Third State of Natural Capital Report from England’s Natural Capital Committee

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State of natural capitalOn 27 Jan­u­ary 2015, England’s Nat­ural Cap­i­tal Com­mit­tee (NCC) pub­lished its third State of Nat­ural Cap­i­tal Report. The NCC’s man­date is to “advise the Gov­ern­ment on how to ensure England’s ‘nat­ural wealth’ is man­aged effi­ciently and sus­tain­ably, thereby unlock­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for sus­tained pros­per­ity and well­be­ing”. BBOP’s Direc­tor, Kerry ten Kate, is a mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee. The report envi­sions a devel­op­ment path in which nat­ural cap­i­tal loss is halted and even­tu­ally reversed in order to coun­ter­act accu­mu­lated nat­ural cap­i­tal debt. It is shaped around the Government’s net gain com­mit­ment. The report notes that pres­sures on nat­ural cap­i­tal are already too high but are set to inten­sify, with more peo­ple expected to be added to England’s pop­u­la­tion over the next 25 years than in any pre­vi­ous sim­i­lar time period. Given these increas­ing pres­sures, sig­nif­i­cant changes to past prac­tice will be required to achieve the Government’s com­mit­ment to be the first gen­er­a­tion to “leave the nat­ural envi­ron­ment in a bet­ter state than that in which it was inherited”.

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IUCN webinar (11 June) on ‘No Net Loss and Net Positive Impact Approaches for Biodiversity: exploring the potential application of these approaches in the commercial agriculture and forestry sectors’

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IUCN reportIUCN 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. Con­tinue read­ing →

A la espera de los Bancos de Conservación de la Naturaleza (Waiting for conservation banks in Spain) — a guest post by Alfonso Carretero

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This is a guest post by Alfonso Car­retero who holds a master’s degree in con­ser­va­tion biol­ogy and in envi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment from Uni­ver­si­dad Com­plutense de Madrid (Spain) and Insti­tuto Supe­rior del Medio Ambi­ente in coop­er­a­tion with Nebrija Busi­ness School.

This com­ment has pre­vi­ously been pub­lished on comu­nidadism. It is the expres­sion of the author’s thoughts and expe­ri­ences and as 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), please leave a reply below!

ArgoñosCantabriaSince the Span­ish Envi­ron­men­tal Min­istry is still stuck in the devel­op­ment of a reg­u­la­tion regard­ing Con­ser­va­tion Banks, intro­duced by Law 21/2013 on  envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment, the sequence of news and excite­ment among devel­op­ers and envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions about how the gov­ern­ment resolves this issue is ever grow­ing. Read the full arti­cle in Span­ish below and see also here. Con­tinue read­ing →

Presentation on Biodiversity Offsetting Practice – Western Sydney, Australia on Vimeo

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Find fol­low­ing the link to a video of a pre­sen­ta­tion on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set­ting Prac­tice in West­ern Syd­ney. The pre­sen­ta­tion was held by Tom Grosskopf and Derek Steller from the NSW Office of Envi­ron­ment and Her­itage. For some broad infor­ma­tion on the con­tent see also below.

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Biodiversity Offsetting Law and Policy workshop on June 8, 2015 by Ontario Nature (Canada)

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Ontario Nature is hold­ing a Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set­ting Law and Pol­icy work­shop, pre­sent­ing a new report that com­pares law and pol­icy inter­na­tion­ally across six juris­dic­tions, ana­lyz­ing strengths, weak­nesses and gaps, and pro­vid­ing recommendations.

Date: Mon­day, June 8, 2015

Time: 9:30 am

Loca­tion: Black Creek Pio­neer Village

Fee: $45 – includes lunch, refresh­ments and a copy of the report

Read more and reg­is­ter online here. Con­tact Sarah Hedges for more infor­ma­tion: 416–444-8419 x241, sarahh@ontarionature.org Con­tinue read­ing →

Behold the power of fungus … and biodiversity offsets — a guest post by Naazia Ebrahim

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This is a guest post by Naazia Ebrahim of the OECD Envi­ron­ment Direc­torate.

This com­ment has pre­vi­ously been pub­lished on OECD Insights. It is the expres­sion of the author’s thoughts and expe­ri­ences and as 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) , please leave a reply below!

Korean Friendship Bell Ganoderma MotifWhen you think of bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion, you prob­a­bly think of the clas­sic images: the polar bear, the lion, the ele­phant, the giraffe. The eco­log­i­cal com­mu­nity likes to call them charis­matic megafauna, with only a hint of satire.

But did you know that the only thing that can neu­tralise the dead­liest, antibiotic-resistant super­bug on this planet is a fun­gus? Now, note that it was dis­cov­ered in the soil of a Cana­dian national park, and it rather makes the argu­ment (well, the anthro­pogenic argu­ment) for con­ser­va­tion of bio­di­ver­sity in all its shapes and forms by itself. Behold the power of a fungus!

Unfor­tu­nately, most bio­di­ver­sity has been hav­ing a rough time of it lately. Con­tinue read­ing →

Cactus status post #10

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After hav­ing repot­ted the cac­tus into a larger and more “sophis­ti­cated” cachepot, the cac­tus is grow­ing like crazy. Hope­fully, next time the weather is bet­ter for a nicer photo of this fast-growing creature.

May Update:

Cac­tus: 61 cm / PhD: 181 pages

2015, April:

Cac­tus: 53 cm / PhD: 171 pages

2015, March:

Cac­tus: 49 cm / PhD: 153 pages

2015, Feb­ru­ary:

Cac­tus: 47 cm / PhD: 145 pages

2015, Jan­u­ary:

Cac­tus: 42 cm / PhD: 139 pages Con­tinue read­ing →

The commodification of nature? — article in BIODIV’2050

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As I have already announced in my lat­est post, the lat­est issue of Mis­sion Économie de la Biodiversité’s “BIODIV’2050″ (No. 6 — April 2015) is out. Beside the pre­vi­ously men­tioned arti­cle enti­tled “Think­ing out the appro­pri­ate frame­works: bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and safe­guards” another arti­cle asks “HOW CAN THE PRIVATE SECTOR CONTRIBUTE TO RESOURCE MOBILIZATION TO REACH THE AICHI TARGETS?” It is high­lighted that there is a lack of inter­na­tional con­sen­sus on the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the pri­vate sec­tor and on the financ­ing mech­a­nisms, e.g. with regard to the “com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of nature”:

The com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of nature?

The eco­nomic approach to bio­di­ver­sity, the mobi­liza­tion of inno­v­a­tive finan­cial mech­a­nisms and the involve­ment of busi­nesses in nat­ural cap­i­tal con­ser­va­tion are con­tro­ver­sial issues. One argu­ment is that these approaches may lead to the com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of nature, the cre­ation of bio­di­ver­sity mar­kets and/or the appro­pri­a­tion of nature by the pri­vate sec­tor. In other words, species, habi­tats and ecosys­tem ser­vices would be assim­i­lated to mer­chan­dise, like any other, and would be mon­e­tized at the daily rate to be “bought” or “sold” by com­pa­nies or finan­cial insti­tu­tions spec­u­lat­ing for profit. But this vision is far from real­ity on the ground.

Pay­ing a physi­cian does not imply com­mod­i­fy­ing health. Pay­ing com­pen­sa­tion in case of a life-threatening acci­dent does not mean putting a price tag on human life. Sim­i­larly, cal­cu­lat­ing the eco­nomic value of bio­di­ver­sity does not mean pric­ing its value. Con­tinue read­ing →

THINKING OUT THE APPROPRIATE FRAMEWORKS: BIODIVERSITY OFFSETS AND SAFEGUARDS — new article in BIODIV’2050

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The lat­est issue of Mis­sion Économie de la Biodiversité’s “BIODIV’2050″ (No. 6 — April 2015) is out. Among oth­ers, this includes an arti­cle on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets enti­tled “Think­ing out the appro­pri­ate frame­works: bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and safe­guards”. The arti­cle high­lights the impor­tance of strict adher­ence to the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy (i.e. avoid­ance and min­i­miza­tion before offsetting):

“Reg­u­la­tions in France and in a grow­ing num­ber of coun­tries stip­u­late that com­pen­sa­tion must be the final step, the step taken after efforts have been made to avoid, and then reduce the impacts of a project. The first two steps are of para­mount impor­tance for two reasons:

  • some impacts on bio­di­ver­sity that are espe­cially strong and are non-compensable must be strictly avoided;
  • the best bio­di­ver­sity off­set is the one that does not take place since com­pen­sa­tion is awarded after bio­di­ver­sity has suf­fered sub­stan­tial impact.

Fur­ther­more, in sup­port of the first two steps, stress was placed on the fact that com­pen­sa­tion is more expen­sive than reduc­tion and avoid­ance. But, respect for the whole 3-step mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy is very impor­tant. An actor’s lack of respect for the con­di­tions of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets has a twofold effect: first, the com­pen­sa­tion is not awarded, which means a net loss for bio­di­ver­sity and, per­haps more impor­tant, sec­ond, an actor who knows that he is not going to respect his oblig­a­tions and will not be forced to do so will feel encour­aged to ignore avoid­ance and reduction.”

You can read the arti­cle and down­load the full issue here (open access). For more infor­ma­tion see also the abstract and table of con­tents of the issue below. Con­tinue read­ing →

BBOP webinar today, May 18, 2015: The Cross Sector Biodiversity Initiative Mitigation Hierarchy Guide

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bbop-logoToday is another BBOP webi­nar being held.

This time the topic is: “The Cross Sec­tor Bio­di­ver­sity Ini­tia­tive
Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy Guide”. Mark John­ston (the cur­rent Chair of CSBI) will present the cur­rent work plan and activ­i­ties of CSBI and pro­vide details on the con­tent and key prin­ci­ples cov­ered in the CSBI Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy guide.

 As usual the webi­nar is part of the BBOP com­mu­nity of prac­tice (all pre­vi­ous webi­nars are archived there if you want to lis­ten to them later).

Con­tinue read­ing →