Local emergence and international developments of conservation trading systems: innovation dynamics and related problems — new article by Mann and Simons

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Carsten Mann and Arno Simons have published a new paper enti­tled “Local emer­gence and inter­na­tional devel­op­ments of con­ser­va­tion trad­ing sys­tems: inno­va­tion dynam­ics and related prob­lems” in Envi­ron­men­tal Con­ser­va­tion (2014). You can read the full arti­cle on the Jour­nal web­site (pay-walled). For more infor­ma­tion see also the sum­mary below. Con­tinue read­ing →

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

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The British Eco­log­i­cal Soci­ety (BES) in a recent post looks at uncer­tainty and unan­swered ques­tions with regard to bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. The author of the arti­cle con­cludes that since the UK government’s con­sul­ta­tion closed at the end of 2013, “the Gov­ern­ment has made lit­tle progress in final­is­ing and imple­ment­ing an off­set­ting pol­icy, with the results of the con­sul­ta­tion yet to be pub­lished.  With the gen­eral elec­tion just a few weeks away, the deci­sion as to how – or if – bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting is put into prac­tice in Eng­land will fall to the next Gov­ern­ment […] One of the BES’s key ambi­tions for the next Par­lia­ment is that envi­ron­men­tal pol­icy is informed by sound sci­en­tific evi­dence, and that policy-makers have access to the best avail­able eco­log­i­cal sci­ence to inform decision-making. How the next Gov­ern­ment chooses to take bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting for­ward will be a key test of this principle.”

You can access the full arti­cle online on the web­sie of the British Eco­log­i­cal soci­ety. For more infor­ma­tion see some of the “unan­swered ques­tions” below. Con­tinue read­ing →

Biodiversity Offsetting in Transnational Governance — new paper by Jerneja Penca

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Jerneja Penca has pub­lished a new paper enti­tled “Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set­ting in Transna­tional Gov­er­nance” in Review of Euro­pean, Com­par­a­tive & Inter­na­tional Envi­ron­men­tal Law (Vol­ume 24, Issue 1, pages 93–102, April 2015. You can read the full arti­cle on the Jour­nal web­site (pay-walled). For more infor­ma­tion see also the abstract below. Con­tinue read­ing →

Habitat banking — Futures for market-based solutions for biodiversity to year 2030 — new report by Enetjärn Natur (in Swedish)

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Anders Enetjärn and his team at Swedish envi­ron­men­tal con­sul­tancy Ennetjärn Natur together with Kairos Futur have writ­ten an exten­sive report enti­tled “Habi­tat bank­ing — Futures for market-based solu­tions for bio­di­ver­sity to year 2030″. Unfor­tu­nately (for most of us) the report is in Swedish, but great to see pro­fes­sional work in this area being done in Swedish — great con­tri­bu­tion. In the report they exam­ine pos­si­b­li­ties for habi­tat bank­ing in Swe­den and describe four pos­si­ble future sce­nar­ios for Swedish con­di­tions. You can find the full report here and see the sum­mary pasted below. Con­tinue read­ing →

PhD on environmental compensation for aquatic ecosystems by Anne-Charlotte Vaissière available online: Le recours au principe de compensation écologique dans les politiques publiques en faveur de la biodiversité : enjeux organisationnels et institutionnels : cas des écosystèmes aquatiques marins et continentaux

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Another PhD in the field of envi­ron­men­tal com­pen­sa­tion and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets is avail­able online. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Anne-Charlotte Vais­sière who suc­cess­fully com­pleted her the­sis at Uni­ver­sité de Bre­tagne Occi­den­tale (France). The the­sis is in French, enti­tled “Le recours au principe de com­pen­sa­tion écologique dans les poli­tiques publiques en faveur de la bio­di­ver­sité: enjeux organ­i­sa­tion­nels et insti­tu­tion­nels : cas des écosys­tèmes aqua­tiques marins et con­ti­nen­taux” (Orga­ni­za­tional and insti­tu­tional issues of imple­ment­ing bio­di­ver­sity off­sets poli­cies. A case study of con­ti­nen­tal and off­shore wet­lands). It exam­ines the case of envi­ron­men­tal com­pen­sa­tion for aquatic (includ­ing marine and ter­res­trial) ecosys­tems. You can access the full doc­u­ment online and see the abstract below.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Early bird extended until 8 May (!) for 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology: Mission Biodiversity — Choosing new paths for conservation

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The 27th Inter­na­tional Con­gress for Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy (and also the 4th Euro­pean Con­gress for Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy) is tak­ing place in Mont­pel­lier in the South of France August 2–6, 2015. This year’s title is “Mis­sion Bio­di­ver­sity — Choos­ing new paths for con­ser­va­tion” — that sounds inspiring!

There­fore, I am more than happy to be an invited speaker in a Sym­po­sium on Bio­di­ver­sity man­age­ment and devel­op­ment: chal­lenges, oppor­tu­ni­ties and new direc­tions. This sym­po­sium will focus on impact mit­i­ga­tion, no net loss, the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and I’ll share some insights from the Ger­man prac­tice with impact mit­i­ga­tion. I’ll be delighted to meet many great peo­ple there!

If you want to reg­is­ter for this excit­ing event (more than thou­sand sci­en­tists from all over the world, with pre­sen­ta­tions, posters, work­shops and excur­sions) be fast — the early bird dead­line is extended to May 8, 2015.

For more infor­ma­tion see the related web­site or fol­low them on twit­ter. You can also have a look at the interim pro­gram overview. Con­tinue read­ing →

Information event on the EU’s new Natural Capital Financing Facility (NCFF) on 8 May in Brussels

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“To pro­tect the diver­sity of our nat­ural sur­round­ings we need to pro­mote the diver­sity of our fund­ing sources. The Nat­ural Cap­i­tal Financ­ing Facil­ity is a new EU fund­ing source that helps busi­nesses to pro­tect nature and adapt to cli­mate change. Now these blended funds can help bio­di­ver­sity blos­som and truly become an engine for growth”, said Kar­menu Vella, Euro­pean Com­mis­sioner for Envi­ron­ment, Mar­itime Affairs and Fisheries.

In line with this argu­men­ta­tion the EU has set up the Nat­ural Cap­i­tal Financ­ing Facil­ity, oper­ated by the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank. The Nat­ural Cap­i­tal Financ­ing Facil­ity (NCFF) is a finan­cial instru­ment that com­bines EIB financ­ing and Euro­pean Com­mis­sion fund­ing under the LIFE Pro­gramme, the EU’s fund­ing instru­ment for the envi­ron­ment and cli­mate action. The NCFF will con­tribute to meet­ing the objec­tives set out by LIFE, in particular:

  • nature and biodiversity
  • cli­mate change adaptation

As you can see below (What does the NCFF do?) there is an explicit ref­er­ence to bio­di­ver­sity off­sets being made: “Bio­di­ver­sity off­sets / com­pen­sa­tion beyond legal require­ments (e.g. com­pen­sa­tion pools for on-site and off-site com­pen­sa­tion projects)”.

Read more on the Nat­ural Cap­i­tal Financ­ing Facil­ity here and see some infor­ma­tion pasted below. See also the related press release (New Euro­pean sup­port to address cli­mate and bio­di­ver­sity chal­lenges).

To present and explain this new instru­ment the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion is hold­ing a work­shop on 8 May in Brus­sels. This will cover top­ics including:

  • Which type of projects could ben­e­fit from NCFF funding?
  • What are the NCFF eli­gi­bil­ity criteria?
  • What are the key steps in the appli­ca­tion process?

You can find the full agenda on the fol­low­ing link: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/funding/financial_instruments/documents/NCFF_workshop080515.pdf

To reg­is­ter, please use the online reg­is­tra­tion found on the fol­low­ing site: http://europe.icfi.com/ncff/

Con­tinue read­ing →

Launch of “La Mirada de Mercados de Medio Ambiente” newsletter — a guest post by Mercados de Medio Ambiente

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This is a guest post by Mer­ca­dos de Medio Ambi­ente, a plat­form for the pro­mo­tion of envi­ron­men­tal mar­kets by Span­ish con­sul­tancy ECOACSA.

This com­ment has pre­vi­ously been pub­lished on Mer­ca­dos de Medio Ambi­ente. 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!

We launched La Mirada de Mer­ca­dos de Medio Ambiente

We have just started into a new year, and among the new excit­ing projects ahead, this Feb­ru­ary we start the first: the launch of our first issue of “La Mirada de Mer­ca­dos de Medio Ambi­ente”, our first quar­terly newsletter.

This is a “view” on the most rel­e­vant news in the envi­ron­men­tal sec­tor of the last three months now, but because it is our No. 0 we have made an excep­tion in this case and we col­lected a sum­mary not only of the most impor­tant news of the last quar­ter of last year, but those that have been espe­cially sig­nif­i­cant for our read­ers from all entries on Mer­ca­dos de Medio Ambi­ente in 2014. Con­tinue read­ing →

Biodiversity offsets: from current challenges to harmonized metrics — new paper by Gonçalves et al presents a literature review

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Bár­bara Gonçalves, Alexan­dra Mar­ques, Amadeu Mortágua Velho Da Maia Soares and  Hen­rique Miguel Pereira have pub­lished a new paper enti­tled “Bio­di­ver­sity off­sets: from cur­rent chal­lenges to har­mo­nized met­rics” in a Spe­cial Issue of Cur­rent Opin­ion in Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity (Vol­ume 14, June 2015, Pages 61–67). The arti­cle is based on a review of sci­en­tific lit­er­a­ture on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. You can read the full arti­cle on the Jour­nal web­site (pay-walled). For more infor­ma­tion see also the high­lights and abstract below. Con­tinue read­ing →

Biodiversity offsetting – a fool’s errand? — a comment by James Brown

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This is a guest post by James Brown, PhD stu­dent at Queen’s Uni­ver­sity Belfast.

This com­ment has pre­vi­ously been pub­lished on QuBio blog of the School of Bio­log­i­cal Sci­ences. 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!

jb4

A pic­ture I took in Banagher Glen, an ancient wood­land, on my sec­ond day of sampling.

As some­one who is cur­rently study­ing the genetic vari­a­tion in native Irish trees I require good mate­r­ial for sam­pling as such I plan to go to nat­ural ancient wood­land to col­lect my sam­ples. As part of my back­ground read­ing I recently came across a num­ber of news arti­cles about the process of bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting. In basic terms it involves the destruc­tion of a wood­land or other ecosys­tem for prop­erty devel­op­ment or other rea­sons with the cre­ation of a new wood­land else­where. The idea is that no diver­sity will be lost due to the cre­ation of this new wood­land and in some cases it may be jus­ti­fied by the promise of build­ing a much larger wood­land. There are cur­rently six pilot schemes test­ing off­set­ting in England.

So what’s the prob­lem then you might ask? Con­tinue read­ing →