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The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) will present the Wei Lun Public Lecture on “Being Strategic about Strategic Environmental Assessment” by Professor Lex Brown, Professor, Griffith School of Environment at the Griffith University, Australia this Thursday (19 February).

Environmental Assessment of infrastructural, mining and industrial projects has been one of the most successful tools for environmental management of development. Based on this success, the same concepts of assessment are now being applied to the more strategic activities in development—to the formulation of plans and policies. There needs to be a careful integration of environmental assessment into the existing structures and processes of planning and policy-making. It requires recognition of the different power relationships between those involved, and the different stages involved in the processes of planning and policy-making. It also requires an ability to identify the activities, and issues that will be addressed, within each of the component stages of these processes, and the appropriate form and content of environmental information that can contribute to environmentally sound outcomes. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has to fit into the planning processes, not the other way round.

Born and educated in Australia, Professor Brown received a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil, Hons) in 1968, a Master of Urban Studies in 1975 and a PhD in 1979 from The University of Queensland. Prof. Brown was the Head of the Australian School of Environmental Studies from 1989 to 1994, and the Foundation Head of the School of Environmental Planning, innovatively training urban and regional planners within an environmental faculty, both at Griffith University.

With his international reputation in environmental planning and management, he has been consultant or adviser to a wide range of international organisations (WHO, UNDP, UNEP, IUCN, EU, UNESCO), various governments in Asia-Pacific, Europe and Southern Africa, and private organizations. He has managed three major Australian international aid linkage programs with each of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Bhutan. He also worked for several years with the forerunner of the Environmental Protection Department in Hong Kong in the early 1980s. Professor Brown has been invited to serve as a member of the International Advisory Committee, Centre for Strategic Environmental Assessment of CUHK, and as a member of an International Standards Organisation committee.

In recognition of his academic work and professional activities, Professor Brown has been awarded the national Excellence in Acoustics Award (1994) by the Australian Acoustical Society; the Director's Prize of the Australian Road Research Board (1990); Outstanding Paper Award (1999) by the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies; and the Planning Institute of Australia Queensland Award for Excellence in Planning.

Professor Brown’s lecture will take place at 4:30 p.m., 19 February, at Sin Wai Kin Hall (Lecture Theatre 1), Esther Lee Building, CUHK, Shatin. Public is welcome to register online at www.cuhk.edu.hk/cpr/brown/registration.htm.

The Wei Lun Visiting Professorship / Fellowship Scheme of CUHK was established through a generous donation by the Wei Lun Foundation Limited with the aim to invite eminent scholars from around the world to visit and give lecture at CUHK.

Media representatives are welcome to cover the lecture. Feature interview with Professor Brown can be arranged via the Communications and Public Relations Office at 2609-8892.