Finland
From SEA.unu.edu/wiki
Sélim SAYAH
Contents |
Regulations and Guidance
http://www.vyh.fi/eng/environ/legis/index.htm
Before 1994, an obligation contained in the ministry's of finance regulations, issued annually from the Decree on the State Budget and the Council of State Decision, for actions plans and economic strategies drawn up by the various administrative authorities, to include in their initial conception an abridged estimate on their potential environmental impact.
By September 1994, the Environmental Impact Assessment Act , setion 24, demands that "environmental impact shall be investigated and assessed to a sufficient degree when an authority is preparing plans and programmes, which may have significant environmenatal impact once implemented". General guidelines on the PPP's (plan, programmes or policies) assessment are issued therefore by the council of the state. (to take a look on the EIA procedure and interaction ... go to the following web page http://www.vyh.fi/eng/research/r%5Fdprog/projec10.htm#2 )
The Finnish Ministry of the Environment has written a "Guidelines for the environmental assessment of plans, programmes and policies in Finland" These guidelines are to be followed by all authorities of the government, municipalities and regional councils. The national, regional and local authorities that prepare plans, programmes and policies are responsible for assessing environmental impact. These authorities shall also insure that the approval of plans, programmes and policies is preceded by an adequate examination of alternatives effects.
This same ministry mentionned above is the authority in charge of steering monitoring and developing the implementation of these guidelines. The Finnish Environmental Intitute and the Regional Environmental Center provide assistance where necessary in planning the environmental impact assessment of plans, programmes and policies. The Finnish Environment Institute also gathers information and evaluates experiences concerning the application of these guidelines.
While doing furthur researchs on differents finnish acts and try to find out their relation with the SEA, we notice some obligations in a way or another to strenghten environmental consideration at the PPP's level (policy, plan or programme) :
* the Act on Regional Development (1993) * the Building Act (1958) http://www.vyh.fi/eng/housbuil/ * the Waste Act (1993) http://www.vyh.fi/eng/environ/legis/waste/index.htm * the Forest Act (1996) http://www.vyh.fi/eng/environ/naturcon/index.htm * the Nature Protection Act (1996) http://www.vyh.fi/eng/environ/legis/nature.htm * The Water Act (1961) http://www.vyh.fi/eng/environ/legis/wateract.htm
As it can be seen, at as formal vision, SEA is very well implemented. Some omissions remain in the way assessment must be carried out.
Diagram of the finnish environmetal local authorities ( http://www.vyh.fi/eng/orginfo/organisa/organisa.htm )
Evaluation
The "training" and "co-operation" between different authorities and parties related to SEA implementation, are the two essential keywords in the finnish environmental assessment of policies, plan and programmes (PPP). The public paticipation is the other essential interesting level that strategic assessment enhance in the preparatory stages of the PPP. With these different apsects joined together, the choice of one alternative between the others, is regarded as a sustainable one!
Example (http://www.vyh.fi/eng/landuse/planning/finplan3.htm)
Aiming to a sustainable development throught planing, the SEA in Finland carried out three levels of land use:
- The regional land use plan: transfer of the land use planning from national and regional authorities to local authorities . Then the plan are confirmed by the Ministry of the Environment.
- The local master plan: it's made to resolve questions concerning community structure, environment, services and values preservation. The Regional Environmental Centre is a party of the design.
- The local detailed plan: It takes local conditions into acount, so that parks, service areas and quality of the living conditions are well studied. For instance, any changes that can have negative effect is refused until very good reasons for doing this is proved.
Nowadays, special attention is given to evaluate every step and method used in environmental development strategies. For instance, a main evaluation team has been created in Finland to assess:
- the general environmental policies and their results
- the programme and project level
Its relative objective in the environmental evaluation is to acquire information and recomendations for furthur action, on the implementation of the environmental policy principles in the development cooperation in Finland ("thematic evaluation on environment and development in finnish level development co-operation").
Stages
(Guidelines for the environmental assessment of plans, programmes and policies pp.12-16)
1. Planning the assessment approach, defining different variantes
In is the first stage of the PPP's SEA, environmental assessment must be given due consideration. In making the approach, PPP's must be examined in relation to past or futur actions. Different questions must be asked for instance: the decision to be made, what are the different other alternatives, the areas of activity and their relative impact, etc.The entire work in this stage is based on comparison between different alternatives and discussion with their correspondant actors possible means of implementation of each alternative.
2. Participatory planning and cooperation
It focuses on what the parties consider to be the policy's most probable and tangible impacts. Therefore, it affects the status of various groups within the community. These groups or parties are mainly the people (authorities, citizens or interest groups) who are affected or responsible by the implementaion of PPP or having experiences in the field.
3. Evaluation of impact
The degree of precision inthe environmental assessment (EA) depends mainly on how precise and detailed the PPP is. We must indeed mention some important point must be given special attention when doing the assessment: 1- cumulative impact of separate measures 2- indirect impact 3- impact on the environment and on human living conditions caused by human activity changes.
4. Comparaison of alternatives
It must be assumed the difficulties to produce an all parties agreed alternative. But since the target is to find the best alternative that respond to our different criteria and not the parties satifaction, the range of options must be narrowed as one goes along stages of the assessment. Once its narrowed, reasons must imperatively be indicated. Moreover, the reasons for choice of the last and "best" alternative bust be explicitly explained.
5. Assessment report
"Because environmental assessment is integrated within the process of drafting plans, programmes and policies the results of the assessment are customarily reported in the official documentation for the plan. programme or policy concerned". To know what are the different points the documentation should specify, page 15 of the same Guideline mentioned above is the reference.
6. Monitoring
The monitoring is an efficient tool for a suitable implementation of the chosen alternative and it environmental impact. It is designed to be the way of applying EI (environmental impact) on target groups.
Case studies Finland
Further Reading
Books/workshops
"Guidelines for the environmental assessment of plans, programmes and policies in Finland" Ministry of the Environment Finland
"Workhsop on strategic environmental assessment", 5-7 Ocober 1998 Ulla-Riitta Soveri (Ministrry of the Environment) Mikael Hilden, (Finnish Environment Institute)
"Strategic Environmental Assessment In Finland" Ulla-Riitta Soveri
Internet
Finland web site www.finland.fi
Ministry of the Environment web site
