Strategic Environmental Assessment for increasing planning, efficiency & reducing conflict of interest in and around Coastal and Marine Protected Areas

Wednesday, 8 October 2014, 18:15 - 19:45
Hall C, Room 1 - CEE Meeting Room

Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an approach for planning and decision making to ensure that environmental and other sustainability aspects are reflected effectively in policies, plans and programmes. The side event was organised to share the results of a capacity development project on Strategic Environmental Assessment being jointly implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN).

The Panelist at the event reiterated the importance and relevance of SEA tool for both developed and developing countries. The participants to the event also gave a detailed overview of the two year long project on SEA, which facilitated exchange of experiences and learnings from different countries.

The discussion also revolved around issues like practical aspects of applying SEA including methodology, gaps, solutions, implementation and funding, involvement of civil society and monitoring of the tool and its impacts and mitigations plans. The participants voiced that SEA is very important for countries like India, which holds 8% of the world’s biodiversity and is striving to strike a balance between development and biodiversity. Participants agreed on the significance of SEA as a tool in urban planning and Coastal and Marine ecosystems and discussed the proposed plan to apply SEA to support management planning of a large coastal wetland. It was suggested that a collection of case studies on SEA can be developed as a toolkit to support the implementing agencies. The event was attended by decision-makers from different countries, independent Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) experts, consultants, NGOs, International organisations and protected area managers.

Organisers: Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India, Indo-German Biodiversity Programme, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

Panelists: Shri Hem Pande, Additional Secretary, MoEF&CC, Government of India, Dr. Horst Korn, Head of Biodiversity Unit, The Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Germany, Dr. Neeraj Khera, Senior Advisor, Biodiversity Programme, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

For further details, please contact Dr. Neeraj Khera at neeraj.khera@giz.de