What’s it about in short: unan­swered ques­tions on the imple­men­ta­tion of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets (in gen­eral and in the UK)

When was it released: April 20, 2015

By whom: British Eco­log­i­cal Society

More info: http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/blog/2015/04/20/biodiversity-offsetting-uncertainty-and-unanswered-questions/

Short extract:

In 2013, the BES hosted a work­shop exam­in­ing the sci­ence behind bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting, the out­puts of which informed our sub­se­quent response to Defra’s con­sul­ta­tion on the topic, which closed in Novem­ber of that year. The work­shop con­cluded that any off­set­ting pol­icy imple­mented in Eng­land must be informed by sci­en­tific evi­dence and employ a trans­par­ent and con­sis­tent mech­a­nism for cal­cu­la­tion and eval­u­a­tion rooted in sound eco­log­i­cal sci­ence. We also iden­ti­fied a need for fur­ther research into the design and imple­men­ta­tion of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets in order to ensure the suc­cess and resilience of any pol­icy adopted.

Since the 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.