환경평가에 있어 생물다양성 항목의 도입 방안

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Environmental assessment is a tool to preserve natural resources in our country and to minimize undesirable impacts that occur when an administrative plan is established or an individual project is executed. Although the system of assessment was introduced in Korea more than 30 years ago, habitat conditions of biotics have been damaged because the system has been seldom practiced in developmental policy and sustainability. Although impacts on flora and fauna are assessed by guidelines of environmental impact assessment statements, the assessment mainly focuses on the species or protected species and general techniques on how to record vegetation. However, issues of survey, prediction, and mitigation of habitats and ecosystems regarding biodiversity have not been treated specifically. Because of species·dependent regulations in the current law, indigenous species that maintain structure and function of the ecosystem have been gradually diminished, and spatial structures of the ecosystem have been fragmented to the level beyond capability of maintaining the population of the species. Efforts are in progress to apply a guideline to minimize loss of biodiversity in environmental assessment in foreign countries, but these efforts are hardly considered in Korea. If this situation continues, the biodiversity in our nation will quickly diminish. Therefore, we need to urgently prepare a guideline which can lead us to minimizing loss of biodiversity. In this study we suggest a direction of application when biodiversity issues are introduced in the current system, and provide the reason why we must introduce biodiversity issues in the environmental assessment system that consists a Preliminary Environmental Review system(PER) and an Environmental Impact Assessment system(EIA), based on examples of other countries and the results of analysis of Environmental Impact Assessment Statements(EIAS) in Korea previously. Biodiversity should be considered in the EIA because conserving biodiversity is a key factor of sustainable development. In the analyses of the EIAS of highway construction, there are few contents that deal habitat/biodiversity and lack of assessment. The system, therefore, should be improved to consider biodiversity and ecosystem in survey and also should establish assessment of impacts on the biodiversity and relevant minimization measures specifically. In the PER, although it would not be easy to decide a suitable site and a plan, especially in higher level projects, biodiversity can be used as a criterion to decide a proper site or plan or to select the best alternative. In addition, stakeholder finding and public opinions are facilitated due to focus on biodiversity and its services. This can be led to protecting livelihood and economic profit of the stakeholder, to achieve sustainable development and to maintain a basis for conservation of natural resources, which are genetic foundations of survival for future opportunity. In the EIA, biodiversity components can be introduced in each procedure. In the PER, the components can be introduced in planning or programming procedure, focusing on biodiversity and biodiversity services. At present a method would be an additional item about biodiversity in the current guideline of preparing EIAS. Another method will follow examples of other countries where biodiversity components are applied in each procedure of the EIA, from scoping to monitoring. In this study the former example was presented for the EIA while general principles were provided in case of introduction of biodiversity in the PER. Expected problems and future works were stated in case biodiversity is introduced in the current system. If we are follow guidelines or criteria in our regulatory, we have lots of work and correction to do. We may also need principles of screening and scoping adjusted in the region and project character in which biodiversity can be applied to minimize burden of a proponent. The system of public participation should be used to communicate information of biodiversity and its services. Because the PER system includes administrative planning and small projects, it would not be so easy to apply foreign guidelines, which follow a strategic environmental assessment concept, in our system directly. Thus, individual guideline is needed for administrative planning and small projects, respectively. According to amended law for the PER, the method and details should be reviewed whether the public participation regarding biodiversity and ecosystem services is desirable or not, because opportunity of public participation is given only in the draft of the PER.