No net loss for people and biodiversity

Abstract

Governments, businesses, and lenders worldwide are adopting an objective of no net loss (NNL) of biodiversity that is often partly achieved through biodiversity offsetting within a hierarchy of mitigation actions. Offsets aim to balance residual losses of biodiversity caused by development in one location with commensurate gains at another. Although ecological challenges to achieve NNL are debated, the associated gains and losses for local stakeholders have received less attention. International best practice calls for offsets to make people no worse off than before implementation of the project, but there is a lack of clarity concerning how to achieve this with regard to people's use and nonuse values for biodiversity, especially given the inevitable trade-offs when compensating biodiversity losses with gains elsewhere. This is particularly challenging for countries where poor people depend on natural resources. Badly planned offsets can exacerbate poverty, and development and offset impacts can vary across spatial-temporal scales and by location, gender, and livelihood. We conceptualize the no-worse-off principle in the context of NNL of biodiversity, by exploring for whom and how the principle can be achieved. Changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of biodiversity-related social impacts of a development and its associated offset can lead to social inequity and negatively impact people's well-being. The level of aggregation (regional, village, interest group, household, and individual) at which these social impacts are measured and balanced can again exacerbate inequity in a system. We propose that a determination that people are no worse off, and preferably better off, after a development and biodiversity offset project than they were before the project should be based on the perceptions of project-affected people (assessed at an appropriate level of aggregation); that their well-being associated with biodiversity losses and gains should be at least as good as it was before the project; and that this level of well-being should be maintained throughout the project life cycle. Employing this principle could help ensure people are no worse off as a result of interventions to achieve biodiversity NNL.

The Role of “No Net Loss” Policies in Conserving Biodiversity Threatened by the Global Infrastructure Boom

“…44 If NNL is to realize its potential to mitigate the impacts of the global infrastructure boom, an essential first step is therefore to transform existing biodiversity compensation policies into true NNL policies through mandatory application of preceding stages of the mitigation hierarchy, and implementation of offsets in line with social and ecological best practice rather than more general biodiversity compensation. 42,45 Such an ambition is not unattainable. Best practice NNL policies applying the mitigation hierarchy already exist in ten countries, and a substantial amount of international infrastructure investment also falls under the scope of NNL policies through safeguards associated with multilateral development financing, such as the International Finance Corporation's Performance Standard 6 (NNL for impacts to Natural Habitat and Net Gain for impacts to Critical Habitat) and World Bank's Environmental and Social Standard 6.…”

“…92 For offsets to be ecologically successful and socially defensible, these shortcomings must be addressed through improved legitimate community participation in both infrastructure and offset planning and negotiation processes. 45 These criticisms point to the risk that poorly designed and implemented NNL and offsetting policies could do more harm than good for conservation and people. However, enthusiastic uptake of compensation policies by policymakers does create a large opportunity for conservation globally: if implementation is improved and the benefits of NNL can be maximized, then NNL is potentially an avenue to mitigating damage on natural systems caused by trillions of dollars' worth of infrastructure, in addition to efficiently addressing global gaps in conservation financing through a ''polluter pays'' approach.…”

Designing markets for biodiversity offsets: Lessons from tradable pollution permits

“…This is even more challenging in developing countries, where people are often more dependent on natural resources and poorly executed offsets could exacerbate poverty (Griffiths, Bull, Baker, & Milner-Gulland, 2019). Griffiths et al (2019) argue that a no-worse-off principle should be applied: social gains from new offsets must be at least equal to any social losses arising from development. This additional principle will add a further layer of complexity to the offset system, potentially requiring reduced geographical markets and/or further trading ratios to account for locational differences between affected persons.…”

Assessing the local economic impacts of land protection

“…; Griffiths et al. ). Within the United States, prior rigorous research regarding the economic impacts of land protection has focused on public designations and areas with low population density (Duffy‐Deno ; Lewis et al.…”

“…Repeated observation of economic indicators from the same unit of analysis (here towns and cities) allows for comparisons that are more likely to overcome issues of bias (and thus prevent causal interpretation) because they hold constant many potentially important, unobservable characteristics of each unit (e.g., Greenstone & Gayer 2009). Rigorous evaluations of both public and private land protection are increasingly important given concerns about the impacts of conservation on human development (e.g., Brockington & Wilkie 2015;Oldekop et al 2016;Griffiths et al 2018). Within the United States, prior rigorous research regarding the economic impacts of land protection has focused on public designations and areas with low population density (Duffy-Deno 1997; Lewis et al 2002Lewis et al , 2003Kim et al 2005;Eichman et al 2010;Rasker et al 2013;Pugliese et al 2015;Chen et al 2016;Jakus & Akhundjanov 2018), whereas future conservation is likely to include more private conservation in highly populated areas (Rissman et al 2007;Lilieholm et al 2013;Nolte 2018).…”