Ecological descriptors in environmental impact assessments: An urgent review of the method in Brazilian reports.

SAO Paulo (Brazil : State); BRAZIL

Worldwide, important biodiversity hotspots have been threatened by land use change, placing several species at risk. Some gaps in environmental licensing system represent challenges for the nature conservation and should be further investigated. Far beyond conservation strategies, the process of legalizing land use of some countries urgently needs to be reviewed, especially in places that host biological megadiversity, such as the Atlantic Forest, southeastern Brazil. This is the first multiple case study that evaluates the use of ecological descriptors in environmental impact assessment involving vegetation in different successional stages of the Atlantic Forest. The methodology was divided into two steps, i) the selection of the reports in a public environmental agency of São Paulo State and ii) the assessment of ecological criteria inherent to the vegetation survey. This study verified a scarcity of reports presenting adequate ecological descriptors according to the law in their reports, which would improve the assessment of the natural environmental framework. Although ecological parameters appear in some reports, they do not show relevant information, even though for the characterization of the succession stages of the forest fragments, thus hiding important information and leaving aside a parameter that should be essential in the approval/disapproval of reports. Thus, we suggest that the data presented and accepted by the Public Environmental Agency of São Paulo, Brazil, did not adequately characterize the stages of ecological succession in the studied areas, thus putting some ecological patterns and processes at risk. This issue must be urgently reviewed so reports should show the real threats for biodiversity. • Ecological descriptors are underutilized in EIA in Brazil • Biodiversity is threatened by the lack of rigor in EIS and EIR • Environmental agencies must be more rigorous in the ecological criteria presented in EIA • Ecological succession must be carefully evaluated in EIA [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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