Businesses, governments, and financial institutions are increasingly adopting a policy of no net loss of biodiversity for development activities. The goal of no net loss is intended to help relieve tension between conservation and development by enabling economic gains to be achieved without concomitant biodiversity losses. biodiversity offsets represent a necessary component of a much broader mitigation strategy for achieving no net loss following prior application of avoidance, minimization, and remediation measures. However, doubts have been raised about the appropriate use of biodiversity offsets. We examined what no net loss means as a desirable conservation outcome and reviewed the conditions that determine whether, and under what circumstances, biodiversity offsets can help achieve such a goal. We propose a conceptual framework to substitute the often ad hoc approaches evident in many biodiversity offset initiatives. The relevance of biodiversity offsets to no net loss rests on 2 fundamental premises. First, offsets are rarely adequate for achieving no net loss of biodiversity alone. Second, some development effects may be too difficult or risky, or even impossible, to offset. To help to deliver no net loss through biodiversity offsets, biodiversity gains must be comparable to losses, be in addition to conservation gains that may have occurred in absence of the offset, and be lasting and protected from risk of failure. Adherence to these conditions requires consideration of the wider landscape context of development and offset activities, timing of offset delivery, measurement of biodiversity, accounting procedures and rule sets used to calculate biodiversity losses and gains and guide offset design, and approaches to managing risk. Adoption of this framework will strengthen the potential for offsets to provide an ecologically defensible mechanism that can help reconcile conservation and development. Balances de Biodiversidad y el Reto de No Obtener Pérdida Neta.
Regulatory biodiversity trading (or biodiversity "offsets") is increasingly promoted as a way to enable both conservation and development while achieving "no net loss" or even "net gain" in biodiversity, but to date has facilitated development while perpetuating biodiversity loss. Ecologists seeking improved biodiversity outcomes are developing better assessment tools and recommending more rigorous restrictions and enforcement. We explain why such recommendations overlook and cannot correct key causes of failure to protect biodiversity. Viable trading requires simple, measurable, and interchangeable commodities, but the currencies, restrictions, and oversight needed to protect complex, difficult-to-measure, and noninterchangeable resources like biodiversity are costly and intractable. These safeguards compromise trading viability and benefit neither traders nor regulatory officials. Political theory predicts that (1) biodiversity protection interests will fail to counter motivations for officials to resist and relax safeguards to facilitate exchanges and resource development at cost to biodiversity, and (2) trading is more vulnerable than pure administrative mechanisms to institutional dynamics that undermine environmental protection. Delivery of no net loss or net gain through biodiversity trading is thus administratively improbable and technically unrealistic. Their proliferation without credible solutions suggests biodiversity offset programs are successful "symbolic policies," potentially obscuring biodiversity loss and dissipating impetus for action.
Biodiversity offsetting is increasingly being used to reconcile the objectives of conservation and development. It is generally acknowledged that there are limits to the kinds of impacts on biodiversity that can or should be offset, yet there is a paucity of policy guidance as to what defines these limits and the relative difficulty of achieving a successful offset as such limits are approached. In order to improve the consistency and defensibility of development decisions involving offsets, and to improve offset design, we outline a general process for evaluating the relative offsetability of different impacts on biodiversity. This process culminates in a framework that establishes the burden of proof necessary to confirm the appropriateness and achievability of offsets, given varying levels of: conservation concern for affected biodiversity; residual impact magnitude; opportunity for suitable offsets; and feasibility of offset implementation in practice. Rankings for biodiversity conservation concern are drawn from existing conservation planning tools and approaches, including the IUCN Red List, Key Biodiversity Areas, and international bank environmental safeguard policies. We hope that the proposed process will stimulate much-needed scientific and policy debate to improve the integrity and accountability of both regulated and voluntary biodiversity offsetting.
Previous attempts to identify nationally important wetlands for biodiversity in NewZealand were based on expert panel opinions because quantitative approaches were hampered by a lack of data. We apply principles of systematic conservation planning to remote sensing data within a geographical information system (GIS) to identify nationally important palustrine and inland saline wetlands. 2. A catchment-based classification was used to divide New Zealand into 29 biogeographic units. To meet representation goals, all wetland classes need to be protected within each unit. 3. We mapped current and historic wetlands down to a minimum size of 0.5 ha. Over 7000 current wetlands were mapped using standardised satellite imagery and a collection of point or polygon data. Historical extent was estimated from soil information refined using a digital elevation model. The current extent of wetlands is 10% of the historic extent, which is consistent with previous estimates. 4. A classification was produced using fuzzy expert rules within a GIS to identify seven wetland classes: bog, fen, swamp, marsh, pakihi ⁄ gumland, seepage and inland saline. Swamps and pakihi ⁄ gumland are the most common, but the former has sustained the greatest reduction in area with only 6% of its historical extent remaining. A preliminary field assessment of classification accuracy in the Otago region found only 60% agreement, mainly because of the misclassification of marshes into swamps. 5. Wetland condition was estimated using six measures of human disturbance (natural cover, human-made impervious cover, introduced fish, woody weeds, artificial drainage and nitrate leaching risk) applied at three spatial scales: the wetland's catchment, a 30-m buffer around the wetland and the wetland itself. Measures were transformed and combined into a single condition index. More than 60% of remaining wetlands had condition indices <0.5, probably indicating moderate to severe degradation and loss of native biodiversity. 6. Sites were ranked within each biogeographic unit using the wetland classification to ensure a representative set of wetland diversity. Rankings were determined by combining condition and complementarity to calculate conservation effectiveness that was then weighted by irreplaceability. Highest ranked sites in each biogeographic unit were usually the largest remaining wetlands that contained multiple wetland classes. This reflects their potential to protect a diverse range of wetland classes and a high proportion of the remaining habitat.
35Biodiversity offsetting is a mechanism aimed at achieving biodiversity gains to 36 compensate for the residual impacts of development activities on biodiversity. 37Estimating the ecological equivalence of biodiversity lost to development with that 38 gained by the offset requires a currency that captures the biota of interest and an 39 accounting model to evaluate the exchange. Ecologically robust, and user-friendly 40 decision support tools improve the transparency of biodiversity offsetting and assist in 41 the decision making process. Here we describe a tool developed for the New Zealand 42 Department of Conservation that offers a mechanism to transparently design and 43 evaluate biodiversity offsets intended to deliver no net loss. It is a relatively 44 disaggregated accounting model that balances like-for-like biodiversity trades using a 45 suite of area by condition currencies to calculate net present biodiversity value 46 (NPBV) to account individually for each measured biodiversity element of interest. 47The NPBV is used to evaluate whether a no net loss exchange is likely for each 48 biodiversity attribute. More disaggregated currencies have an advantage over 49 aggregated currencies (which use composite metrics) in that they account for each 50 itemised biodiversity element of concern. The disaggregated model we present can be 51 used to account for a variety of biodiversity types in an offset exchange, and for 52 different scales and complexities of development and impacts within both statutory 53 and voluntary frameworks. 54 55 Keywords biodiversity offsetting; disaggregated currencies; net present biodiversity 56 value 57 58 3
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