IUCN has pub­lished a report enti­tled: No Net Loss and Net Pos­i­tive Impact Approaches for Bio­di­ver­sity: Explor­ing the poten­tial appli­ca­tion of these approaches in the com­mer­cial agri­cul­ture and forestry sec­tors (see also my recent post on this)

IUCN’s Global Busi­ness and Bio­di­ver­sity Pro­gramme invites you to a webi­nar to present a sum­mary of this new report, dis­cuss its impli­ca­tions and pos­si­ble next steps.For more infor­ma­tion see a short sum­mary of the report below.

When and how does the IUCN webi­nar take place?

When: Thurs­day 11th June – 2 options, either 10.00 CET or 16.00 CET.

Please RSVP to Nadine.McCormick@iucn.org with your avail­abil­ity for the two time options for the webi­nar. The log-in infor­ma­tion will then be sent directly.

Sum­mary of the report

In this new report, IUCN explores the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of the com­mer­cial agri­cul­ture and forestry sec­tors adopt­ing No Net Loss (NNL) and Net Pos­i­tive Impact (NPI) approaches that hith­erto have been applied pri­mar­ily in the extrac­tives and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment sec­tors.  The report acknowl­edges that these sec­tors present a much greater chal­lenge, due in part to greater bio­di­ver­sity impacts, a wider array of stake­hold­ers involved, less finan­cial cap­i­tal and lim­ited expo­sure to finan­cial sec­tor stan­dards than the extrac­tives sec­tors.  Yet, the report, finds that under cer­tain con­di­tions NNL and NPI approaches to agri­cul­ture and forestry land­scapes asso­ci­ated with com­pa­nies’ oper­a­tions and sup­ply chains could have a greater impact in reduc­ing bio­di­ver­sity loss than in other sec­tors.

The report con­cludes that NNL/NPI is poten­tially applic­a­ble to the com­mer­cial agri­cul­ture and forestry sec­tors under two main con­di­tions and based on the appli­ca­tion of a five stage process, which includes the full imple­men­ta­tion of the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy.  Native bio­di­ver­sity needs to be enhanced and/or species or areas of con­ser­va­tion con­cern pro­tected and agri­cul­ture and forestry pro­duc­tion species need to be diver­si­fied on–site, and/or, pro­duc­tiv­ity and nat­ural resource use effi­ciency improved and safe­guards to pro­tect nat­ural habi­tats off–site against con­ver­sion are needed.  Fur­ther­more, the risk of bio­di­ver­sity losses would out­weigh oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­ser­va­tion gain where the devel­op­ment project will cause large–scale impacts on ecosys­tems and/or species in nat­ural areas where regional bio­di­ver­sity loss is not occur­ring;  where there is a risk that the pro­tec­tion mea­sures and safe­guards for nat­ural habi­tat areas and/or species and areas of con­ser­va­tion con­cern in and around the pro­duc­tion site will be poorly designed or will not be enforced effec­tively; and where the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of rel­e­vant bio­di­ver­sity val­ues to estab­lish NPI goals has not been derived from exist­ing soci­etal bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion goals in poli­cies or plans (e.g. national bio­di­ver­sity poli­cies, strate­gies, action plans, inter­na­tional pol­icy), and does not take account of local and other rel­e­vant stake­holder input (includ­ing farm­ers, foresters, and res­i­dent com­mu­ni­ties as applicable).

 Infor­ma­tion retrieved from the lat­est (May 2015) BBOP Newslet­ter