The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has tapped faculty members from state universities and colleges (SUCs) and higher education institutions (HEIs) around the country to join its pool of experts tasked with reviewing proposed development projects' environmental impact assessment (EIA). On April 27, around 50 faculty members with significant experience in the social sciences and technology from 23 different SUCs and HEIs in Luzon took part in an orientation and training on the country's Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) system facilitated by the agency’s  Environmental Management Bureau (EMB). The environment department said similar trainings will soon be held in Visayas and Mindanao. According to the DENR, an EIA is a process for anticipating the effects on the environment caused by a development, while an EIS is the document produced as a result of that process. “An EIS is prepared and submitted by the project proponent or EIA consultant that serves as an application for an environmental compliance certificate (ECC). It is a comprehensive study of the significant impacts of a project on the environmental management plan that the proponent will fund and implement to protect the environment,” it said in a statement. Only about 30 EIA reviewers are currently actively working at the DENR Central Office in Quezon City, Undersecretary for Integrated Environmental Science Carlos Primo David said. As such, he said the DENR had acknowledged the necessity for independent EIA reviewers and that SUC faculty members were the first to come to mind. “With the training that we did, it will more than double the number of EIA reviewers we have. We are tapping the expertise of these academic institutions to help in the work of the DENR,” said David. “This will hasten our processing time, at the same time, review environmentally-critical projects with the proper expertise required,”he went on. Participants were given an overview of the EIA, the Philippine EIS, its implementing rules and regulations (IRR), and other associated policy issuance during the orientation. Further, they were briefed on the ECC application requirements and the integration of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into the EIA.