ABSTRACT With increased political polarisation and the emergence of populist governments around the world – many of which erode regulatory requirements such as EIA – there is an urgent need to be able to identify and explain the potential benefits of EIA for government. The aim of this paper is to explore the benefits of EIA for government as perceived by EIA regulators. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 175 representatives from the South African EIA regulator. The questionnaire asked the respondents to indicate what they perceive to be potential and realised EIA benefits for government. They were also asked how they recommend the gap between potential and realised benefits might be closed. The results show that the main perceived benefits of EIA to government relate to short-term, project-specific benefits such as the protection of local biodiversity, public participation, legal compliance and enforcement, as well as certain immediate economic benefits. The promotion of sustainable development is not considered a realistically achievable benefit for EIA. It is recommended that for EIA to clearly define and achieve its potential benefits for government, it needs to rediscover and embrace its roots as a project level instrument aimed at dealing with biophysical impacts and environmental protection.

中文翻译：

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环评对政府的好处：监管者的观点

摘要随着政治两极分化的加剧和世界各地民粹主义政府的出现（其中许多削弱了EIA等监管要求），迫切需要能够确定和解释EIA对政府的潜在好处。本文的目的是探索环境影响评估监管者认为环境影响评估对政府的好处。对来自南非EIA监管机构的175名代表进行了半结构化问卷调查。问卷要求受访者指出他们认为潜在的和已实现的EIA给政府带来的好处。他们还被问及他们如何建议可能的收益和已实现的收益之间的差距可能会缩小。结果表明，EIA给政府带来的主要收益与短期，项目特定的收益，例如保护当地的生物多样性，公众参与，法律合规和执法，以及某些直接的经济收益。对于EIA而言，促进可持续发展并不是现实可实现的利益。建议EIA明确定义并实现其对政府的潜在利益，它需要重新发现其根源并作为旨在处理生物物理影响和环境保护的项目级工具。