ABSTRACT
Follow-up is one of the ‘last frontiers’ of the very successful instrument of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). By capturing follow-up, together with Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and the inclusion of broader issues (e.g. health, social and economic considerations), EIA may become an important instrument for safeguarding sustainable development. Follow-up plays a vital role in a living and efficacious EIA. It fills the implementation gap by providing the missing link between plan and project preparation and subsequent operation. It thus ensures that EIA is not reduced to being just paper-based ‘sweetheart statements’. EIA follow-up is the complement of predecision EIA. Both are necessary to deal adequately with uncertainty intrinsic to project planning and decision-making. Follow-up is a key mechanism for putting in place (adaptive) management measures to protect the environment and to enable learning from experience.
