There are a num­ber of blogs on Bio­di­ver­sity off­sets out there in the inter­net if you google a bit. How­ever, as most of the infor­ma­tion on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets is rather frag­mented (with the exep­tion of the Busi­ness and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set Program’s web pres­ence which con­tin­ues to be my major source of infor­ma­tion online, see my pre­vi­ous post http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/introducing-business-biodiversity-offset-program-bbop/) you will prob­a­bly be hav­ing a hard time draw­ing the most valid infor­ma­tion out of this.

What is most appar­ent is that none of these blogs have a spe­cific focus on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets as this Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog aims for. Instead, bio­di­ver­sity off­sets usu­ally are one issue among many oth­ers related to envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns and bio­di­ver­sity man­age­ment. It is quite obvi­ous that these blogs usu­ally orig­i­nate from coun­tries where bio­di­ver­sity off­sets are in prac­tice or under dis­cus­sion. Many of them have a focus on the UK where a lively and con­tro­ver­sial dis­cus­sion about Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets takes place on the planned intro­duc­tion of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets as a manda­tory scheme. Another char­ac­ter­is­tic of most blogs on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets is that they usu­ally express more or less harsh crit­i­cism of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and are some­times used for cam­paign­ing against bio­di­ver­sity offsets.

Fol­low­ing I will give you an overview on exist­ing blogs of my knowl­edge (includ­ing some inter­net columns and web arti­cles) ranked on their rel­e­vance (please don’t nail me on this).

Blogs on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets with reg­u­larly updated contents

George Monbiot’s blog

George Mon­biot is a UK based envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal activist who writes a weekly col­umn for The Guardian (cov­er­ing var­i­ous issues, includ­ing bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and other envi­ron­men­tal top­ics) and is the author of a num­ber of books. He has greatly incflu­enced the dis­cus­sion on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets in the UK (argu­ing against bio­di­ver­sity off­sets). His (very elab­o­rate) arti­cles are also pub­lished and archived in his blog http://www.monbiot.com/( see also my pre­vi­ous on one of his lat­est posts: George Monbiot’s crit­i­cism on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets and the Nat­ural Cap­i­tal Agenda: “The pric­ing of Every­thing”)

British Eco­log­i­cal Society

The sec­tion on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets of the British Eco­log­i­cal Society’s blog obvi­ously focuses on the sit­u­a­tion and con­tro­versy in the UK. You find numer­ous posts here: http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/category/biodiversity/biodiversity-offsetting/

a new nature blog by Miles King

Miles King’s blog on nature con­ser­va­tion in the UK includes many posts on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets in the UK, tak­ing a crit­i­cal view: http://anewnatureblog.wordpress.com/category/biodiversity-offsetting/

Wood­land mat­ters blog by the UK Wood­land trust

The blog by the Wood­land Trust, “the UK’s lead­ing wood­land con­ser­va­tion char­ity, com­mit­ted to plant­ing, pro­tect­ing and pro­mot­ing native woods and trees and the country’s remain­ing ancient wood­land” posts on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and the respon­sive cam­paigns: http://wtcampaigns.wordpress.com/tag/offsetting/.

Ecosys­tem Marketplace

Ecosys­tem Mar­ket­place, a project of For­est Trends is a huge US based plat­form cov­er­ing mar­kets related to water, car­bon and bio­di­ver­sity issues (Ecosys­tem services).

The bio­di­ver­sity “branch” includes Con­ser­va­tion bank­ing in the U.S., Wetland/stream mit­i­ga­tion bank­ing in the U.S., Aus­tralian bio­di­ver­sity off­set pro­grams, Vol­un­tary bio­di­ver­sity off­sets etc.

You can find inter­est­ing posts on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets in the New and Arti­cles sec­tion http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/news_articles.sub_section.landing_page.php?section=news_articles&category_section=biodiversity or you can have a look at their Mit­i­ga­tion Mail Newslet­ter http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/newsletter.sub_section.landing_page.php?section=newsletter&sub_section=mitigation_mail (I will find out how to sub­scribe to the newslet­ter and let you know)

Mer­ca­dos de Medio Ambiente

This is a plat­form on envi­ron­men­tal mar­kets in Span­ish lan­guage, fos­tered by the Span­ish off­set provider Ecoacsa. To find out more, visit http://www.mercadosdemedioambiente.com/ or check the posts in the Bio­di­ver­sity Pro­fes­sion­als group on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=3667510&trk=anet_ug_hm (you need to become mem­ber of the group to fol­low and join the dis­cus­sion). Here is a recent post on how habi­tat bank­ing works: http://www.mercadosdemedioambiente.com/actualidad/como-funcionan-los-bancos-de-habitat/

 

Blogs on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets with sev­eral posts

The ecosys­tem ser­vices blog by Fabien Quétier

Fabien Quétier has pub­lished a num­ber of detailed posts on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets on this blog on “Analy­ses and com­ments on the sci­ence and prac­tice of ecosys­tem ser­vices and bio­di­ver­sity”: http://blog.ecosystem-services.org/category/offsets/. Unfor­tu­nately, the lat­est post dates back to 2012.

Plan­ning Prac­tice Guid­ance for the Nat­ural Envi­ron­ment: Bio­di­ver­sity, ecosys­tems and green infrastructure

This blog answers dif­fer­ent ques­tions with regard to the UK leg­is­la­tion, includ­ing issues on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets: http://planningguidance.planningportal.gov.uk/blog/guidance/natural-environment/biodiversity-ecosystems-and-green-infrastructure/

Fauna & Flora Inter­na­tional FFI

The NGO Fauna & Flora Inter­na­tional (FFI) has ded­i­cated some posts of their blog http://www.fauna-flora.org/blog/ to bio­di­ver­sity off­sets world­wide: http://www.fauna-flora.org/trash-trade-or-treasure-should-we-offset-biodiversity/ and http://www.fauna-flora.org/biodiversity-offsets-playing-with-matches/ and http://www.fauna-flora.org/grabbing-the-biodiversity-crisis-by-the-horns/

EcoL­incNZ - Ecol­ogy and evo­lu­tion news and com­men­tary from Lin­coln Uni­ver­sity Christchurch, New Zealand

Seems like this blog writ­ten by the staff and stu­dents of Lin­coln Uni­ver­sity has only recently cov­ered the issue of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets:  http://ecolincnz.blogspot.de/ I have found two arti­cles specif­i­cally refer­ring to bio­di­ver­sity off­sets: http://ecolincnz.blogspot.de/2014/07/bartering-biodiversity-offset-or-upset.html and http://ecolincnz.blogspot.de/2014/07/conservation-in-our-time.html

MoBetta Blog by Becca Madsen

US based Becca Mad­sen who works at Ecosys­tem Mar­ket­place (see above) hosts her MoBetta Blog on the page of her con­sul­tancy (Mad­sen Envi­ron­men­tal) and shares insights on (wet­land) mit­i­ga­tion and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets: http://madsenenvironmental.com/mobetta-blog/

BCM Class Blog — MSc Bio­di­ver­sity Con­ser­va­tion & Management

The blog of MSc Bio­di­ver­sity Con­ser­va­tion & Man­age­ment at Oxford Uni­ver­sity, UK, is an infor­mal blog for class exer­cises, shar­ing ideas on dis­ser­ta­tion projects and dis­cus­sions on any topic of inter­ests, includ­ing sev­eral posts on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and mit­i­ga­tion bank­ing: http://mscbcmnsep.wordpress.com/category/biodiversity-offsets/

Land­scape Juice Net­work — An open asso­ci­a­tion of land­scape industries

Two posts on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets can be found on the Land­scape Juice Net­work, orig­i­nat­ing from the UK: “Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set­ting — Oppor­tu­nity or Threat to your Liveli­hood”, posted by James Hewetson-Brown: http://www.landscapejuicenetwork.com/forum/topics/biodiversity-offsetting-opportunity-or-threat-to-your-livelihood?xg_source=activity and “BO — A Mas­sive Threat to the Land­scap­ing Indus­try”, posted by Pip Howard: http://www.landscapejuicenetwork.com/forum/topics/bo-a-massive-threat-to-the-landscaping-industry

 

Blogs on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets with sin­gle posts

‘Bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting: can it work in Eng­land?’ Guest blog post by Pro­fes­sor EJ Milner-Gullannd

posted 16 Octo­ber 2013 by Pro­fes­sor EJ Milner-Gulland on In Verba, the Royal Society’s sci­ence pol­icy blog http://blogs.royalsociety.org/in-verba/2013/10/16/biodiversity-offsetting-can-it-work-in-england-guest-blog-post-by-professor-ej-milner-gulland/

The Wildlife Trust: ‘Thoughts on bio­di­ver­sity offsetting’

The UK based NGO The Wildlife Trust cam­paigns against bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/biodiversityoffsetting

a world to win blogs: ‘Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set­ting — a license to trash nature’

Penny Cole posts on “a world to win blogs”: http://www.aworldtowin.net/blog/biodiversity-offsetting-licence-to.html

your energy blog: ‘Bio­di­ver­sity Off­setts: A Bal­ance Of Life’

Scott Shugarts posts on “your energy blog”: http://www.yourenergyblog.com/biodiversity-offsets-a-balance-of-life/

Counter Bal­ance: ‘Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set­ting: Mak­ing Dreams Come True’

Counter Bal­ance has pre­sented a short mock­u­men­tary on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets claim­ing Regent’s Park in the heart of Lon­don for shale gas extrac­tion using bio­di­ver­sity off­sets: http://www.counter-balance.org/biodiversity-offsetting-making-dreams-come-true/

Related blogs, web­sites or projects

RESTORE — Ecosys­tem restora­tion in pol­icy and prac­tice: restore, develop, adapt

This is not really a blog on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets, but focuses more on ecosys­tem restora­tion and orig­i­nates from a Swedish research project. To find out more, please visit http://www.restore-project.org/

Eco-restore.net — shar­ing tips and expe­ri­ence on nature restoration

While the blogs and web­sites men­tioned above already rep­re­sent a lot of infor­ma­tion on blogs on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets, this list is far from cov­er­ing the whole pic­ture that is avail­able on the inter­net. There are many more blogs on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets online that will be cov­ered by fol­low­ing posts. In the mean­time you can find a pre­lim­i­nary list with links as pdf here: http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/?attachment_id=505 For any addi­tional sug­ges­tions please get in con­tact! Please tell me which blogs or web­sites should be included /you like (as many blogs in the field are quite spe­cific and — at least for google, not for me 😉 — quite small and of low relevance)!