Strategic Environmental Assessment Pre-study of Sonso Lagoon, Colombia.

Abstract: Since the beginning of the 1990s, a discussion has been going on in most western countries about the introduction of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in planning systems. As a result, SEA has been incorporated in national legislation for the assessment of government plans and programs. Additionally, developing nations have started to consider strategic environmental issues and SEA due to the stimulus that has been given by international environmental conventions like the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. However, until now few investigations have been carried out to assess how the current SEA framework suits developing nations. That is why an SEA pre-study that applies the current SEA process together with Ramsar specifications was developed in a case study for the Sonso Lagoon in Colombia. In this study an account of both the positive and negative experiences that resulted from applying the SEA/Ramsar framework is given, the importance of stakeholder participation throughout the SEA process is stressed, stakeholder inequalities created by social differences in developing nations are discussed, the importance of an interdisciplinary working approach is highlighted, and finally a strategic working methodology is proposed for the Sonso Lagoon.