The lat­est issue of Mis­sion Économie de la Biodiversité’s “BIODIV’2050″ (No. 6 — April 2015) is out. Among oth­ers, this includes an arti­cle on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets enti­tled “Think­ing out the appro­pri­ate frame­works: bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and safe­guards”. The arti­cle high­lights the impor­tance of strict adher­ence to the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy (i.e. avoid­ance and min­i­miza­tion before offsetting):

“Reg­u­la­tions in France and in a grow­ing num­ber of coun­tries stip­u­late that com­pen­sa­tion must be the final step, the step taken after efforts have been made to avoid, and then reduce the impacts of a project. The first two steps are of para­mount impor­tance for two reasons:

• some impacts on bio­di­ver­sity that are espe­cially strong and are non-compensable must be strictly avoided;
• the best bio­di­ver­sity off­set is the one that does not take place since com­pen­sa­tion is awarded after bio­di­ver­sity has suf­fered sub­stan­tial impact.

Fur­ther­more, in sup­port of the first two steps, stress was placed on the fact that com­pen­sa­tion is more expen­sive than reduc­tion and avoid­ance. But, respect for the whole 3-step mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy is very impor­tant. An actor’s lack of respect for the con­di­tions of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets has a twofold effect: first, the com­pen­sa­tion is not awarded, which means a net loss for bio­di­ver­sity and, per­haps more impor­tant, sec­ond, an actor who knows that he is not going to respect his oblig­a­tions and will not be forced to do so will feel encour­aged to ignore avoid­ance and reduction.”

You can read the arti­cle and down­load the full issue here (open access). For more infor­ma­tion see also the abstract and table of con­tents of the issue below.

Abstract of the issue

The cur­rent inter­na­tional sit­u­a­tion offers us a robust, poten­tially promis­ing frame­work that is well adapted to a vari­ety of approaches. But due to insuf­fi­cient invest­ments and finan­cial resources it can­not be well imple­mented and the Aichi bio­di­ver­sity tar­gets, that aim to put an end to bio­di­ver­sity degra­da­tion by the year 2020, are still far away. The chal­lenges and stakes of bio­di­ver­sity need to be made bet­ter known and inte­grated at all lev­els. Because of this sit­u­a­tion, busi­ness enti­ties are in the front line. They have the tech­ni­cal and finan­cial abil­ity to con­tribute to this col­lec­tive momen­tum, and their con­tri­bu­tions may often be a source of oppor­tu­nity. Fur­ther­more, strong social demand is dri­ving busi­nesses – pro­vided that a coher­ent frame­work be put in place – toward biodiversity-enhancing development.

Table of con­tents of the issue

CHALLENGES                                                                                                       4

The Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity: stakes, chal­lenges and prospects stem­ming from the COP12

• The inter­na­tional com­mu­nity focuses on bio­di­ver­sity by cre­at­ing a robust yet com­plex mechanism
• Resources assess­ment and mobi­liza­tion: lessons learned from COP12

OPINION                                                                                                           10

Strat­egy for resource mobi­liza­tion: stakes, chal­lenges and the pri­vate sector’s contribution

Inter­view with Car­los Manuel Rodriguez — Chair­man of the CBD High-Level Panel on Global Assess­ment of Resources — and Dr. Naoko Ishii — CEO and Chair­per­son of the Global Envi­ron­ment Facility.

UNDERSTANDING                                                                                                15

How can the pri­vate sec­tor con­tribute to resource mobi­liza­tion to reach the Aichi targets?

• Mobi­liz­ing resources to achieve the Aichi Tar­gets: what are the stakes?
• How does the pri­vate sec­tor con­tribute to resource mobilization?
• Pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment for resource mobi­liza­tion: bar­ri­ers and drivers

OPINION                                                                                                           24

The role of eco­nomic val­u­a­tion of ecosys­tem ser­vices and bio­di­ver­sity in resource mobi­liza­tion and pri­vate sec­tor involvement

Inter­view with Pavan Sukhdev — Fouder-CEO of GIST Advisory.

INVENTING                                                                                                        27

Think­ing out the appro­pri­ate frame­works: bio­di­ver­sity off­sets and safeguards