Restoring the credibility and enhancing the usefulness of the EIA process

Five years ago, in the second issue of the EIA Review, I suggested that it was time to shift our attention from impact assessment to strategies for resolving environmental disputes. In Iris state-of-the-art summary in that same October 1978 issue, David O'Connor reviewed the first twenty environmental mediation efforts in the United States and concluded that "mediation by neutral parties has played a significant role in resolving a number of important and controversial environmental disputes."