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Wel­come to the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog! This site aims to pro­vide an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary plat­form for the infor­ma­tion and exchange on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets, the Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy and the wider context.

The About-section in the menu above gives you a brief intro­duc­tion to what bio­di­ver­sity off­sets are and sum­ma­rizes the objec­tives of this blog. You may also want to get to know about me and my PhD (which is the basis for this blog).

The Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog has only recently started (it went online in August 2014) and thus will con­tin­u­ously be updated with any upcom­ing infor­ma­tion. The whole bunch of infor­ma­tion that has risen in the past few years will also be incor­po­rated bit by bit.

As the focus of this plat­form is to bring peo­ple and their exper­tise together, please get in con­tact if you have any­thing to share. It is highly wel­comed if you would like to write posts or reviews or share pho­tographs (Please request author rights). You can also com­ment to any post or start a dis­cus­sion on the open dis­cus­sion plat­form.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A PLATFORM FOR THE PROMOTION OF BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS: STRONG OPINIONS FROM BOTH PROPONENTS AND OPPONENTS (AND ALL THAT LIES IN BETWEEN) ARE VERY MUCH WELCOME!

In this sense you are also kindly requested to answer the cur­rent polls (see in the side­bar on the right or below if you are using mobile devices). Thank you.

Please find below a list of all posts or choose from the menu above for a spe­cific focus.

FOR NETWORKERS

Have a look at the Experts and Exchange sec­tion if you want to get to know experts in the field of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets from all over the world with their respec­tive focus of exper­tise or explore past and present PhD top­ics.

FOR INFORMATION SEEKERS

Have a look at the sources sec­tion to explore rel­e­vant lit­er­a­ture as well as a grow­ing list of links to web­sites.

FOR PRACTITIONERS

It is greatly appre­ci­ated if you’d con­tribute to and exchange on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets on the ground. See infor­ma­tion on poli­cies and gov­er­nance and also world­wide exam­ples of bio­di­ver­sity offsets.

Business and Biodiversity session at Conservation Optimism Summit (21st April 2017)

conservation optimismIf you’ve been around social media in recent weeks and inter­ested in nature con­ser­va­tion, you prob­a­bly have come across the Con­ser­va­tion Opti­mism Sum­mit (held in Lon­don, 20–22 April 2017). There has been a lot of excite­ment and pos­i­tivism. This, how­ever hasn’t pre­vented the orga­niz­ers from shed­ding some light also on the more uncom­fort­able side of our rela­tion to nature: when we’re exploit­ing ina­ture to ful­fill our hunger for resources and goods. Enti­tled “The future of cor­po­rate bio­di­ver­sity account­ing and dis­clo­sure” the ses­sion chaired by Prue Addi­son from the Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Cen­tre for Con­ser­va­tion Sci­ence at the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford set the focus on busi­ness and bio­di­ver­sity. More infor­ma­tion on the out­line as well as the atten­dees can be found below. To engage in the wieder dis­cus­sion check also on the web­site of the Con­ser­va­tion Opti­mism Sum­mit or fol­low the hash­tag #Con­ser­va­tionOp­ti­mism. Con­tinue read­ing

How can regulators support business to go green? Please share your knowledge and experiences!

supporting business to go green_narrow_centeredThe EKLIPSE project, funded by the EU in H2020, is devel­op­ing a Euro­pean Mech­a­nism to answer requests from pol­icy mak­ers and other soci­etal actors on bio­di­ver­sity related issues.

A request on sup­port­ing busi­nesses to improve the out­comes of their oper­a­tions for bio­di­ver­sity was pro­posed by the Scot­tish Envi­ron­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA). In response to this EKLIPSE is launch­ing an open Call for Knowl­edge invit­ing sci­en­tists, pol­icy mak­ers, prac­ti­tion­ers and other soci­etal actors to share their knowl­edge and avail­able resources on this spe­cific selected request. Con­tinue read­ing

Biodiversity Offsets Blog reloaded: offsets, biodiversity, science-policy interfaces and a dodo from time to time

The past year has been an excit­ing one for me: tying together all the loose ends, final­iz­ing my PhD the­sis and look­ing for new endeav­ors and opportunities…

Most impor­tantly, after more than ten years at the Leib­niz Insti­tute of Eco­log­i­cal Urban and Regional Devel­op­ment (IOER) in Dres­den, I have left my pro­fes­sional or sci­en­tific cra­dle to head for an excit­ing Post­doc posi­tion at the Helmholtz Cen­tre for Envi­ron­men­tal Research (UFZ) in Leipzig. I have joined the Sci­ence Pol­icy Expert Group in the depart­ment of Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy there in Jan­u­ary. This was def­i­nitely one of the best or mean­ing­ful deci­sions I have made in the past few years (if ever you come to ask your­self whether you should stay in a sit­u­a­tion that com­forts you, but doesn’t chal­lenge you any­more or go for some­thing new: go and get out­side your com­fort zone!). Con­tinue read­ing

BBOP webinar today, Wednesday, October 12, 2016: France’s new biodiversity law and implications for no net loss of biodiveristy

bbop-logoThis is a last minute reminder to reg­is­ter for another inter­est­ing BBOP webi­nar, tak­ing place today, Octo­ber 12.

Ophélie Darses, Deputy Bureau Chief of Global Pub­lic Goods from the French Min­istry of Envi­ron­ment, Energy and Sea, and Fabien Quétier from the French envi­ron­men­tal con­sul­tancy Biotope will present and dis­cuss the new pro­vi­sions intro­duced by the new French bio­di­ver­sity law includ­ing its impli­ca­tions on the rights and duties of “off­set oper­a­tors”, finan­cial guar­an­tees for off­sets, and a national pub­lic geo­ref­er­enced data­base on offsets.

As usual the webi­nar is part of the BBOP com­mu­nity of prac­tice (all pre­vi­ous webi­nars are archived there if you want to lis­ten to them later).

Con­tinue read­ing

Marianne Darbi awarded EIA Study Award for her PhD on Biodiversity Offsets

EIA Study awardI had blogged about it ear­lier how happy I am to receive the EIA Study Award of the Ger­man Soci­ety for Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assessment.

The big day had finally come Thurs­day, 30 Novem­ber and I was enjoy­ing both an inter­est­ing EIA con­gress with lots of inspir­ing talks from prac­ti­tion­ers, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, sci­en­tists and admin­is­tra­tion. But of course, my per­sonal high­light was the offi­cial award cer­e­mony. Thanks to the jury for choos­ing my work for this prize and espe­cially thanks to Prof. Sabine Baum­gart for a fan­tas­tic lau­da­tion (some­times I couldn’t believe she was speak­ing about me and my work ;o)). And again, heart­ful thanks to all of you for your sup­port and con­tri­bu­tion to this work and the warm words and con­grat­u­la­tions that I have received so far.

After upload­ing the Ger­man offi­cial press release, I now want to share the Eng­lish ver­sion of the press release with you. For whom this may be a bit too for­mal, find below also some pho­tographs :o)

Offi­cial press release on the EIA study award

Mar­i­anne Darbi, research assis­tant at the Leib­niz Insti­tute of Eco­log­i­cal Urban and Regional Devel­op­ment (IOER), has received the EIA Study Award 2016 for her dis­ser­ta­tion on the mit­i­ga­tion of envi­ron­men­tal impacts. With a prize of up to € 5,000, the award goes to out­stand­ing research in the field of envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment (EIA). It was awarded by the Ger­man Soci­ety for Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment (UVP-Gesellschaft) end of Sep­tem­ber. Mar­i­anne Darbi had con­vinced the inde­pen­dent jury with a global typol­ogy of mea­sures to com­pen­sate for bio­di­ver­sity loss. Con­tinue read­ing

Wissenschaftlerin des IÖR mit UVP-Studienpreis 2016 ausgezeichnet

Foto_UVP-Studienpreis-2016_Marianne-Darbi-IÖR_0527

Burkhard Fah­nen­bruch vom Vor­stand der UVP-Gesellschaft grat­uliert Preisträgerin Mar­i­anne Darbi (re.), im Hin­ter­grund: Lauda­torin und Jury-Mitglied Prof. Dr. Sabine Baum­gart von der TU Dort­mund. (Quelle: UVP-Gesellschaft e. V.)

[This is the offi­cial press release (in Ger­man) on the recent EIA study award that I have received for my PhD on bio­di­ver­sity offsets.]

Für ihre Dis­ser­ta­tion über die Reg­ulierung von Ein­grif­fen in die Umwelt hat Mar­i­anne Darbi, wis­senschaftliche Mitar­bei­t­erin im Leibniz-Institut für ökol­o­gis­che Rau­men­twick­lung (IÖR), den UVP-Studienpreis 2016 erhal­ten. Der mit ins­ge­samt bis zu 5.000 Euro dotierte Preis geht an her­aus­ra­gende Forschungsar­beiten rund um das Thema Umweltverträglichkeit­sprü­fung (UVP). Er wurde Ende Sep­tem­ber von der Gesellschaft für die Prü­fung der Umweltverträglichkeit (UVP-Gesellschaft) ver­liehen. Mar­i­anne Darbi hatte die unab­hängige Jury mit einer weltweiten Typ­isierung von Aus­gle­ichs­maß­nah­men zum Erhalt der biol­o­gis­chen Vielfalt überzeugt. Con­tinue read­ing

No Net Loss and Biodiversity Offsets: documentation from the EcoSummit

IMG_7724As I had promised ear­lier, I am shar­ing with you some impres­sions and pre­sen­ta­tions from our bio­di­ver­sity off­sets ses­sion at the recent Eco­Sum­mit in Mont­pel­lier. After the gen­eral ses­sion descrip­tion and line-up of speak­ers, find below the abstract and pre­sen­ta­tion for each of the speak­ers (includ­ing a few pho­tographs). Con­tinue read­ing

SHORT INFO: Biodiversity Net Gain is the next big thing, so what’s the business case?

What’s it about in short: CIRIA, the UK’s con­struc­tion indus­try research and infor­ma­tion asso­ci­a­tion joins forces with Bal­four Beatty to tar­get Bio­di­ver­sity Net Gain fol­low­ing ‘best prac­tice principles’

When was it released: Sep­tem­ber, 2016

By whom: CIRIA UK, Julia Baker

More info: http://www.ciria.org/News/blog/Biodiversity_Net_Gain_is_the_next_big_thing.aspx Con­tinue read­ing

Status

My PhD on biodiversity offsets has won the bi-annual award of the German EIA Association

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I am just so super­happy that I need to share the good news with you: I have won the bi-annual EIA study award of the Ger­man EIA asso­ci­a­tion for my PhD on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets!!!  Look­ing for­ward to the offi­cial cer­e­mony at the EIA con­gress 28.-30. Sep­tem­ber in Bre­men, Ger­many! (I’ll soon also pub­lish some more infor­ma­tion on my PhD the­sis which basi­cally includes the devel­op­ment of a typol­ogy of bio­di­ver­sity offsets).

Webinar on Thursday, September 22, 2016: Principles for Achieving Net Gain Biodiversity Outcomes from Development

In this webi­nar, brought to you by IEMA, CIRIA and CIEEM, Julia Baker will out­line and review the best prac­tice prin­ci­ples for UK indus­try to achieve bio­di­ver­sity net gain out­comes from devel­op­ment. It will focus on recent prin­ci­ples, drafted and devel­oped through a col­lab­o­ra­tive and cross-profession based part­ner­ship. It will also pro­vide exam­ples of bio­di­ver­sity net-gain approaches and insights into devel­op­ing guid­ance.

When: Sep­tem­ber 22, 2016 1:30 PM — 2:45 PM CEST

How: you can reg­is­ter here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3041335300843281412