The Cana­dian NGO Ontario Nature has recently released a report enti­tled “Insights into Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set­ting in Ontario”. The report is the out­come of a project on bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting (started in July 2013), which was sup­ported by the Met­calf Foun­da­tion. It presents the insights and results aris­ing from the first year of this project.

The goal of the project is described as follows:

Our pri­mary goal has been to ensure that as bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting moves for­ward in Ontario, it truly ben­e­fits the nat­ural world. Through dis­cus­sions with con­ser­va­tion­ists, farm­ers, indus­try lead­ers, envi­ron­men­tal con­sul­tants, land use plan­ners, aca­d­e­mics, gov­ern­ment staff and Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple, we have aimed to enhance our col­lec­tive under­stand­ing of both the risks and the ben­e­fits so that these can be accounted for ade­quately in bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting projects and policy.

You can read more on Ontario Nature’s bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting project online or con­tact Sarah Hedges at sarahh@ontarionature.org.

You can down­load the report here or find a pdf fol­low­ing: Biodiversity_Offsetting_Ontario

Work­shops and forums on bio­di­ver­sity offsetting

In the scope of the project a num­ber of work­shops and forums have been organ­ised where key issues of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets were dis­cussed and prin­ci­ples tested (see table).

About Ontario Nature

Ontario Nature pro­tects wild species and wild spaces through con­ser­va­tion, edu­ca­tion and pub­lic engagement.

Ontario Nature is a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing more than 30,000 mem­bers and sup­port­ers and 150 mem­ber groups from across Ontario.

Since it was estab­lished as the Fed­er­a­tion of Ontario Nat­u­ral­ists in 1931, Ontario Nature has been a cham­pion for nature in Ontario.

Read more here.