Workshops on CEA fostered discussions for evolving CEA practice in the context of the federal environmental agency and the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil
In the emerging Cumulative Effect Assessment (CEA) practice, one of the main hurdles is the misleading concepts about the need to evaluate cumulative impact properties and CEA as a policy instrument. By strengthening CEA practice in Brazil, we propose co-production of knowledge workshops to provide the main concepts, methods, and steps of CEA as instruments to the technical staff from the Federal Environmental Agency and the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples. As a result, the following documents were issued: (i) three terms of reference requiring cumulative impact evaluation in the context of indigenous studies; (ii) one term of reference for a project impact assessment for a railway; (ii) two technical notes; (iii) one guide on cumulative impact assessment in the context of indigenous studies. The discussions during the workshops revealed the need to provide instruments and alternatives to incorporate CEA in the daily work with strong conceptual foundations, along with tailored proposals for each context. The workshop with the staff from the federal agency headquarters revealed several organizational hurdles but also several opportunities to streamline the technical review during the follow-up, considering the need to provide a share responsibilities and costs. The co-production process involving academia, civil society, and technical staff proved to be fruitful for providing scientific evidence and training, both connected to the policy needs.
Juliana Siqueira-Gay is a professor at Escola Politécnica at the Universidade de São Paulo researching and teaching impact assessment.