Closing Plenary - saying thank you and, reluctantly, goodbye

Obrigado/a and Adeus Porto and IAIA Porto Committee, new friends and old, and everyone involved in making this a excellent conference!

 

Lovely venue, great food, and beautiful city

Emerging themes:

• Free, prior informed consent
• Public participation
• Performance based contracts in construction
• Proactive government
• Capability building in impact and benefit management
• Conflict resolution and management
• Community acceptance of renewables
• Social investment, local content (long before IA starts)
• Social Investment Management Plan (stakeholder is my partner)
• Art of communication
• Difference between SEA and EIA
• Climate change research into practice
• Gendered nature of impacts
• Institutional capacity building
• Regulation for ESHIA
• Consensus building
• Each context is different
• Environmental impacts have social implications
• Public participation is difficult
• How big a success were the laminated almonds at the Banquet?
• Assessing significance
• Involving citizens in monitoring
• Resettlement and livelihood practices
• Workforce health and safety
• Strategic thinking in ESHIA
• Dependence on/of ecosystem services
• Denial of individual's access to rights rather than impacts
• Link between E&S management and value of investment
• Link between IAIA and industry associations
• Regional economic development

Pictures of Porto to follow...