This new doc­u­ment is mak­ing the rounds and I absolutely want to share CSBI’s Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy guide with you.

The Cross-Sector Guide for Imple­ment­ing the Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy pro­vides prac­ti­cal guid­ance, inno­v­a­tive approaches and exam­ples to sup­port oper­a­tional­iz­ing the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy effec­tively. CSBI’s guide on the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy was devel­oped in con­sul­ta­tion with, and with input from, tech­ni­cal spe­cial­ists in impact assess­ment, extrac­tive indus­try experts and finan­cial insti­tu­tions, with feed­back and input from the non-profit sector.

Find more infor­ma­tion on the web­site of the Cross Sec­tor Bio­di­ver­sity Ini­tia­tive and see also copied below.

You can access the pdf of the guide here and there is also a short two-page flyer avail­able in Eng­lish, French and Span­ish for an overview.

More infor­ma­tion on the Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy Guide

1. clearly defines the four steps of the mit­i­ga­tion hierarchy—avoid, min­i­mize, restore and offset—and their appli­ca­tion with regard to man­ag­ing bio­di­ver­sity through­out the life cycle of an extrac­tive project;
2. pro­vides clear, sys­tem­atic guid­ance for deter­min­ing and demon­strat­ing bio­di­ver­sity loss or gain as a result of mit­i­ga­tion efforts, high­light­ing links to ecosys­tem ser­vices where avail­able and appropriate;
3. offers prac­ti­cal mea­sures for pre­dict­ing and ver­i­fy­ing bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion out­comes over time; and
4. offers insight into doc­u­ment­ing and com­par­ing costs and sav­ings result­ing from mit­i­ga­tion action or inaction.

The guide reviews the many options to mit­i­gate impacts, and guides users through a flex­i­ble approach to apply­ing the mit­i­ga­tion steps. The approach is adapt­able accord­ing to site-specific envi­ron­men­tal and oper­a­tional cir­cum­stances, includ­ing dif­fer­ent reg­u­la­tory regimes.

The pub­li­ca­tion is aimed at envi­ron­men­tal pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in, or with, extrac­tive indus­tries and finan­cial insti­tu­tions, who are respon­si­ble for over­see­ing the appli­ca­tion of the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy to bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion, while bal­anc­ing con­ser­va­tion needs with devel­op­ment priorities.

The guide is cur­rently avail­able in Eng­lish, and may be trans­lated into addi­tional lan­guages in the future sub­ject to demand. It is a com­pan­ion doc­u­ment to CSBI’s Time­line Tool and the joint CSBI-MFI Bio­di­ver­sity Work­ing Group’s Good Prac­tices for the Col­lec­tion of Bio­di­ver­sity Base­line Data.

CSBI wel­comes feed­back on how the guide has been used in prac­tice and on any improve­ments that can be made, as well as sug­ges­tions to enhance its uptake and dis­sem­i­na­tion. Please email us at feedback@csbi.org.uk, or see the Engage and Feed­back page for other ways to get in touch.