Baptiste Regnery has prepared a PhD study at Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris on the application of biodiversity offsets in France in 2013. It is entitled “Les mesures compensatoires pour la biodiversité. Conception et perspectives d’application” (in French language).
For more information you can download the thesis here or find a pdf here and see the abstract below:
Regnery_2013_Les mesures compensatoires pour la biodiversite
Abstract
Development projects are currently one of the greatest threats to biodiversity. In this context, an increasing number of States are implementing offset policies to reconcile development projects with biodiversity conservation. However, biodiversity offsets have been challenged until know, both conceptually and practically. This thesis aims to strengthen scientific bases in offset designing and to provide tools to improve offset practices. Therefore, I first attempted to clarify the concepts of biodiversity offset and to highlight the main parameters to assess ecological losses and gains. Secondly, I studied at a national scale how offset measures for protected species were designed at a national scale. Among several results, I showed that taxonomic equivalences were strongly influenced by characteristics of impacted sites. I also pointed that current offsets took little account of common species and ecological functions. Thirdly, I studied the indicator value of tree microhabitats in forest. I showed that tree microhabitats can explain taxonomic and functional variations among birds and bats. These results provide opportunities to assess ecological trajectories and could help to improve offset designing in forest ecosystems. Finally, I attempted to provide solutions to take better into account spatial and temporal issues of biodiversity conservation through offset.
Keywords : biodiversity — development projects — offset measures — ecological equivalence — indicators — forest.