With the adop­tion of its 2020 Bio­di­ver­sity Strat­egy the EU has made a com­mit­ment to halt “the loss of bio­di­ver­sity and the degra­da­tion of ecosys­tem ser­vices in the EU by 2020, and restor­ing them in so far as fea­si­ble”. To reach this goal the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion works towards an ini­tia­tive to ensure there is no net loss of ecosys­tems and their ser­vices (e.g. through com­pen­sa­tion or off­set­ting schemes) by 2015. This action is accom­pa­nied by a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the planned No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive (see my pre­vi­ous post for more details). The dis­cus­sion on the intro­duc­tion of bio­di­ver­sity off­sets as part of this ini­tia­tive is very lively and con­tro­ver­sial: some expect a Euro­pean legal frame­work on bio­di­ver­sity off­sets would set min­i­mum stan­dards to pro­tect and restore the nor­mal land­scape out­side pro­tected areas, oth­ers fear that this would fos­ter even more devel­op­ment and envi­ron­men­tal degradation.

This post is the third in a short-run series on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­set Blog encour­ag­ing you to have your say on the con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive until Fri­day, October17 (con­sul­ta­tion closes) and to help you to make an informed decision.

Argu­ments and con­di­tions for bio­di­ver­sity off­sets as part of the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive from the Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Land­scape Archi­tects IFLA Europe

The fol­low­ing argu­ments where extracted from the response of the Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Land­scape Archi­tects IFLA Europe to the con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Initiative.

1. Ide­ally, in spa­tial terms the future EU NNL ini­tia­tive would be a full cov­er­age stan­dard to address any impacts on nature and landscape.
2. The NNL ini­tia­tive could give extra­or­di­nary atten­tion to the con­cept of Green Infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment, as per the “roadmap to a Resource Effi­cient Europe”.
3. IFLA Europe believes that the Con­cept of Green Infra­struc­ture Devel­op­ment (and the EU GI com­mu­ni­ca­tion) needs extra­or­di­nary atten­tion when shap­ing the EU NNL ini­tia­tive. A joint imple­men­ta­tion of a Euro­pean GI strat­egy and an EU NNL ini­tia­tive bear a high poten­tial of fruit­ful syn­ergy effects.
4. National approaches have clearly shown that com­pen­sa­tion is able to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cantly to bio­di­ver­sity pro­tec­tion and land­scape devel­op­ment. Nev­er­the­less, it is vital that any EU NNL ini­tia­tive anchors com­pen­sa­tion / off-setting into a strict and sys­tem­atic mit­i­ga­tion hierarchy.
5. The mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy is built not very well in sev­eral core pieces of EU leg­is­la­tion (e.g. EIA direc­tive). A com­pre­hen­sive frame­work pro­vid­ing clear effec­tive and bind­ing rules for the mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy is needed.

Argu­ments and require­ments for bio­di­ver­sity off­sets as part of the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive in the light of the Ger­man impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion, build­ing on a recent paper by Albrecht et al

The fol­low­ing argu­ments where extracted from a recently pub­lished paper by Juliane Albrecht, Jochen Schu­macher and Wolf­gang Wende (2014): The Ger­man Impact Mit­i­ga­tion Reg­u­la­tion — A Model for the EU’s No-net-loss Strat­egy and Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets? (Envi­ron­men­tal Pol­icy and Law, 44/3).

1. Coun­tries like Ger­many, Aus­tria and Switzer­land have a long expe­ri­ence with the legal estab­lish­ment of impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets. Sim­i­lar sys­tems exist or are under devel­op­ment e.g. in Italy, Spain, France, Swe­den and Great Britain. Thus the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive could set a com­mon framework.
2. The core idea of a impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets is that the party caus­ing the degra­da­tion of nature and land­scape bears the respon­si­bil­ity for avoid­ance or mit­i­ga­tion of that degra­da­tion and for com­pen­sa­tion of its effects, i.e. it is a con­cretiza­tion of gen­eral envi­ron­men­tal prin­ci­ples of sus­tain­abil­ity and responsibility.
3. Impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets are designed to secure and pre­serve the func­tion­al­ity of the bal­ance of nature and the qual­ity of the land­scape, even out­side pro­tected areas – so-called “full-coverage min­i­mum protection”.
4. Under Euro­pean envi­ron­men­tal law, there is no full cov­er­age pro­tec­tion like that pro­vided by the Ger­man impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion. The exist­ing instru­ments (Envi­ron­men­tal Impact Assess­ment, Strate­gic Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment, Impact Assess­ment under the Habi­tats Direc­tive, Envi­ron­men­tal Lia­bil­ity Direc­tive) are sub­ject to lim­i­ta­tions in a num­ber of respects, e.g. Impact Assess­ment under the Habi­tats Direc­tive is restricted to pro­tected areas.
5. If the neg­a­tive effects can­not be avoided or compensated/offset within a rea­son­able period, the respon­si­ble author­ity must not per­mit the impact
6. The sys­tem of impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion and bio­di­ver­sity off­sets does not allow any­one to “buy him­self free” from the oblig­a­tion to main­tain con­ser­va­tion stan­dards under the law. The mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy must be main­tained in this respect.
7. Where avoid­ance is not pos­si­ble, a duty of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion must be imposed.
8. Based on the Ger­man exam­ple of an impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion rooted in the law, a com­pletely new instru­ment at EU level would appear to promise the great­est suc­cess. A mere adap­ta­tion or exten­sion of exist­ing direc­tives will be insuf­fi­cient to halt bio­di­ver­sity loss by 2020.
9. The intro­duc­tion of a new instru­ment in accor­dance with the prin­ci­ple of full cov­er­age would par­tic­u­larly pro­vide for the pro­tec­tion and devel­op­ment of bio­di­ver­sity and ecosys­tem ser­vices that are located out­side pro­tected areas and thus beyond the scope of the pro­tec­tion under the Habi­tats and Birds Directive.
10. Clearly, the pro­tec­tive force of exist­ing reg­u­la­tions should under no cir­cum­stances be diluted.
11. Com­pre­hen­sive imple­men­ta­tion can only be pro­vided if the reg­u­la­tion gov­ern­ing this new instru­ment and strat­egy is manda­tory, for com­pen­sa­tion involves costs which the par­ties caus­ing an impact gen­er­ally want to avoid.
12. In prac­tice, vol­un­tary bio­di­ver­sity off­sets are only imple­mented when the party caus­ing an impact has an inter­est in gain­ing accep­tance or recog­ni­tion for the project, i.e. “vol­un­tary” off­sets tend not to be very effective.
13. An inves­ti­ga­tion of the Ger­man impact mit­i­ga­tion reg­u­la­tion also leads to the con­clu­sion that it is nec­es­sary to cre­ate a reg­u­la­tion that clearly upholds the “mit­i­ga­tion hier­ar­chy” and pro­vides strict pri­or­ity for prac­ti­cal on-site com­pen­sa­tion mea­sures over mon­e­tary off­set payment.
14. A Euro­pean reg­u­la­tion or direc­tive could also pro­vide rules for the spa­tial and/or bio­geo­graph­i­cal link­age of impacts in com­pen­sa­tion mea­sures to the impact they com­pen­sate for; oth­er­wise we will see the Europe wide seg­re­ga­tion into region with increased impacts and bio­di­ver­sity effects on the one hand and regions with a pre­ferred “con­cen­tra­tion” of off­sets on the other.

More from the short-run series on the con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Initiative

The short-run series on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog on the con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive includes the fol­low­ing posts:

1. Con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive: Bio­di­ver­sity off­set­ting can, under cer­tain cir­cum­stances, improve nature and bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion — a com­ment by Heidi Wittmer

2. Why would you say NO to the EU No Net Loss initiative?

3. Why would you say YES to the EU No Net Loss ini­tia­tive? (this post)

4. Have your say – even if it’s a MAYBE: Con­sul­ta­tion on the EU No Net Loss Ini­tia­tive closes today!