Comments on: Biodiversity offsetting: uncertainty and unanswered questions — a post by the British Ecological Socierty

Comments on: Biodiversity offsetting: uncertainty and unanswered questions — a post by the British Ecological Socierty http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/biodiversity-offsetting-uncertainty-and-unanswered-questions/ A Platform for Information and Exchange on Biodiversity Offsets and the Mitigation Hierarchy by Marianne Darbi Tue, 02 May 2017 16:49:45 +0000 hourly 1 By: Marianne Darbi http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/biodiversity-offsetting-uncertainty-and-unanswered-questions/#comment-6813 Wed, 27 May 2015 12:49:18 +0000 http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/?p=2062#comment-6813 Dear Kevin,
Many thanks for your valuable thoughts. And yes, I (personally) do agree very much with your criticism of black-and-white-painting. While “the best scientific knowledge” may sound idealistic in the best case and an empty catch phrase in the worst, you are quite right that despite the lack in fully understanding biodiversity and its various interrelations, this shouldn’t prevent us from counterbalancing (or at least trying to) the human made impacts. Untouched from this is my firm belief that this should not be marketed as “heroic” or extraordinary in any sense, but as the very least we could do…

]]> By: Kevin Linton http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/biodiversity-offsetting-uncertainty-and-unanswered-questions/#comment-6765 Sat, 23 May 2015 10:39:24 +0000 http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/?p=2062#comment-6765 I agree with the aims of the British Ecological Society (BES)in ensuring government and the relative organisations in question to ‘have the best scientific knowledge available upon which to base decision making’. Unfortunately, I believe the complexities of biodiversity food-webs and species distribution make it extremely difficult that humans will be able to ‘model’ environments. The best we can probably obtain is to approximate it and ‘err’ on the ‘safe side’ to ensure ‘no net loss’ and preferably an improvement in biodiversity.

The second point, is that government being ‘what it is’ will likely want to use any scientific ‘endeavour’ as a ‘political football’ and perhaps choose to disregard many aspects ‘put forward’…because the scientific community believes it to be almost impossible to ‘model’ biological diversity. This needs to be ‘discouraged’ by explaining that ‘science has been trying to model the world’ for thousands of years, so it should not be judged ‘too harshly’ if it is unable to model this aspect of the world now.

Regards,
Kevin.

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