ID: 2251
Presenting Author: Abbas Suleiman
Session: 725 - After the Assessment – Where’s the Value and What Happened in the End?
Status: pending
This paper evaluates how EIA, SEIA, and CIA processes shape real-world environmental governance and development outcomes in Bonny Island, Nigeria.
This paper examines how Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA), Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA), and traditional Impact Assessment (IA) influence real-world decision-making, permitting, and land-use governance. Using Bonny Island, Nigeria—a coastal hub hosting the NLNG Project, ExxonMobil NGL facilities, Shell Tank Farm, airport, new town developments, and a biodiversity reserve—the study explores how impact assessments have translated into actual environmental outcomes. Drawing on post-EIA monitoring and institutional reviews, it highlights successes, failures, and persistent gaps in linking assessment findings to implementation and oversight. The analysis reveals how weak feedback loops and institutional inertia often limit EIA’s transformative potential, while integrated and adaptive approaches yield better sustainability results. Ultimately, the paper underscores the need for continuous, system-level reform that repositions EIA, SEIA, and CIA as active instruments for long-term environmental governance, resilience, and equitable development in resource-sensitive coastal regions
Dr. Abbas Suleiman, PhD, FNES, mNMGS, is a distinguished environmental scientist, policy strategist, and National President of AEIAN. Formerly Director at the Federal Ministry of Environment and now C