The ecosystem services blog

Biodiversty offsets are being debated in the United Kingdom as a useful tool for stopping biodiversity loss (the so called no-net-loss target). Rob Calvert, a policy intern at the British Ecological Society (BES), recently contributed to the debate through an article in the Bulletin of the BES, which also brought professional ecologists on board. The bulletin is only available to subscribers so here is a short summary and review.

Mr. Calvert explains how the goal of offsets is to achieve no-net-loss through “measurable conservation outcomes resulting from actions designed to compensate for significant residual adverse biodiversity impacts arising from development plans or projects after appropriate prevention and mitigation measures have been taken”. This is the definition by BBOP (Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program*). After giving foreign examples of offset policies, he details the advantages of pooling offsets from different impacts in order to obtain additional biodiversity gains through larger areas or interconnections.

He then goes on to list the concerns raised by the prospect of biodiversity offsets

Restoration is not always possible

Determining “biodiversity value” for assessing “like for like” will always involve subjective elements as biological and ecological knowledge is incomplete

Metapopulation dynamics and genetic diversity are unlikely to be considered, yet they are essential to long-term persistence

Offsets located far from impacts has ethical implications as they deprive local populations of green space

Concerning the policy itself, Mr. Calvert refers to a scoping study by DEFRA that mentions the following key difficulties:

High transaction costs must be expected (probably for agreeing on ecological equivalence, and finding land for offsets)

Stakeholders must be provided with clear rules and objectives that are legally, institutionaly and financially secure

There are of course exciting opportunities in developing an offset policy in the UK. These include

Restoring or enhancing areas of man-made biodiversity that are currently degraded as a very cost-effective way to favour biodiversity

Conserving biodiversity outside protected or designated sites

Incorporating conservation objectives into spatial planning processes

Improving the ecological connections between protected hot-spots of biodiversity by locating offsets strategically in the degraded suburban and agricultural matrix

According to Mr. Calvert, British legislation and policy tools are already adapted to the setting up of offset schemes, with

Relatively good data and maps on the distribution of biodiversity

Spatial planning laws and procedures

Offsets are already required for impacts on Natura 2000 sites

Among the many fora in which offsets are being discussed, Mr. Calvert mentions those of the Natural Capital Initiative towards no net loss.

*: BBOP recently put on-line a report on policy options for setting up offset schemes (pdf here).

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 at 3:35 am and is filed under Biodiversity, Business, Law, Offsets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.