| Thematic Issues | |||
| Institutional Capacity | Natural Resources and Environment | Social Issues | Development |
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Environmental Impact Assessment Political and Public Awareness Economic Evaluation of Environmental Issues |
Economic Evaluation of Environmental Issues
Issue Economic evaluation is seldom conducted of environmental issues.
Background Natural resources and environmental issues have been identified and agreed upon at the regional and national levels. However, the economic cost of managing, or alternatively of ignoring, the issues is not generally calculated. The result is environmental planning and management in a vacuum and the construction of under-costed projects. Project benefits are often over-valued with respect to long-term costs. The cost, for example, of project impacts, air pollution, water pollution, land mismanagement or damage to natural resources sustainability is rarely calculated. Hence, the benefits of “change” (if not development) are usually exaggerated and the costs of cumulative impacts are largely unknown. If these costs were known, they could, for example, be built into resource prices and license or permit fee rates. |