As one of a number of strategies in support of sustainable development, international agencies have increasingly and forcefully advocated the use of environmental impact assessment studies (EIA) for projects that they sponsor in the Third World. The philosophy and many of the techniques and processes associated with EIA, however, reflect social, technological, political and economic forces in the industrialised world that contrast sharply with the development context in many Third World countries. Significant modifications in the traditional standards, approaches, methods and legislation are required to ensure that EIA offers an appropriate aid to environmental management and decision making. This is particularly so in areas where governments seek to apply standards that are consistent with the formal sector to communities that are essentially the product of ongoing informal development processes.
This paper focuses on the feasibility of adapting EIA procedures as a strategy to improve the regularisation process in Trinidad and Tobago, where the government has recently enacted environmental legislation that includes provision for impact assessment. Critical issues in developing regularisation schemes include the urgency of resolving particularly serious environmental problems, unrealistic standards, insufficient data, a lack of co-ordination among government agencies, some of whom are reluctant to accommodate special needs and the need to rely on the resources, skills and willingness of local residents to implement change. Within this context, inappropriate approaches to the impact assessment of community housing projects or programmes may, in fact, be counter-productive. Overly explicit and rigid standards and regulations may well serve as barriers to self-help housing and independent community action. When the sense of independence among informal actors is curtailed, there is an almost total reliance on government initiative.
It is postulated that strategies that are flexible, process oriented and which assess the needs and capacity of the community for change are required. Once needs have been expressed and the capacity for change assessed, realistic standards and goals can be set and monitored over the course of the development process. EIA provides many tools and procedures that can be adapted to support this process. The paper concludes with a discussion of the need for a balanced approach to environmental management that may be applied in support of both informal and formal community development sectors.