Recently, the IUCN Tech­ni­cal Study Group on Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets has pub­lished some new resources (see also my pre­vi­ous posts  Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Tech­ni­cal Study Paper and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets: Pol­icy options for gov­ern­ments). Thanks to Patrick at the BBOP Sec­re­tariat for shar­ing this use­ful information

The present report on tech­ni­cal con­di­tions for pos­i­tive out­comes from bio­di­ver­sity off­sets was writ­ten by J. D. Pil­grim and J. M. M. Ekstrom of The Bio­di­ver­sity Consultancy.

You can access the paper online (in the BBOP Library sec­tion) or find the pdf fol­low­ing: Tech­ni­cal con­di­tions for pos­i­tive out­comes from bio­di­ver­sity offsets

Find below a short intro­duc­tion, the key ques­tions addressed by the authors as well as their gen­eral conclusions.

Intro­duc­tion to the paper

We assess the con­di­tions under which bio­di­ver­sity off­sets may: (i) pro­vide the best out­comes for bio­di­ver­sity; and (ii) achieve no net loss. Here, we con­sider ̳bio­di­ver­sity offsets‘as mea­sur­able con­ser­va­tion out­comes result­ing from actions designed to com­pen­sate for sig­nif­i­cant resid­ual adverse bio­di­ver­sity impacts aris­ing from project devel­op­ment after other appro­pri­ate pre­ven­tion and mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures have been taken (BBOP, 2012a). The goal of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets is to achieve no net loss (or net gain) in bio­di­ver­sity. ̳No net loss‘ is a goal in which resid­ual impacts on bio­di­ver­sity (after other mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures have been taken) do not exceed the gains from off­sets. Impor­tantly, no net loss has no uni­ver­sal def­i­n­i­tion: it can have vary­ing def­i­n­i­tions depen­dent on what bio­di­ver­sity and human pref­er­ences are accounted for, and how they are accounted for. For exam­ple, no net loss goals may vary in terms of spa­tial scales, bio­di­ver­sity that is included, or whether they include only ̳like-for-like‘ exchanges (e.g. replac­ing a hectare of house mouse habi­tat with a hectare of house mouse habi­tat) or also̳ trad­ing up (e.g. replac­ing a hectare of house mouse habi­tat with a hectare of panda habitat)

Key ques­tions

1. How much uncer­tainty is there?
2. How should we deal with remain­ing uncertainty?
3. How could off­set out­comes be most improved?
4. Under what con­di­tions do bio­di­ver­sity off­set approaches pro­vide pos­i­tive out­comes for bio­di­ver­sity, irre­spec­tive of the con­cept of no net loss?
5. Under what con­di­tions is it pos­si­ble to achieve no net loss through the imple­men­ta­tion of bio­di­ver­sity offsets?

Con­clu­sions

• There is high-level con­sen­sus on off­set­ting principles.
• Achieve­ment of ‚no net loss‘ is likely to prove challenging.
• In many cases, bio­di­ver­sity off­set approaches could improve a sta­tus quo of lim­ited or inad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion for devel­op­ment, so there is a need for a bal­ance between cer­tainty and sim­plic­ity in offsetting.
• In some cases, off­set­ting may not be the best approach.
• Cur­rent off­set­ting out­comes would be most improved through inte­gra­tion of soci­etal bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion goals, more prac­ti­cal design, greater adher­ence to the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy and bet­ter implementation.
• A few con­di­tions are nec­es­sary for bio­di­ver­sity off­set approaches to pro­vide pos­i­tive out­comes for bio­di­ver­sity, irre­spec­tive of the con­cept of no net loss.
• Numer­ous con­di­tions are nec­es­sary to achieve no net loss through the imple­men­ta­tion of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. This includes:

• Facil­i­tat­ing con­di­tions (i.e. exist­ing poli­cies and plans)
• Scope and spa­tial scale
• Met­rics, cur­ren­cies, and the ways in which they are exchanged
• Lim­its to what can or should be offset
• Addi­tion­al­ity
• Time con­sid­er­a­tions: assur­ing ‘per­ma­nence’ and man­ag­ing time lags’
• Man­ag­ing uncer­tainty and risk
• Imple­men­ta­tion

• Some addi­tional con­di­tions will pro­mote opti­mal effi­ciency or opti­mal bio­di­ver­sity out­comes from offsetting.