just not been applied at early stages of the process.

Public participation has been central to impact assessment (IA) since its formalization under the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (1969), yet achieving meaningful participation remains an enduring challenge. Our paper reviews the evolution and current state of public participation in IA globally, drawing on key international conventions (Espoo, Aarhus and Escaz & uacute;), legislative frameworks and practice-based insights from diverse jurisdictions including Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Global North. In achieving this, we have identified the state of the art through a SWOT analysis, as requested by the editors of this special issue. Persistent weaknesses - such as limited early engagement, inadequate access to information, unequal power relations and accelerating decision timelines - continue to undermine participation quality. In response, the paper articulates a framework of thirteen elements of meaningful participation, organized across foundational, essential and contextual domains. These elements emphasize transparency, learning orientation, deliberative approaches and early and ongoing engagement as critical to legitimacy and effectiveness. The analysis highlights growing opportunities for innovation through digital tools, co-design processes and Indigenous-led approaches, while warning of threats posed by political resistance and procedural streamlining. We conclude that achieving truly meaningful public participation requires embedding rights-based, context-sensitive and learning-oriented practices.

Sustainability assessment is a recent framing of impact assessment that places emphasis on delivering positive net sustainability gains now and into the future. It can be directed to any type of decision-making, can take many forms and is fundamentally pluralistic. Drawing mainly on theoretical papers along with the few case study examples published to date (from England, Western Australia, South Africa and Canada), this paper outlines what might be considered state-of-the-art sustainability assessment. Such processes must: (i) address sustainability imperatives with positive progress towards sustainability; (ii) establish a workable concept of sustainability in the context of individual decisions/assessments; (iii) adopt formal mechanisms for managing unavoidable trade-offs in an open, participative and accountable manner; (iv) embrace the pluralistic inevitabilities of sustainability assessment; and (v) engender learning throughout. We postulate that sustainability assessment may be at the beginning of a phase of expansion not seen since environmental impact assessment was adopted worldwide.

Many jurisdictions are looking to next-generation impact assessment (IA) that includes sustainability considerations that extend beyond biophysical. Subjectivity is inherent in many of these additional impact considerations, and they are often not easily nor effectively quantified. Delivering effective IA within this broadening scope requires new, innovative, and rigorous applications of qualitative methods that enable meaningful inclusion of diverse knowledges, values, and information. While many qualitative methods are available for IA, there remains a significant opportunity to strengthen their contribution toward more effective IA practice. As such, we establish in this paper needs that must be addressed if qualitative methods are to meaningfully contribute to IA and pathways for acting on these needs. Relating findings from a survey, semi-structured interviews, and a world caf & eacute;, the paper specifically identifies six key needs for enhancing the effective use of qualitative methods in IA, and five pathways for addressing these needs that involve all IA actors. We conclude that there are deeply entrenched assumptions about qualitative methods and that shifting these views will be challenging and take time. Together, the identified needs and pathways provide a framework for action to improve the effectiveness of IA and should be considered in IA training and practice.

Since its inception, impact assessment (IA) has been perceived by many to be a largely technical, quantitative exercise. However, as jurisdictions shift towards a more sustainability-oriented IA that accounts for a wider range of social, cultural, economic, health and well-being, and equity implications of proposed projects and strategic initiatives, values and subjectivity come more to the fore. Making predictions now needs innovative, and rigorous applications of qualitative methods that enable meaningful inclusion of diverse knowledges, values, and information sources, whilst at the same time giving confidence to decision makers and other stakeholders about the evidence base. Adopting such qualitative methods in practice is hindered by a lack of clarity of the role of qualitative methods in the delivery of sustainability-oriented IA. Guided by findings from a thematic analysis of primary data gathered through an international survey supplemented by semi-structured interviews and a workshop, the novel contribution of this paper is to clarify how and why qualitative methods can best contribute to the effective delivery of next generation IA.

The Next-Generation Community-Based Environmental Assessment (NG-CBEA) advances a comprehensive framework by integrating key components of sustainability, public participation, follow-up and monitoring, and learning to support sustainable community development initiatives in low-income countries. This paper aims to demonstrate the application of the NG-CBEA framework to two proposed irrigation cases in Kenya, identifying key barriers and enablers that emerged from this application. Methodologically, the framework emphasized qualitative, participatory approaches, and the cases met Kenyan regulatory requirements, resulting in the approval of formal EA licenses. Key enablers identified through participant feedback included defining sustainability locally, early and ongoing participation, shared responsibility for follow-up and monitoring, and effective communication for learning. Barriers experienced in the NG-CBEA application included the time required to implement a comprehensive sustainability approach, limited access to information for meaningful public participation, absence of traditional knowledge in follow-up and monitoring, and logistical challenges for field visits to enable learning. Overall, the cases demonstrate the robustness of the framework for advancing next-generation components in CBEA and achieving more sustainable outcomes.

Credible assessment of sustainability purpose, scope and criteria and cumulative and interactive effects are key components of next-generation impact assessment (IA). They are also a vexing challenge, one that is exacerbated by the increased pressure many states are under to expedite the approval of projects deemed important for mitigating the climate crisis. In federalist countries like Canada, obstacles to implementing next-generation IA are amplified by divisions of powers among national, provincial (state) and other governments. In this paper, we consider a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision on the constitutionality of the federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA), a commitment by the Government of Canada to improve IA efficiency, and amendments to the IAA aimed at fixing constitutional issues and shortening timelines. We analyse the ability of the amended law to ensure effective attention to cumulative and interactive effects and contribute to sustainability while achieving desired efficiency gains. We conclude that while the changes to the IAA may undermine its ability achieve these goals, opportunities for advancing next generation assessment may be found in other key components of it, namely interjurisdictional collaboration and upward harmonization, respect for Indigenous knowledge, rights and authority, and more frequent and ambitious use of regional assessments.

Achieving environmental justice in protected area (PA) planning and management has been historically problematic. Herein, potential connections between learning outcomes acquired through PAs and advancements in environmental justice are examined and assessed through a case study of PAs in the Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh, India. Specifically, our study aimed to identify learning outcomes that contributed to positive changes in distributive, procedural, recognitional and restorative justice for local people managing or residing near PAs. As throughout the Himalayas, the land use rights, both customary or recognised by law, of local inhabitants in the Kullu District have been altered and eroded through the establishment of PAs, which has resulted in poor environmental justice outcomes. Interviews were conducted with local people living near PAs, forest officers working in PAs, relevant government officials, academics, and NGO representatives. The results indicate that non-formal and informal learning has produced positive cognitive and relational changes in local inhabitants as well as forest officers, which has led to modification of policies, positive environmental change, and enhanced aspects of environmental justice. Though positive changes emerged, the study also identified a need for increased learning opportunities, particularly for inhabitants of more remote areas.

Qualitative methods for impact assessment (IA) represent a broad spectrum of approaches that are important for realising effective IA practice. The purpose of this paper is to identify and promote qualitative methods that are available for use in contemporary and future (next-generation) IA processes. From an extensive literature review, an international survey (145 responses), expert interviews (48 interviewees), and a workshop attended by 27 IA practitioners, 17 qualitative method categories were identified. These were further subdivided into three classes: conventional qualitative methods, highly participatory methods, and mixed methods. Each method is described, and an indication given of how each can be used in IA practice, including the specific stage of the IA process to which they might be applied. Whilst this paper seeks to stimulate practitioners to apply qualitative methods to enrich IA practices, the research also identifies a lack of expertise with social science methods as a significant barrier to the effective use of qualitative methods in IA practice.

AbstractAdvances in public participation are stimulated by multiple drivers, including public concern for environmental degradation, conflict between forest users, Indigenous rights, and international agreements. Yet, with many notable advances, innovation has stagnated, and the quality of participatory processes in forest management is highly variable. The body of evidence to date demonstrates weaknesses in the design and implementation of participatory processes. With examples from Europe and North America, in this chapter we note that public engagement is often mostly about legitimating predefined plans and policies, narrow technical discussions that malign the inherently political nature of forest management, and participants that are not representative of the general public. To move beyond these challenges, we propose several changes, including technological innovations such as web-based and emerging social media platforms and institutional innovations such as episodic and punctuated modes of engagement that are part of an overall participation plan.

Undertaking environmental assessments for small, rural development projects has proven to be both vexing and essential. Our research considers one approach to assessing such projects, community-based environmental assessment (CBEA). The purpose of our work was to gauge current CBEA practice and consider next generation approaches in the face of challenges such as lack of adequate capacity, resource and power imbalances, achieving meaningful participation, narrow conceptions of sustainability, and weak follow-up and monitoring. Through a literature review and semi-structured interviews with various EA experts from around the globe, we consider these issues and propose a framework for next-generation community-based environmental assessment (NG-CBEA) that builds on four key next generation themes; sustainability, meaningful public participation, follow-up and monitoring, and learning.

This chapter explores opportunities to improve the governance of shipping and related activities in the Canadian Arctic waters through the application of the federal Impact Assessment Act (IAA). It considers a range of activities potentially associated with shipping in the Arctic and their key associated impacts, such as vessels used in fishing and aquaculture, supply vessels for northern communities and industries, shipping related to the transportation of resources extracted in the Canadian Arctic, shipping related to energy projects, tourism related shipping, and the Arctic as a shipping route for global trade. The chapter then considers the role each of four distinct assessment processes under the IAA could make to the governance of shipping. Given the prevalence of other assessment processes in the Canadian Arctic, the chapter then considers how the IAA’s processes will interact with existing assessment processes beyond the IAA, such as those at territorial and Indigenous levels of government.

Rural communities are among the most vulnerable to extreme climatic events but usually have context-specific knowledge on strategies to overcome impacts. We have used the Community-Based Adaptations (CBA) lens to explore how Brazilian Amazon communities have responded to extreme flooding in the last decade. Using a variety of data collection methods, including semi-structured interviews and validation workshops, we found a wide range of locally-devised coping, adaptive, and transformative responses, despite a lack of governmental support. A newly-proposed category of ‘annual responses' was crafted to describe short-term measures taken that were repeated when necessary, but were not fixed, allowing for flexibility and agility. Through our findings, we propose an absorb-cope-adapt-transform (ACAT) spectrum that captures the range of responses and the interplay among response categories. This spectrum highlights transformative responses which have become more important due to the increased severity of the changes experienced by communities. We conclude that the expected increase in the variability and unpredictability of environmental and social conditions will require increased robustness and flexibility of rural communities exposed to climatic changes. This will demand conceptual tools analytically more powerful to detect such systems’ attributes. We intend that our ACAT spectrum contributes to CBA research in this regard.

Changing trends in environmental governance over recent decades have brought more civil society involvement into decision-making processes. The participation of faith communities in these processes is under-researched and poorly understood. This paper applies a governance lens to features of faith organizations to explore their roles, strengths, and shortcomings in contributing to environmental governance. Data were collected through literature review, interviews, focus groups, and participant observation. The data reveal that governance strengths of faith organizations coalesce around providing space for dialogue, helping shape the values and direction of governance, and the existence of strong organizational infrastructure and networks to implement action. Capacity challenges are posed by declining membership in some communities and a large proportion of new immigrants in others. Our research findings also provide a foundation for future studies (as some of the first studies of this kind in Canada) by offering preliminary conclusions and questions for further investigation.