At its sixth meeting the Conference of the Parties, in decision VI/7 A endorsed the draft guidelines for incorporating biodiversity-related issues into environmental impact assessment legislation and/or processes and in strategic environmental assessment.
The CBD, the Ramsar Convention and the CMS recognise impact assessment as an important tool to ensure that development is planned and implemented with biodiversity 'in mind'. The CBD requires parties to apply impact assessment to projects, programmes, plans and policies with a potential negative impact on biodiversity. Considerable progress has been made in strengthening impact assessment as a tool to further the aims of the CBD and related conventions. However, practise shows
that more work is needed.