Open skies for the future of BBOP

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open skiesThe past meet­ing of the advi­sory group of the Busi­ness and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Pro­gram (BBOP12) which took place in Barcelona Octo­ber 26–27, 2015 is one of the exam­ples of events that I attended and that are great which I feel should get a lit­tle more atten­tion here on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog, but sadly even­tu­ally hap­pen to get none at all. So, I’ll break the habit at least for now.

This year I found the atmos­phere par­tic­u­larly pro­duc­tive — and friendly and family-like as always. The first day was split into a num­ber of ses­sions cov­er­ing the most top­i­cal aspects of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. The ses­sions were orga­nized as panel dis­cus­sions which worked really well com­pared to rush­ing through a mul­ti­tude of pre­sen­ta­tions. The big plus was also that prepa­ra­tion efforts were sig­nif­i­cantly reduced (no slides, as I am over­whelmed by work and sat on two pan­els that was just great!) and allow­ing for more open­ness to react and discuss.

The sec­ond day (which I couldn’t stay for) focused on the future of BBOP and which direc­tion to take from here. Per­son­ally, I am of the opin­ion that BBOP has achieved a lot and set strong stan­dards in the field of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets (that have greatly influ­enced the work of oth­ers – if you’re into bio­di­ver­sity off­sets it seems impos­si­ble not to have at least come across BBOP, right?). The Busi­ness and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Pro­gram is now at a cross­roads, but there is a mul­ti­tude of promis­ing options how to fur­ther develop. When I flew back home the sec­ond day of the con­fer­ence I had this nice view on the Alps and had to think that I’d hope there’ll be open skies for BBOP…

I had pre­pared some exten­sive notes to share with you, but unfor­tu­nately they got lost (blame the ipad, the word app or just me…). There­fore, I want to share at least some impres­sions of this event with you (see below). Find also below the infor­ma­tion from the BBOP web­site on the BBOP12 Advi­sory Group meet­ing. Con­tinue read­ing →

SHORT INFO: The verdict is in: Europe’s nature laws are fit for purpose

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owlWhat’s it about in short: BirdLife sum­ma­rizes some of the first results of the “fit­ness check” of the EU birds and habi­tats direc­tive

When was it released: Novem­ber 12, 2015

By whom: Fin­lay Dun­can, BirdLife

More info: http://www.birdlife.org/africa/news/extractives-industries-africa-blessing-or-curse

see also my post on that: NATUE ALERT — last three days of the pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion as part of the ‘fit­ness check’ for EU nature leg­is­la­tion (Birds Direc­tive, Habi­tats Direc­tive) Con­tinue read­ing →

Meet the authors of the recent book on ecological compensation in France (Nov 18, 2015 in Paris)

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UnbenanntRecently I have men­tioned a book edited by Lev­rel et al on com­pen­sa­tion mea­sures and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets from a French per­spec­tive (see NEW BOOK: Restau­rer la nature pour atténuer les impacts du développe­ment).

I just got the infor­ma­tion that next Wednes­day (Nov 18)  you can meet and dis­cuss bio­di­ver­sity off­sets with some of the authors (in Paris). For more infor­ma­tion see the fol­low­ing (in French):

Biotope a rejoint un col­lec­tif d’auteurs ayant pub­lié récem­ment « Restau­rer la nature pour atténuer les impacts du développe­ment : analyse des mesures com­pen­satoires pour la bio­di­ver­sité » aux édi­tions Quae. Venez écouter et débat­tre avec les auteurs et les acteurs de la com­pen­sa­tion écologique en France le mer­credi 18 novem­bre 2015, de 18 heures à 21 heures, amphithéâtre Tis­serand à AgroParis­Tech, 16 rue Claude Bernard, Paris 5ème. Inscrip­tion néces­saire (nom, prénom, qual­ité) à : contact@humanite-biodiversite.fr

Bio­di­ver­sity man­age­ment and devel­op­ment: chal­lenges, oppor­tu­ni­ties and new directions

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Well, as I have men­tioned in my pre­vi­ous post today some­times it’s the more inter­est­ing things that slip through your fin­gers, even with your best inten­tions — or because of them. This was par­tic­u­larly the case for the “Bio­di­ver­sity man­age­ment and devel­op­ment: chal­lenges, oppor­tu­ni­ties and new direc­tions” sym­po­sium I attended (and con­tributed to) at ICCB-ECCB. This was a fan­tas­tic line-up of experts in the filed of off­sets and top­i­cal dis­cus­sion on the sub­ject. I had very briefly posted about this while still at the con­fer­ence and shared some visual impres­sions (Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets are all-around at the 27th Inter­na­tional Con­gress for Con­ser­va­tion Biol­ogy ICCB-ECCB 2015) together with the promise to have some more detailed feed­back soon after. Because I thought this deserved greater atten­tion I haven’t actu­ally done it so far (which is a pity). Other great peo­ple how­ever have pulled some­thing together and I will now at least share their tremen­dous work in sum­ma­riz­ing before every­one ulti­mately for­gets ICCB-ECCB even happened.

First of all, there is Megan Evans who was tweet­ing through­out the sym­po­sium and the whole con­fer­ence (I admire this and still think I need to get on twit­ter, too some time in the future when time goes less fast, the grass is greener and the sun is shin­ing… ;o)). Out of these tweets and some addi­tional infor­ma­tion Megan cre­ated a storify that sums it up quite nicely (see below).

Fabien Quétier went even a step ahead and cre­ated this con­cise and still com­pre­hen­sive sum­mary (see also below).

Before I for­get it, I at least want to share my own pre­sen­ta­tion from the sym­po­sium (2015_Darbi_Montpellier_German IMR_extended). I had attempted have all the other’s too, but obvi­ously not every­one was com­fort­able with that, so any­one who wants to join, leave me a short note and I’d be happy to upload yours, too! Con­tinue read­ing →

Conference on Ecological compensation in Sweden (Nov 18, 2015 in Stockholm)

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ekologisk kompensationToday I want to share with you some  short infor­ma­tion on a few past and future events you might be inter­ested in. The first one is a con­fer­ence on eco­log­i­cal com­pen­sa­tion in Swe­den, jointly organ­ised by con­sul­tancy Enetjärn Natur and MijöRap­porten. I have been invited to speak at this event on the expe­ri­ences and lessons learnt from the Ger­man impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion and habi­tat bank­ing and I am very much look­ing forward.

Para­dox­i­cally I pro­mote all sorts of events here on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog, but tend to for­get those which I am per­son­ally involved in — yes, the oth­ers I will post shortly after this actu­ally fall into the same cat­e­gory. This is a shame as I am con­vinced that they are some of the most excit­ing ones (oth­er­wise I wouldn’t go there, right?). For the “Ekol­o­gisk kom­pen­sa­tion” con­fer­ence in Stock­holm next week I am sure this is a hun­dred per­cent true. The fact that it is already full booked is an indi­ca­tor that bio­di­ver­sity off­sets are indeed en vogue also in Swe­den now and I am very much look­ing for­ward to wit­ness the state of the art and cur­rent dis­cus­sion there! See all organ­i­sa­tional infor­ma­tion below (you can still reg­is­ter for the wait­ing list). See also all updates online and have a look at the pro­gram. The con­fer­ence will be in Swedish with some inter­na­tional speak­ers (includ­ing Guy Duke and Michael Rademacher). Vi ses!

Date: Wednes­day, Novem­ber 18, 2015

Time: 8:15 am — 4:45 pm

Loca­tion: Spår­vagn­shal­larna, Birger Jarls­gatan 57 A, Stockholm

Fee: Ordi­narie pris: 4 900 kr exkl. moms. Kon­fer­en­savgiften inklud­erar måltider under dagen samt full­ständig dokumentation.

See also my related post here on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog: Habi­tat bank­ing — Futures for market-based solu­tions for bio­di­ver­sity to year 2030 — new report by Enetjärn Natur (in Swedish).

Con­tinue read­ing →

A cross-sector guide for implementing the Mitigation Hierarchy

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This new doc­u­ment is mak­ing the rounds and I absolutely want to share CSBI’s Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy guide with you.

The Cross-Sector Guide for Imple­ment­ing the Mit­i­ga­tion Hier­ar­chy pro­vides prac­ti­cal guid­ance, inno­v­a­tive approaches and exam­ples to sup­port oper­a­tional­iz­ing the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy effec­tively. CSBI’s guide on the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy was devel­oped in con­sul­ta­tion with, and with input from, tech­ni­cal spe­cial­ists in impact assess­ment, extrac­tive indus­try experts and finan­cial insti­tu­tions, with feed­back and input from the non-profit sector.

Find more infor­ma­tion on the web­site of the Cross Sec­tor Bio­di­ver­sity Ini­tia­tive and see also copied below.

You can access the pdf of the guide here and there is also a short two-page flyer avail­able in Eng­lish, French and Span­ish for an overview. Con­tinue read­ing →

NEW ARTICLE: La compensation écologique fonctionnelle : innover pour mieux traiter les impacts résiduels des projets d’aménagements sur la biodiversité

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Author(s): QUÉTIER, Fabien ; MOURA, Char­lotte ; MENUT, Thomas ; BOULNOIS, Rénald ; RUFRAY, Xavier

Title: La com­pen­sa­tion écologique fonc­tion­nelle : innover pour mieux traiter les impacts résidu­els des pro­jets d’aménagements sur la biodiversité

Year: 2015

In: La Revue d’IRSTEA. Sci­ences Eaux & Ter­ri­toires n° 17 – 2015

Pages: pages 24–29.

Pub­li­ca­tion type: jour­nal article

Lan­guage: French

Source: http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/gestion/article/view/45125 and the link to the pdf of the article

Con­tinue read­ing →

NEW ARTICLE: Land-Development Offset Policies in the Quest for Sustainability: What Can China Learn from Germany?

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Author(s): Rong Tan, Rongyu Wang and Thomas Sedlin

Title: Land-Development Off­set Poli­cies in the Quest for Sus­tain­abil­ity: What Can China Learn from Germany?

Year: 2014

In: Sus­tain­abil­ity 2014, 6(6), 3400–3430; doi:10.3390/su6063400

Pages: pages 3400–3430.

Pub­li­ca­tion type: open access jour­nal article

Lan­guage: English

Source: http://www.mdpi.com/2071–1050/6/6/3400/htm (full text)

Con­tinue read­ing →

NEW REPORT: A comparative analysis of ecological compensation programs: The effect of program design on the social and ecological outcomes

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Author(s): Niak Sian Koh, Thomas Hahn and Clau­dia Ituarte-Lima

Title: A com­par­a­tive analy­sis of eco­log­i­cal com­pen­sa­tion pro­grams: The effect of pro­gram design on the social and eco­log­i­cal outcomes

Year: 2014

In: This report is a prod­uct of an intern­ship under­taken dur­ing the Mas­ter Pro­gram in Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment at Upp­sala University.

Pages: 37.

Pub­li­ca­tion type: report

Lan­guage: English

Source: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?aq2=[[]]&af=[]&searchType=SIMPLE&language=en&pid=diva2%3A772933&aq=[[]]&sf=all&aqe=[]&sortOrder=author_sort_asc&onlyFullText=false&noOfRows=50&dspwid=9758&dswid=-7135 and the link to the pdf of the arti­cle (full text)

Con­tinue read­ing →

BBOP webinar on Wednesday, November 18, 2015: Network Rail Infrastructure Projects’ application of the mitigation hierarchy

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bbop-logoThere’s another BBOP webi­nar upcom­ing, Wednes­day, Novem­ber 18.

This time the topic is: “Net­work Rail Infra­struc­ture Projects’ appli­ca­tion of the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy”. Uk’s Net­work Rail Infra­struc­ture Project presents the progress on its Net Pos­i­tive commitment.

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 →