A MULTI-VIEW EVALUATION OF THE FINNISH EIA SYSTEM: AN 18-YEAR SUCCESS STORY?

This article reviews how the Finnish EIA legislation and procedures are performing in practice, and how the goals of the EIA Act are reached. The role of EIA in planning and decision-making, and the relationship between the EIA legislation and other pieces of legislation is also evaluated. Overall, the goals of the Finnish EIA legislation have been successfully reached: EIA has achieved a meaningful role as a preventive and participatory environmental management tool. In addition, stakeholders have understood the role of EIA and the scope of the current EIA legislation, which is under no pressure for major amendments. The EIA is applied to a rather small number of projects, but these are highly significant in terms of their environmental impact. Some areas requiring improvement identified, for example, the need to streamline and clarify the relationship between EIA procedure and zoning regulations as well as between EIA and the environmental permit system. The legislation for different sectors could be harmonised so that it would better take into account the broad information base created through EIA.