Abstract Global biodiversity loss is among the pressing environmental challenges facing the planet in the 21st century. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) offers one possible means to address some of the drivers of biodiversity loss, yet research over the past 20 years has shown that the treatment of biodiversity within EIA is often insufficient. This review addresses how well biodiversity has been treated in the environmental impact statements (EISs) for 14 projects conducted under the federal Canadian Environmental Assessment Act or its 2012 successor (CEAA2012). The selected projects commenced between 2005 and 2014, cover most Canadian provinces, and include a range of project types. A biodiversity assessment index (BAI) is calculated to assess the information quality of EISs with respect to biodiversity, scoring projects from zero to one based on 49 review criteria. Results are discussed for each stage of the EIA process. Average BAI for the 14 projects was just below 0.5, indicating many substantial deficiencies regarding the inclusion of biodiversity. The BAI between projects conducted under the two Acts did not differ significantly, while project footprint, EIS page-length, and the page-length of biodiversity-related chapters were all positively related with BAI. Some common problems in these EISs included not defining ecologically relevant study areas, poor consideration of alternatives with respect to biodiversity impacts, limited description of the methods for comparing alternatives, impact assessments and analysis, mitigation and monitoring, and a lack of information on the likely success of mitigation, among others. Recommendations for improving the poor treatment of biodiversity in EISs are provided and include, inter alia, setting clear requirements regarding minimum survey efforts, implementing measurable targets or thresholds for important biodiversity features, and adopting regional-EIA to improve the treatment of cumulative effects. Improving the quality of biodiversity considerations in EISs will be important if EIA is to play a role in meeting the measurable outcome-based conservation targets envisioned for the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

中文翻译：

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现在是改进加拿大环境影响报告中对生物多样性的处理的时候了

摘要 全球生物多样性丧失是 21 世纪地球面临的紧迫环境挑战之一。环境影响评估 (EIA) 提供了一种可能的方法来解决生物多样性丧失的一些驱动因素，但过去 20 年的研究表明，环境影响评估中对生物多样性的处理往往是不够的。本次审查针对根据联邦加拿大环境评估法案或其 2012 年后续法案 (CEAA2012) 开展的 14 个项目的环境影响报告 (EIS) 中的生物多样性处理情况进行了讨论。选定的项目于 2005 年至 2014 年开始，覆盖加拿大大部分省份，包括一系列项目类型。计算生物多样性评估指数 (BAI) 以评估 EIS 与生物多样性相关的信息质量，根据 49 个审查标准对项目进行从零到一的评分。对 EIA 过程的每个阶段的结果进行了讨论。14 个项目的平均 BAI 略低于 0.5，表明在纳入生物多样性方面存在许多重大缺陷。根据两个法案进行的项目之间的 BAI 没有显着差异，而项目足迹、EIS 页面长度和生物多样性相关章节的页面长度都与 BAI 呈正相关。这些 EIS 中的一些常见问题包括未定义与生态相关的研究区域、对生物多样性影响的替代方案考虑不足、对替代方案比较方法、影响评估和分析、缓解和监测的描述有限，以及缺乏关于可能的缓解措施的成功等等。提供了改善 EIS 中对生物多样性的不良处理的建议，其中包括对最小调查工作制定明确要求，为重要的生物多样性特征实施可衡量的目标或阈值，以及采用区域 EIA 来改善累积效应的处理。如果 EIA 要在实现 2020 年后全球生物多样性框架所设想的可衡量的基于结果的保护目标方面发挥作用，那么提高 EIS 中生物多样性考虑的质量将非常重要。