Consultation on the EU No Net Loss Initiative: Biodiversity offsetting can, under certain circumstances, improve nature and biodiversity conservation — a comment by Heidi Wittmer

This is a guest post by Heidi Wittmer from Helmholtz Cen­tre for Envi­ron­men­tal Research in Ger­many. This com­ment is the expres­sion of the author’s thoughts and expe­ri­ences and such is acknowl­edged as a fruit­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the dis­cus­sion on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. If you want to react or clar­ify your own posi­tion (under­pin or dis­prove Heidi’s rea­son­ing), please leave a reply below!

Restored peatland in Trebeltal 2007With the adop­tion of its 2020 Bio­di­ver­sity Strat­egy the EU has made a com­mit­ment to halt “the loss of bio­di­ver­sity and the degra­da­tion of ecosys­tem ser­vices in the EU by 2020, and restor­ing them in so far as fea­si­ble”. To reach this goal the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion works towards an ini­tia­tive to ensure there is no net loss of ecosys­tems and their ser­vices (e.g. through com­pen­sa­tion or off­set­ting schemes) by 2015. This action is accom­pa­nied by a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the planned No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive (see my pre­vi­ous post for more details). The dis­cus­sion on the intro­duc­tion of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets as part of this ini­tia­tive is very lively and con­tro­ver­sial: some expect a Euro­pean legal frame­work on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets would set min­i­mum stan­dards to pro­tect and restore  the nor­mal land­scape out­side pro­tected areas, oth­ers fear that this would fos­ter even more devel­o­ment and envi­ron­men­tal degradation.

This post is the first in a short-run series encour­ag­ing you to have your say on the con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss ini­tia­tive until Fri­day, October17 (con­sul­ta­tion closes) and to help you make an informed decision. 

Bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting can, under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, improve nature and bio­di­ver­sity conservation:

  1. It should strictly fol­low and secure the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy, in all its steps, where com­pen­sa­tion is a last resort for a resid­ual impact. Con­serv­ing old growth or high nature value habi­tats should not be com­pen­sated — no trad­ing off of Natura 2000 habi­tats and the like. If this is not ensured off­set­ting would be a step backwards.
  2. Com­pen­sa­tion rules should ensure: type of bio­di­ver­sity is sim­i­lar, time lags as short as pos­si­ble and dis­tance of com­pen­sated ele­ments or habi­tats as low as pos­si­ble. Par­tic­u­larly cul­tural ser­vices can not be com­pen­sated over large dis­tances. For habi­tat pro­tec­tion of endan­gered species size and con­nec­tiv­ity of com­pen­sated habi­tat should match require­ments of species to be protected.
  3. Imple­men­ta­tion rules should be enforce­able, and enforced.
  4. Rights of local peo­ple to locally avail­able ser­vices and bio­di­ver­sity val­ues should be safeguarded.

Expected out­comes at Euro­pean level and for Germany

If these con­di­tions are met there is a good chance that the sit­u­a­tion in many Euro­pean coun­tries can improve, for Ger­many, expected changes com­ing from the EU level are low, as the Ger­man “Ein­griffs– und Aus­gle­ich­sregelung” is based on the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy and includes the options of com­pen­sat­ing for resid­ual impacts through offsetting.


At the polit­i­cal level there are two impor­tant challenges:

  1. In the cur­rent insti­tu­tional set­ting and the pro­pos­als of Pres­i­dent Junker and his team so far it seems unlikely rules will be set to strongly sup­port con­ser­va­tion or even fol­low the mit­i­ga­tion hierarchy.
  2. At the local level the option of off­set­ting can lead to mak­ing legal oblig­a­tions trade­able, and maybe even more impor­tantly dele­git­imiz­ing local resis­tance to bio­di­ver­sity degra­da­tion and destruc­tion by via com­pen­sa­tion elsewhere.

 

More from the short-run series on the con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Initiative

The short-run series on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog on the con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive includes the fol­low­ing posts:

1. Con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive: Bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting can, under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, improve nature and bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion — a com­ment by Heidi Wittmer (this post)

2. Why would you say NO to the EU No Net Loss initiative?

3. Why would you say YES to the EU No Net Loss initiative?

4. Have your say – even if it’s a MAYBE: Con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive closes today!


Comments

Consultation on the EU No Net Loss Initiative: Biodiversity offsetting can, under certain circumstances, improve nature and biodiversity conservation — a comment by Heidi Wittmer — 5 Comments

  1. Pingback: Why would you say NO to the EU No Net Loss Initiative? - Biodiversity Offsets Blog

  2. I agree with the four points that Heidi notes. I would add another impor­tant point and that is hav­ing sci­en­tif­i­cally based method­olo­gies for mea­sur­ing gains and losses is also impor­tant in ensur­ing that sound con­ser­va­tion out­comes are achieved.

  3. Pingback: Why would you say YES to the EU No Net Loss Initiative? - Biodiversity Offsets Blog

  4. Good point, Patrice. The prob­lem is the plu­ral­ity of meth­ods which makes it in prac­tice even more com­pli­cated, less trans­par­ent and com­pa­ra­ble. This is in par­tic­u­lar true for the sit­u­a­tion in Ger­many, where, how­ever a slight pref­er­ence for biotope val­u­a­tion pro­ce­dures can be noted. From your expe­ri­ence, could you spec­ify a prefer­able method­ol­ogy or should this be case spe­cific in your opinion?

  5. Pingback: Have your say – even if it’s a MAYBE: Consultation on the EU No Net Loss Initiative closes today! - Biodiversity Offsets Blog

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