As one of the public policies instruments used for the previous environmental licensing process of possible impacting enterprises, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has shown some drawbacks. Many researchers mention disparities between the environmental control measures prescribed by the EIA and what was actually implemented in the field. Considering these discrepancies, this work is aimed at evaluating the implementation of the environmental mitigating measures, which were approved by the Minas Gerais State Environmental Agency (FEAM) for the iron mining activities of the Quadrilátero Ferrífero minefield, Brazil. It can be concluded that the environmental control measures have become part of the mining project and design activities. However, as the mining activity is certainly a very dynamic process, many of the prescribed mitigating measures were not implemented in the way they were firstly approved in the Previous License phase, while some other measures, in turn, were simply neglected, standing only as a list of proposals for mitigating environmental impacts.
Environmental impact assessment; Environmental management; Environmental licensing; Environmental impact reports
