…my PhD

Get­ting started with bio­di­ver­sity offsets

I have started to focus more intensely on com­pen­sa­tion and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets in 2008 with the BIOKOM-project: “Approaches to Com­pen­sa­tion for Impacts on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity” (how­ever I have been involved in Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment, Strate­gic Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment and Ger­man Impact Mit­i­ga­tion Reg­u­la­tion before).

Projekt BIOKOM_Darbi

In the fol­low­ing years if have con­tin­ued to do research and give pol­icy advice on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. With bio­di­ver­sity off­sets (at least as a term) being rel­a­tively new and thus very few infor­ma­tion avail­able only a cou­ple of years ago, the sit­u­a­tion now has com­pletely changed. How­ever, despite a grow­ing num­ber of highly valu­able research projects, reports and high level papers, I have the feel­ing that prac­tice is leav­ing acad­e­mia and the the­o­ret­i­cal dis­cus­sion on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets behind.

Devel­op­ing a research sub­ject for my PhD

Inspired by the mul­ti­tude of bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting approaches world­wide, the inher­ent com­plex­ity of the con­cept of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and the grow­ing infor­ma­tion over­load, I have been inter­ested in reg­u­la­tory and vol­un­tary off­set­ting schemes since 2009. How­ever, as I real­ized, these are not two dis­tinct cat­e­gories (“black and white”) but instead rep­re­sent the two ends of a con­tin­uum. I have made this inter­est­ing field the research sub­ject of my PhD and am work­ing out a typol­ogy of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets with regard to the degree of vol­un­tari­ness. This is the first issue. The sec­ond issue that I am deal­ing with is the ongo­ing (and increas­ing?) con­tro­versy on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets as more and more exam­ples are imple­mented on the ground. There­fore, I am also doing a crit­i­cal analy­sis, exam­in­ing PROs and CONs of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. Com­bin­ing these two issues the work­ing title of my PhD reads as follows:

“Between reg­u­la­tion and vol­un­tary engage­ment: a crit­i­cal analy­sis and typol­ogy of bio­di­ver­sity offsets”

This Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog and my PhD

This Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog is largely based on my PhD research (and of course my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence). The other way round, the insights and con­clu­sions that I will gain from this Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog will also feed into my dissertation.

For a very rough out­line of my PhD (in Ger­man) please have a look at: http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/?attachment_id=656

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 … Con­tinue read­ing

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

I 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 … Con­tinue read­ing

Wissenschaftlerin des IÖR mit UVP-Studienpreis 2016 ausgezeichnet

[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 … Con­tinue read­ing

Biodiversity Offsets Blog wishes you a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016!

Wow, can’t believe it’s been a month I haven’t been blog­ging! I took a cou­ple of weeks off from every­thing pro­fes­sional and spent some cosy time around Christ­mas with my fam­ily. It wasn’t actu­ally planned, but obvi­ously I really needed … Con­tinue read­ing