Authorizing the Activities With Significant Environmental Impact

Strategic environmental assessment has emerged as a precautionary measure, at the highest decision making level, because the assessment of impact at project level proved so far a quite exhaustive and weak measure and consequently, a failure. This is because of the late moment in the decision making process, when the EIA procedure is applied to projects. Thus, responses to questions raised at the highest level, such as "what kind of development should take place, where and when it should really take place" were often unsubstantiated in terms of protection environment