Resources & Links
Here are some resources that you may find useful as you pursue
your particular impact assessment interests. We hope that they will
be of some value, not only to our members and friends in Ontario,
but to people with similar interests in other parts of Canada, and
indeed, other parts of the world.
Impact assessment is both interdisciplinary and
interjurisdictional in nature. Moreover, to be relevant, it must
involve all affected stakeholders, and clearly influence decisions
that impact on the environment, human health, culture, and social
and economic well-being. We have tried to reflect this philosophy in
the resources we have provided on this webpage.
Our emphasis is based on resources that can be accessed online.
We envision these as falling into three broad categories:
- models or success stories that
show possible steps to the future
- online publications related
to impact assessment topics of a timely nature
- links to access sources and databases of links; aboriginal
organizations and associations; non-governmental organizations
and associations; government and government-supported
institutions; and academic and research institutions. These are
sorted into international,
national and
sub-national categories.
We recognize that there are inherent limitations in an effort of
this type made by unpaid volunteers. Nevertheless, we hope that this
webpage becomes a starting point and catalyst for a constantly
evolving and improving resource for the EA community. To make this
happen we will need the help of our loyal visitors to this webpage.
We would particularly like to address some of the issues noted
below:
- We need models and success stories. These, more than all the
theory and codes of good practice that may be devised, are the
beacons to the future. We sincerely hope that our modest start
is not indicative of a failure of impact assessment to really
make a difference. Please prove it to be otherwise!
- The resource material tends to focus on biophysical impacts,
while the field of impact assessment increasingly addresses
impacts on health, culture, and social and economic well-being
to an equal or even greater extent. We need more links to these
diverse aspects of IA. Moreover, we require more emphasis on
urban contexts for impact assessment.
- Aboriginal perspectives need to be reflected in a more
substantive way in impact assessment.
- Impact assessment is increasingly becoming a more
transparent "bottom up", stakeholder-driven process that goes
directly to the core of decision-making, rather than a "top
down" process, with an uncertain effect on decision-making,
administered by faceless bureaucrats. We need more links to
resources tapping into the "grass-roots", local initiative
aspects of impact assessment.
- Finally, impact assessment must break out of its
project-specific straight-jacket, and become a tool for
affecting strategic decisions made by private and public sector
organizations. This is perhaps the biggest challenge faced by
the impact assessment community if it is to have any effect on
the achievement of a truly sustainable future. In this regard,
making "impact assessment thinking" integral to all human
activity, rather than some strangely separate process, is a key
to a more sustainable future. These are aspects of impact
assessment where there is a great need for ideas and examples to
stimulate creative new approaches.
We need to share information on resources and links that shed
light on important evolutionary developments in impact assessment,
in Ontario, in other parts of Canada, and throughout the world. We
ask all visitors to our site to contribute their suggestions for
improvements and additions to this webpage to
webmaster@oaia.on.ca.
