Navegando por Autor "Dias, Amanda Monique da Silva"

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Biodiversity monitoring in the environmental impact assessment ofmining projects : a (persistent) waste of time and money?
(2017) Dias, Amanda Monique da Silva; Fonseca, Alberto de Freitas Castro; Paglia, Adriano Pereira
Environmental impact assessments, not only in Brazil, but also globally, have long had their effectivenessquestioned. Among the most frequently debated problems are: low quality of the impact assessmentstatements, weak public participation, project delays, increased costs for proponents, amongst others.The ineffectiveness of the environmental impact assessment system is corroborated by recent schol-arly articles that argue that poor follow-up is one of the key elements behind the worst environmentaldisaster in Brazil, the Fundão Dam failure. The quality of monitoring programs has long been criticizedin Brazil for being partially implemented and for failing to clearly translate into better environmentaldecision-making. This paper discusses the state of environmental impact assessment related to biodi-versity monitoring programs in Brazil’s mining regions, highlighting the political interference aroundthis practice. Biodiversity monitoring programs should set a collection protocol, using a robust samp-ling design, with sufficient survey effort, spatial replication, methodological consistency and time todetect eventual ecological alterations. Without scientific rigor, collected data may have no value fordecision-making, representing a complete waste of time and money.
Consistência técnica dos monitoramentos de fauna no licenciamento ambiental.
(2017) Dias, Amanda Monique da Silva; Paglia, Adriano Pereira; Paschoal, Ana Maria de Oliveira; Paglia, Adriano Pereira; Itabaiana, Yasmine Antonini
Environmental Impact Assessments, not only in Brazil, but globally, have long had their effectiveness questioned. Among the most frequently debated problems are: low quality of the impact assessment statements, weak public participation, project delays, increased costs for proponents, amongst others. The ineffectiveness of the Environmental Impact Assessment system is corroborated by recent scholarly articles that argue that poor follow-up is one of the key elements behind the worst environmental disaster in Brazil, the Fundão Dam failure. The quality of monitoring programs has long been criticized in Brazil for being partially implemented and for failing to clearly translate into better environmental decision-making. This paper discusses the state of Environmental Impact Assessment related biodiversity monitoring programs in Brazil’s mining regions, highlighting the political interference around this practice. Biodiversity monitoring programs should set a collection protocol, using a robust sampling design, with sufficient survey effort, spatial replication, methodological consistency and time to detect eventual ecological alterations. Without scientific rigor, collected data may have no value for decision-making, representing a complete waste of time and money.
Technical quality of fauna monitoring programs in the environmental impact assessments of large mining projects in southeastern Brazil.
(2018) Dias, Amanda Monique da Silva; Fonseca, Alberto de Freitas Castro; Paglia, Adriano Pereira
Biodiversity monitoring is a key element of impact assessment follow-up activities, as it has the potential to generate relevant information about the actual impacts of approved projects on the environment. However, the effectiveness of such monitoring programs depends on issues such as technical quality. The extent to which this issue actually affects biodiversity monitoring is unclear. This knowledge gap was addressed in this study, whose main objective was to analyze the technical quality of fauna monitoring, using empirical data from large-scale mining enterprises in the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. More specifically, this study aimed at analyzing: 1)whether license conditions related to faunamonitoring programswere being met bymining companies; 2) the extent to which fauna monitoring programs met a set of technical quality criteria; 3) whether there were significant differences among taxonomic groups; and, finally, 4) how fauna monitoring programs can be made more meaningful to decision-makers. A total of 236 fauna monitoring reports were analyzed. Findings indicated that, while companies complied with all license conditions, their fauna programs met, on average, 32% of the desirable technical requirements, and there were no significant differences among taxonomic groups. The main technical quality gaps were found to be lack of driving questions, hypothesis-testing and conceptualmodels, as well as lack of comparisons between control and impacted areas. Overall, findings indicated that the data generated in such programs have very limited value to decision-makers as they do not shed sufficient light on the actual impacts of mining activities on biodiversity. The study discusses a number of barriers to more meaningful fauna monitoring programs, and highlights the urgent need for revising current Terms of Reference.