Technological advancements and industrial development are never the themes for environmental debates in developing countries. Undoubtedly, economic development is the life line of all developing countries and a means through which the developing countries look into future with hope. The proposal for an airport construction in the State of Mizoram in India is being viewed as a developmental step to ensure the economic progress and well being of the people of the State. This developmental effort in today's context of increasing population and diminishing resources require careful planning for sustaining long term economic benefits. In view of the inputs of natural resources that the project would require and the amount of environmental damage it can proliferate if implemented with disregard to natural environment, EIA becomes an important instrument for project planning and mitigation planning.

The preceding sections of this report have dealt sequentially with the three elements of EIA viz., characterization of project environment, baseline establishment and impact prediction.

For evaluating the significance of the predicted impacts of the project and for proposing mitigatory measures, this section has drawn extensively from the analytical functions of all the preceding steps.

The number of components of the environment that would become receptors of impact in the event of the construction of the project, the extent to which spatial and temporal boundaries of impacts would be spread and the scale of magnitude of impacts have been important considerations in determining the significance of project impacts.

Based on ecologically derived rationale and the perceptions of environmental modifications that the project will bring about, and also based on our professional judgement, it is opined that the proposed project is not likely to have significant impacts on the existing ecological profile of the area. The previous section of this report presents the range of impacts that the project is likely to trigger. Most of the impacts are associated with the construction phase of the project, these specifically include those associated with land diversion, changes in landuse, earthworks, road maintenance and construction and modifications in drainage. Degradation of natural resources - air, soil, water, minerals, vegetation, wildlife habitat, depletion of forest based resources like timber, fuel wood and decline in the productivity of croplands and terrestrial and aquatic habitats would be some of the direct project induced impacts. Coupled with these would be cumulative impacts resulting from ancillary developments. These would include further increase in incidences of illegal exploration of natural resources. Although, the mitigation of these impacts is of primary concern to derive the maximum benefits of proposed development, yet, the fact remains that all impacts cannot be mitigated, while some are only partially mitigable. Development projects can rarely take off without the associated demands on environmental resources. What really matters is the proportion of the environmental costs attached to different projects.