ABSTRACT
The process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) was introduced for the first time in the United States in 1969 under the National Environmental Policy Act for all major federal activities. Since then, there has been an everwidening acceptance, particularly by the industrialised nations of the world, of the view that environmental effects likely to be caused by a proposed development are material considerations within any planning decision-making process. The influence of the US federal measures led to the rapid incorporation of EIA into state and local statutes across that country and then by the government of Canada in 1973. Many other developed countries followed including, Australia at commonwealth level (1974), Japan (1984) and New Zealand (1991). Although a number of its member countries, such as France and Ireland, had embraced EIAs as early as 1976, followed by the Netherlands (1981), the Council of Environmental Ministers of the European Communities did not adopt a Directive on EIAs for certain types of development until 1985. Their implementation became mandatory in 1988 (Montz and Dixon 1993; Sanchez 1993; Geraghty 1996). As for developing countries, while many of the 121 sovereign states that might be so categorised had, by the 1990s, at least considered EIA legislation, only nineteen had put in place the necessary administrative, institutional and procedural frameworks for the implementation of EIA systems, only six of which were successfully operational (Ebisemiju 1993).
