환경평가제도 30년의 성과분석과 발전방향

Abstract

Abstract Achievement and Development of EIA over the last 30 years As of 2008, Korea has been implementing EIA for thirty years. The object of this paper is to comprehensively evaluate the achievements and limitations of EIA over the last three decades, to define the fundamental problems of EIA by conceptualizing and analyzing EIA limits, and then to present long-term development plans regarding EIA in Korea. Amendments to EIA in Korea The specific features of the Korean EIA process based on major EIA change are summarized as follows: 1. Korean EIA changes based on trial and error and frequent process modification. After the EIA law was enacted as an individual law in 1993, the EIA law has been modified 14 times in order to introduce EIA drafts, scoping processes, PERS, etc. 2. Korean EIA was adopted as a process without the clarification of EIA objects or definitions. It was an inevitable choice to introduce EIA processes due to political pressure (i.e., conflict between environmental division and development division). 3. Unlike EIA laws in foreign countries, Korean EIA has a feature to regulate the content because EIA is considered a concertation process and regulates the contents of the fields and items for EIA review. 4. The regulation feature of Korean EIA is intensified by increasing the responsibility of the Ministry of Environment as a concertation authority and defining limited responsibility to developers and the approval authority. 5. Korean EIA emphasizes functions as a coordinated process of the administration. Analysis of EIA effects In this chapter, the effects and factors of EIA are analyzed by using the proposed analysis model of EIA effects. 1. Plans are modified to consider environmental impacts through the EIA process. 2. The quality of a development planning draft is enhanced progressively because of the systemized EIA and implementation experience. 3. The enhanced quality of a development planning draft is the result of these three causes: environmentally-friendly planning guidance, the improved status of an environmental division, and the establishment and improved review quality of KEI as an EIA review institute. At the same time, it is also the result of these continuous efforts: the alternative comparison of PERS, the improved status of the EIA agency, and the modification of laws (i.e., provision to establish EIA review institute, KEI). EIA Implementation problems This study adopts Germany's policy evaluation methodology, FUTUR, to identify EIA implementation problems. The analysis results are divided into two different problems: discrete problems and fundamental problems conceptualized from individual problems. The discrete problems include mechanical public participation, irresponsibility of an approval authority, the implementation problems of a concertation authority and review institute, unreliable EIA reports, and the reduced effectiveness of EIA caused by routine implementation. The following five problems conceptualized from the discrete problems represent the fundamental problems of EIA in Korea. 1. Concertation process with regulation features 2. Limited planning support functions 3. Limited public participation and social-conflict management 4. Limited information disclosure and transparency in decision-making 5. Repeated and inefficient EIA process EIA development planning The concertation process and PERS are crucial subjects with regard to any discussions regarding the development of Korean EIA and its achievements. In the 1980s, when there was limited concern for the environment, EIA was sustained through the concertation process of the Ministry of Environment. But, at the same time, EIA demonstrates limited functions to impose responsibility on developers and the approval authority and insufficiently regulates government-run (government financed) projects. Thus the EIA features of a concertation process are referred to as the limitedness of EIA development. This paper proposes the following four suggestions regarding the further development of EIA in Korea. 1. EIA must move from being regarded as a concertation process to being a planning process for developers. 2. EIA requires the introduction of screening and the activation of scoping 3. EIA should emphasize the responsibility of an approval authority and enforce the specialization and objectivity of the concertation authority and review institute. 4. EIA functions should include social-conflict management tools and emphasize information disclosure, public participation, and Social Impact Assessments (SIA), etc.