Achieving no net loss of something or other

In this guest blog post, Bruce Howard, the NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow on biodiversity offsetting, gives his take on BBOP’s ‘To No Net Loss of Biodiversity and Beyond’ conference recently held in London. Bruce is based at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

Representatives of over 30 countries gathered on 3rd and 4th June for the first global conference on approaches to avoid, minimise, restore and offset biodiversity loss. This sequence of four activities, known as the mitigation hierarchy, is crucial to protecting ‘biodiversity’ from the impacts of building things on the ground or at sea.

The conference, which was spearheaded by the Business and Biodiversity Offsets (BBOP) Programme, was entitled To No Net Loss of Biodiversity and Beyond. No net loss of biodiversity is what many believe should result from correct application of the mitigation hierarchy. The idea was used as part of the rationale for Defra’s 2013 Green Paper on plans to bring about greater use of biodiversity offsetting in England.

The discussions at the conference demonstrated that while the logic of the mitigation hierarchy is accepted widely, the assessment of whether it is being applied will always be subjective. For example, does avoidance include development proposals that were abandoned before they were properly documented? Similarly, is minimisation just sensible environmental planning?

Most delegates appeared to agree that biodiversity offsets are a last resort at the end of the mitigation hierarchy. There were, however, differences of opinion among participants about the effect of the option of offsetting on steps further up the hierarchy. Some at the conference claimed that offsets provided an incentive to drive up standards throughout the mitigation hierarchy, not least because of the costs involved. Others would disagree, or at least argue that the evidence for this among all the offset schemes worldwide is lacking.

The conference contained a mix of parochial and planetary considerations. In a plenary debate about the pros and cons of including offsets in the mitigation hierarchy, Tom Tew, Chief Executive of the Environment Bank asserted that offsetting for England was not about “saving the planet” but rather “introducing environmental accountability into [spatial] planning”. This down-to-earth view contrasted with the more general and global view of others. Overall, the conference made clear that where offsets are permitted, success or failure of offsets will always depend on the circumstances. These include the availability of data to establish an ecological baseline, the extent of good governance and the technical merits of restoration proposals.

Strangely, there was little discussion among conference participants as to exactly what the biodiversity we don’t want to lose actually is. The Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Braullio Dias, spoke about the roles of biodiversity in health and poverty eradication but not its identity. The CBD’s definition of biodiversity, which focuses on variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes of which they are part, is giving way to the view that it is all things that people value about nature. Peter Bakker, President of the World Business Council on Sustainable Development made the provocative claim that biodiversity is a “meaningless” term in the goal-oriented world of business. Without clarity on what we are trying to protect in diverse situations around the world, it will be impossible to monitor progress towards any no net loss goal.

The idea of no net loss perhaps found greatest meaning in a keynote speech by the Environment Minister for Gabon, Noel Nelson Messone. He set out a vision for protecting his country’s natural resources by means of extensive protected areas and bans on the export of raw commodities. No net loss of virgin forest in Central Africa is far more tangible as a goal than the avoidance of overall biodiversity loss around the UK.

A business roundtable on day two focused on building a business case for biodiversity and putting no net loss into practice within the private sector. The businesses represented had many different approaches to biodiversity protection, ranging from accounting for impacts along supply chains to the application of the mitigation hierarchy. The need for more partnerships between businesses and nature-based NGOs and governments was identified. At a session on safeguards, standards and tools for biodiversity protection, the need for trained ecologists with good communication and negotiation skills was noted.

The conference was entitled To No Net Loss of Biodiversity and Beyond. The ‘beyond’ was perhaps an allusion to the idea of net gain. However, until we can deliver no net loss for the something or other that we call biodiversity, the achievement of net gain will remain a task for future generations.
– See more at: http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/2014/06/16/achieving-no-net-loss-of-something-or-other/#sthash.iOc4Oqkx.dpuf

“Examples, Dialogue And Clearer Policy Needed In Biodiversity Offsetting

Highlights including video footage from last month’s conference on ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity, which brought together a multitude of sectors to discuss avoiding, minimizing, restoring and offsetting biodiversity loss, are now available. The event, held at the London Zoo and hosted by BBOP, was the first of its kind.

15 July 2014 | On the third and fourth of June, 280 individuals from 32 countries met in London at the To No Net Loss of Biodiversity and Beyond conference to discuss how to ensure that development is planned to achieve no net loss or preferably a net gain in biodiversity. They explored international experience and policy on no net loss and a net gain of biodiversity, and everyone was searching for practical solutions to reconcile development with environmental protection and social fairness.

Hosted by Forest Trends, the Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme (BBOP), the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) at ZSL, the representatives came from companies in the extractive, energy, infrastructure, agriculture, forestry and retail sectors, from governments and intergovernmental organizations, from financial institutions, NGOs, civil society, universities, research organizations and from consultancies and small businesses.

“There is a real genuine interest in the topic of no net loss of biodiversity now,” says BBOP Director, Kerry ten Kate. “People want to discuss it and share ideas and hear different perspectives from around the world.”

Many useful lessons were shared throughout the two days and recommendations sprang from every session. However, a number of cross-cutting, key issues emerged as major themes from the two days’ discussions, as summarized below:

Strengthen protection: Activities, policies and frameworks to mitigate impacts on biodiversity, including those related to biodiversity offsets, must strengthen and not weaken biodiversity protection. Improving the application of the mitigation hierarchy and working towards no net loss and a net gain of biodiversity is intended to ensure greater rigour and a better outcome for conservation than under current systems, and not to undermine them.
Clear policy: For NNL/NG to become a realistic prospect in a country, clear and unambiguous policy requirements that establishes high standards are needed. Many participants doubted whether voluntary systems are enough to encourage a big enough proportion of developers to plan for no net loss, nor landowners to invest in conservation activities as offsets. All participants accepted that government has a critical role to play, levelling the playing field, reducing uncertainties for business, ensuring good outcomes for people, and keeping standards high.
Biodiversity offsets in context: There is general recognition that biodiversity offsetting can be challenging and controversial, but that when offsets are used, they must be discussed and included within the broader mitigation framework, and not raised as an isolated issue.
High standards: In any impact mitigation programme (including biodiversity offsets), in order to enable good outcomes for biodiversity and people, it is critical to apply the mitigation hierarchy consistently according to high standards, such as those reflected in the BBOP Standard and IFC Performance Standard 6. In the course of negotiations with governments and companies over the design of a mitigation programme, emphasis should be placed first on discussions related to avoidance, minimization and on-site restoration. Flexibility in the approaches taken to achieve no net loss was encouraged, but clarity on the biodiversity outcome was felt to be important. Standards need to strike a balance between being too prescriptive to be practicable and being too flexible to be credible or to offer assurance of outcomes.
Landscape level planning: Assessing proposed project development and mitigation of impacts in the context of spatial plans undertaken at a landscape or national scale is important to support sound land use decision-making. For instance, it informs where development should or should not take place. No net loss planning should be integrated within broader planning and policy frameworks. Where possible, guidelines to identify “no-go” zones and areas of high biodiversity value suitable for conservation efforts through offsets should be identified as a matter of policy and not relegated to case-by-case decisions.
Capacity building and training: There is a shortage of people with the right expertise to understand and to undertake the assessments and planning needed for no net loss, and to interpret and use the results. This is an important limitation and needs to be corrected by training of staff from government agencies, companies, consultancies and civil society and research organisations. Certification of trained individuals would help build confidence that professionals are using high standards.
Examples: More examples of best practice with successful approaches and outcomes are needed to build confidence in the concepts of no net loss, net gain and the quality of mitigation measures, including biodiversity offsets. Examples that are independently verified against agreed international standards would be the most convincing.
Monitoring, verification and enforcement: These are vital for the quality and integrity of mitigation measures including offsets, and have often been neglected in the past.
More dialogue: International, multi-stakeholder discussion involving people with very different opinions about the merits of mitigation measures and biodiversity offsets is needed in order to reach and promote wide societal agreement on the necessary standards for mitigation measures and associated land-use planning. Even those with apparently opposing positions were able to move a little closer through an exchange of ideas during the conference and such dialogue should be continued.

The final conference report is available here and provides a summary of discussions at the conference.”

There are also some videos available to watch.

“Grabbing the biodiversity crisis by the horns

Yes, we know there’s a biodiversity crisis looming. But now isn’t the time to bury our heads in the sand. Now’s the time to brave up, get real and get moving says Fauna & Flora International’s Pippa Howard.

Last week, representatives from over 32 countries came together to find a path forward that can halt biodiversity decline, ensure conservation and still meet development objectives around the world.

There was a wealth of intellect, experience and passion present – and a lot of really useful learning, sharing, reflecting and contesting. But there was also a lot of skirting around the edges and back-patting.

For a problem that is so overwhelmingly backed by frightening and urgent evidence, we are clearly failing to grab the bull by the horns.

For all the examples of good practice and good will at the conference, To No Net Loss of Biodiversity and Beyond, there were also cases of stalling, under-shooting goals or completely misplacing objectives in the first place through an absence of will or an admission of defeat…”

To read the full post please visit http://www.fauna-flora.org/grabbing-the-biodiversity-crisis-by-the-horns/

“Environmental offsets under fire

Allowing development of valuable ecosystems in return for protections elsewhere could ruin attempts to protect biodiversity, researchers warned at a major conference in the United Kingdom this week.

Experts have been meeting this week at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) to discuss whether and how a goal of ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity worldwide might be achieved, in the first global conference on the topic. But debate at the meeting was dominated by the controversial issue of ‘offsets’.

Offsets involve protecting or improving certain areas as compensation for development in others. They range from planting trees in return for a road through woodland to designating a whole new park in return for a mining concession. But critics say that offsets are now allowing developments that would previously have been refused owing to the environmental damage they cause.

“It’s no secret biodiversity offsets are controversial,” Jonathan Baillie, the director of conservation projects at ZSL told the meeting.

Baillie stressed that offsets should be a “very last resort” for those attempting to conserve biodiversity. He and others at the meeting also insisted that some areas — notably, those listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites — should never be developed in return for offsets.

One example raised repeatedly at the meeting was the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which conservation groups fear is under threat from oil extraction. “For this, there are no offsets,” said Baillie.

Julia Marton-Lefèvre, the director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, based in Gland, Switzerland, also warned against trying to offset World Heritage Sites and stressed that good science was essential for successful offsets. Not knowing exactly what you are destroying and what you are saving would undermine existing conservation, she said.

But offsets could be useful, she told the meeting, as important biodiversity and valuable minerals and oil have “the common habit of sharing the same spaces in a landscape”.

Others at the meeting though warned that offsets were already allowing projects to be approved that would otherwise have been rejected on environmental grounds. Hannah Mowat, a campaigner at FERN, a Brussels-based forestry non-governmental organization, said: “It is becoming what we are fearing — a licence to trash.”

She made the analogy to someone having their house bulldozed and then getting a new house built somewhere else. Even if the new house was objectively nicer, one still might not view it as a replacement. In essence, says Mowat, nothing is ‘offsettable’ in nature: “Let’s be honest about that.”