I am very happy to announce our first on-the ground bio­di­ver­sity off­set exam­ple that is the result of some intense work and exchange. It describes a species off­set for the Koala in Queens­land (Aus­tralia). While we have devel­oped the struc­ture together, Alan Key from Aus­tralian con­sul­tancy Earth­trade, has pro­vided all the con­tent and illus­tra­tions. Many thanks Alan for your time and com­mit­ment. This is a valu­able resource! Hope­fully, oth­ers will fol­low. Please get back with any ideas for exam­ples that could be pre­sented here on the Bio­di­ver­sity Off­sets Blog (for more infor­ma­tion see also my pre­vi­ous post). I am happy to sup­port longer or shorter exam­ples. Don’t hes­i­tate to com­ment on the sug­gested struc­ture and please do also get in touch if you are miss­ing an impor­tant issue that you would like to be included in this (and pos­si­ble other) exam­ple! Your feed­back is greatly appre­ci­ated! Please leave a reply below!

Sum­mary

Fol­low­ing, the case of an Aus­tralian bio­di­ver­sity off­set is pre­sented, which was trig­gered by the clear­ing of Koala habi­tat at the impact or project site, i.e. a species off­set for the Koala which is listed as an endan­gered ani­mal of national sig­nif­i­cance under the EPBC Act. The devel­oper was con­di­tioned to com­pen­sate for the loss of 67.14 ha of habi­tat crit­i­cal to the sur­vival of the Koala, by secur­ing and man­ag­ing a min­i­mum of 161.11 ha of Koala habi­tat. The details were spec­i­fied in an Off­set Area Man­age­ment Plan (OAMP). The off­set is a legal arrange­ment between three par­ties being the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sented by the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment (DoE), the Devel­oper and, in this instance, a pri­vate land­holder on whose prop­erty the off­set will be secured in per­pe­tu­ity. A con­sul­tancy sup­ports and car­ries out the plan­ning of the off­set. The OAMP is the legal agree­ment between the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment and the devel­oper. The land­holder is bound by a legal con­tract with the devel­oper with regards the mon­e­tary pay­ment amount and sched­ule, for imple­ment­ing the agreed man­age­ment actions within the OAMP, which is bound legally to the prop­erty and is there­fore bind­ing on cur­rent and future owners.

In this case, the land­holder rec­og­nized the prop­erty needed reha­bil­i­tat­ing due to the clear­ing of tim­ber and over­graz­ing of the prop­erty over an extended period result­ing in a degraded ecosys­tem, weed inva­sion and habi­tat degra­da­tion. A base­line assess­ment of the canopy, shrub and ground lay­ers of the open Euca­lypt for­est ecosys­tem (by using the Bio-condition Method­ol­ogy as devel­oped by the Queens­land Herbar­ium) found a con­di­tion of medium with regards the qual­ity of the for­est. The over­all goal is there­for to improve the con­di­tion to a good con­di­tion along with increas­ing the num­ber of habi­tat and for­age trees for the Koala pop­u­la­tion. The man­age­ment regime pro­posed for the off­set area is to enhance the level of pro­tec­tion afforded to exist­ing koala habi­tat through exclu­sion of land man­age­ment prac­tices that are incom­pat­i­ble to achiev­ing a net gain in koala habi­tat qual­ity. Fur­ther, key threat­en­ing processes which could inter­fere with the recov­ery of koala as described by the Draft EPBC Act refer­ral guide­lines for the vul­ner­a­ble koala are to be actively man­aged to result in a net gain in koala habi­tat qual­ity in time.

With a through process, under­stand­ing of the tech­ni­cal, legal and finan­cial processes and vari­ables and the deter­mi­na­tion from the start of the process as to the out­comes required by each of the par­ties involved, off­sets can be nego­ti­ated and secured within a rea­son­able period of time and be legally and finan­cially respon­si­ble to the par­ties involved.

Out­line

1. Country/location
2. Descrip­tion of the national con­text (reg­u­la­tion, pol­icy, market)
3. Involved parties/responsible
4. Motivations/incentives
5. Time­frame
6. Size
7. Brief descrip­tion of the envi­ron­men­tal base­line and the impacts
8. Sur­ro­gate of the offset
9. Goal of the offset
10. Brief descrip­tion of the off­set measures
11. Impact-Offset-Relation
12. Out­come and lessons learned

1. Country/location

South East Queens­land, Australia

2. Descrip­tion of the national con­text (reg­u­la­tion, pol­icy, market)

a) Gen­eral description

Both species and ecosys­tems are a reg­u­lar require­ment for off­set­ting impacts in Aus­tralia. The Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment pro­tects both “Threat­ened Eco­log­i­cal Com­mu­ni­ties” and “Threat­ened Species” at the national level. These are ecosys­tems or species that are threat­ened at the national scale. The mech­a­nism for this is the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and Bio­di­ver­sity Con­ser­va­tion Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

Addi­tion­ally, each state in Aus­tralia has their list of “trig­gers” as to what needs pro­tec­tion at the state level – so again, a list of threat­ened ecosys­tems and species. These are pro­tected under a num­ber of dif­fer­ent leg­isla­tive triggers.

b) Case spe­cific descrip­tion: which legal, pro­ce­dural or other con­di­tions apply?

In this case, the off­set was trig­gered by the clear­ing of Koala habi­tat at the impact or project site. The impact trig­gered a require­ment for an off­set for impacts to habi­tat crit­i­cal to the Koala which is listed as an endan­gered ani­mal of national sig­nif­i­cance under the EPBC Act. The devel­oper was con­di­tioned to pro­vide the following:

• To com­pen­sate for the loss of 67.14 ha of habi­tat crit­i­cal to the sur­vival of the Koala, the approval holder must secure and man­age as Koala habi­tat, a min­i­mum of 161.11 ha of Koala habi­tat as shown as “Pro­posed Off­set Area”.
• To com­pen­sate for the loss of 67.14 ha of Koala habi­tat, the approval holder must sub­mit an Off­set Area Man­age­ment Plan (OAMP) to the Min­is­ter at least two months prior to commencement.
• The OAMP must include, but not be lim­ited to:

1. loca­tion of the habi­tat off­set area includ­ing maps in elec­tronic Geo­graphic Infor­ma­tion Sys­tem (GIS) format
2. details of how the off­set site has been or will be legally secured within 2 years of com­mence­ment to ensure its long-term protection
3. details of how the off­set site ade­quately com­pen­sates for resid­ual sig­nif­i­cant impacts to the Koala in accor­dance with the EPBC Act Off­sets Policy
4. a detailed base­line descrip­tion of the off­set site, includ­ing sur­veys under­taken, con­di­tion of exist­ing Koala habi­tat, con­nec­tiv­ity with other habi­tat areas and bio­di­ver­sity corridors
5. man­age­ment mea­sures to improve Koala habi­tat qual­ity over time
6. spe­cific goals and asso­ci­ated time­frames for habi­tat man­age­ment and improve­ment mea­sures with cri­te­ria for assess­ing the suc­cess of habi­tat man­age­ment mea­sures and cor­rec­tive mea­sures to be imple­mented if cri­te­ria are not met
7. a mon­i­tor­ing pro­gram for the off­set site suit­able to mea­sure the suc­cess of the man­age­ment mea­sures against stated per­for­mance cri­te­ria includ­ing mon­i­tor­ing loca­tions, para­me­ters and timing
8. a descrip­tion of the poten­tial risks to the suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of the OAMP, and details of mea­sures that will be imple­mented to mit­i­gate these risks
9. an out­line of how com­pli­ance with the OAMP will be reported
10. details of qual­i­fi­ca­tions and expe­ri­ence of per­sons respon­si­ble for under­tak­ing mon­i­tor­ing, review, and imple­men­ta­tion of the OAMP

• The approval holder must not com­mence the action until the OAMP has been approved by the Min­is­ter in writ­ing. The approved OAMP must be implemented.
• The most recent approved ver­sions of the plans described in these con­di­tions must remain acces­si­ble to the pub­lic on the web­site of the approval holder for the dura­tion of the Approval.
• Within ten days after the com­mence­ment of the action, the approval holder must advise the Depart­ment in writ­ing of the actual date of commencement.
• The approval holder must main­tain accu­rate records sub­stan­ti­at­ing all activ­i­ties asso­ci­ated with or rel­e­vant to the con­di­tions of approval, includ­ing mea­sures taken to imple­ment the plans required by this approval, and make them avail­able upon request to the Depart­ment. Such records may be sub­ject to audit by the Depart­ment or an inde­pen­dent audi­tor in accor­dance with sec­tion 458 of the EPBC Act, or used to ver­ify com­pli­ance with the con­di­tions of approval. Sum­maries of audits will be posted on the Department’s web­site. The results of audits may also be pub­li­cized through the gen­eral media.
• Any poten­tial or sus­pected non-compliance with these con­di­tions of approval must be reported to the Depart­ment in writ­ing within 48 hours of the approval holder becom­ing aware of the poten­tial or sus­pected non-compliance. Within three months of every 12 month anniver­sary of the com­mence­ment of the action, the approval holder must pub­lish a report on their web­site address­ing com­pli­ance with each of the con­di­tions of this approval, includ­ing imple­men­ta­tion of any plans as spec­i­fied in the con­di­tions. Doc­u­men­tary evi­dence pro­vid­ing proof of the date of pub­li­ca­tion must be pro­vided to the Depart­ment at the same time as the com­pli­ance report is published.
• Upon the direc­tion of the Min­is­ter, the approval holder must ensure that an inde­pen­dent audit of com­pli­ance with the con­di­tions of approval is con­ducted and a report sub­mit­ted to the Min­is­ter. The inde­pen­dent audi­tor and audit cri­te­ria must be approved by the Min­is­ter prior to the com­mence­ment of the audit. The audit report must address the cri­te­ria to the sat­is­fac­tion of the Minister.

 3. Involved parties/responsible

Gov­ern­ment	NGO	Busi­ness	Con­sul­tants	Acad­e­mia	Landown­ers
x		x	x		x

The off­set is a legal arrange­ment between three par­ties being the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sented by the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment (DoE), the Devel­oper and, in this instance, a pri­vate land­holder on whose prop­erty the off­set will be secured. A con­sul­tancy sup­ports and car­ries out the plan­ning of the off­set. The off­set is also secured on the prop­erty by a legally bind­ing instru­ment admin­is­trated by the Queens­land (State) Gov­ern­ment by the Land Act 1994 and the Land Titles Act 1994.

4. Motivations/incentives

Moti­va­tions for land­hold­ers vary. Some land­hold­ers use the pro­vi­sion of off­sets as another ser­vice that they can gain an income from much as graz­ing and crop­ping returns. Some land­hold­ers use off­sets as a means of reha­bil­i­tat­ing land that has been over cleared or is degraded in some way. Other land­hold­ers like to use off­sets to pro­tect the land from future devel­op­ment and to reha­bil­i­tate and or improve the con­di­tion of the ecosys­tem that is present. All are legit­i­mate approaches to the pro­vi­sion of off­sets by landholders.

In this case, the land­holder rec­og­nized the prop­erty needed reha­bil­i­tat­ing due to the clear­ing of tim­ber and over­graz­ing of the prop­erty over an extended period result­ing in a degraded ecosys­tem, weed inva­sion and habi­tat degra­da­tion. The use of the prop­erty for off­sets has enabled the land­holder to start improv­ing the con­di­tion and reha­bil­i­tat­ing the ecosys­tem and habi­tat with the con­tract between the land­holder and the devel­oper pro­vid­ing the money nec­es­sary for this. The land will be secured in per­pe­tu­ity to pre­vent the risk of loss in the future.

5. Time­frame

started	plan­ning	imple­men­ta­tion	com­pleted
2014	July – Novem­ber 2014	Jan­u­ary 2015	2025

6. Size

161 ha

7. Brief descrip­tion of the envi­ron­men­tal base­line and the impacts

The open Euca­lypt For­est was assessed and had a con­di­tion of medium with regards the qual­ity of the for­est. The over­all goal is to improve the con­di­tion to a good con­di­tion along with increas­ing the num­ber of habi­tat and for­age trees for the Koala pop­u­la­tion. This base­line data col­lec­tion included the assess­ment of the canopy, shrub and ground lay­ers of the ecosys­tem by using the Bio-condition Method­ol­ogy as devel­oped by the Queens­land Herbar­ium. https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/plants-animals/biodiversity/biocondition/

With ref­er­ence to the Koala, there were a num­ber of poten­tial threats deter­mined for the site.

• Habi­tat loss from forestry
• Reduc­tion in habi­tat and for­age tree gen­er­a­tion due to fire and grazing
• Pre­da­tion from wild dogs and other feral animals
• Vehi­cle strike

Each of these threats was addressed in the man­age­ment plan (OAMP).

8. Sur­ro­gate of the offset

species	Habitat/biotope types	Whole ecosys­tems and its features
Koala is the sin­gle species tar­geted for the off­set – i.e. the off­set is to pro­vide increased habi­tat and for­age trees for the Koala population

9. Goal of the offset

The man­age­ment regime pro­posed for the off­set area is to enhance the level of pro­tec­tion afforded to exist­ing koala habi­tat through exclu­sion of land man­age­ment prac­tices that are incom­pat­i­ble to achiev­ing a net gain in koala habi­tat qual­ity. Fur­ther, key threat­en­ing processes which could inter­fere with the recov­ery of koala as described by the Draft EPBC Act refer­ral guide­lines for the vul­ner­a­ble koala (com­bined pop­u­la­tions of Queens­land, New South Wales and the Aus­tralian Cap­i­tal Ter­ri­tory) (DoE, 2013) are to be actively man­aged to result in a net gain in koala habi­tat qual­ity in time as artic­u­lated by the EPBC Act Envi­ron­men­tal Off­sets Pol­icy (DoE, 2012) and demon­strated via the Off­sets Assess­ment Guide (DoE, 2012).

10. Brief descrip­tion of the off­set measures

a) Technical-functional

The threats were addressed by the imple­men­ta­tion in the man­age­ment plan of the fol­low­ing key man­age­ment actions:

• The exclu­sion of forestry oper­a­tions within the off­set area
• The exclu­sion of any mechan­i­cal or chem­i­cal clear­ing of native vegetation
• Allow­ing the shrub layer to regen­er­ate via the con­trol of weeds and the use of an eco­log­i­cal fire regime (note that fire is an impor­tant part of ecosys­tem devel­op­ment and func­tion in Australia)
• Fire man­age­ment plan: includ­ing the instal­la­tion and main­te­nance of fire con­trol lines, reduced fuel loads via graz­ing as above and the use of fire at appro­pri­ate times for eco­log­i­cal burns. This would usu­ally occur dur­ing the cooler months of the year to reduce fuel loads of grass and other dry mat­ter and to encour­age the ger­mi­na­tion of nat­ural tree species
• Weed man­age­ment plan
• Man­age­ment of graz­ing to a lim­ited num­ber of cat­tle and a lim­ited graz­ing period only in the cir­cum­stances where a reduc­tion in grass was required to min­i­mize the risk of a wild fire
• A pest ani­mal con­trol pro­gram, and
• The erec­tion of sig­nage at the entrance to the prop­erty with regards the pres­ence of Koala

b) Legal-procedural

The con­di­tions of the devel­op­ment, agreed to between the reg­u­la­tor (DoE) and the devel­oper, require that the agreed Off­set Man­age­ment Plan be imple­mented. This is the legal agree­ment between the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment and the devel­oper for what needs to occur for the devel­op­ment to proceed.

The land­holder is bound by a legal con­tract with the devel­oper with regards the mon­e­tary pay­ment amount and sched­ule, for imple­ment­ing the agreed man­age­ment actions within the Off­set Area Man­age­ment Plan. This Off­set Area Man­age­ment Plan is bound legally to the prop­erty and is there­fore bind­ing on cur­rent and future own­ers. Prop­erty law in Aus­tralia is admin­is­tered by State Gov­ern­ments. Com­pli­ance with regards the imple­men­ta­tion of the man­age­ment plan can there­fore be enforced via 3 dif­fer­ent legal mechanisms:

• Con­di­tions of devel­op­ment Approval,
• the finan­cial con­tract between the devel­oper and the landowner,
• and the Off­set Man­age­ment Plan as it is bound to the property.

With regards the finan­cial struc­ture, the money nego­ti­ated for man­ag­ing the off­set, in this instance, is held by the land­holder in Trust.

Com­pli­ance is under­taken by a com­pli­ance regime agreed between the 3 par­ties, and is under­taken by an inde­pen­dent third party to ensure that the Off­set Area Man­age­ment Plan is imple­mented. This gives con­fi­dence to both the reg­u­la­tor and the devel­oper that the agreed man­age­ment actions are being under­taken and that the off­set is pro­gres­sively achiev­ing its objectives.

11. Impact-Offset-Relation

a) What kinds of impacts/development projects is the off­set related to?

The 161ha off­set was for the clear­ing of 67ha of Koala habi­tat for devel­op­ment. Please see the Refer­ral Guide­lines here: http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/epbc-act-referral-guidelines-vulnerable-koala

b) Loss-Gain cal­cu­la­tions: How are impact and off­set mea­sured and weighed against each other?

The area of the off­set required was cal­cu­lated using the EPBC Off­set Assess­ment Guide and the “How to use the Off­set Assess­ment Guide­lines” which gives guid­ance to the input fig­ures for the spread­sheet, see more here: http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc/publications/epbc-act-environmental-offsets-policy

12. Out­come and lessons learned

A through process is required and good com­mu­ni­ca­tion between all the peo­ple involved.

A sin­gle point of con­tact for each party involved is essen­tial to ensure that there is a sin­gle mes­sage being com­mu­ni­cated and that there is no delay or con­fu­sion in cor­rec­tion to the doc­u­men­ta­tion. This is essen­tial as the doc­u­ments “cross link” and a change in one doc­u­ment will neces­si­tate the change in a num­ber of other doc­u­ments. There­fore, doc­u­ment con­trol is para­mount along with ver­sion con­trol as the doc­u­ments are reviewed by sev­eral parties.

The other crit­i­cal point is an under­stood out­come and para­me­ters of each of the par­ties to be under­stood and con­sid­ered dur­ing the nego­ti­a­tions for all of the par­ties. This point is crit­i­cal as any mis­un­der­stand­ing is exac­er­bated because of the com­plex­ity and as the process is new, the uncer­tainty of the out­come. This is crit­i­cal to man­age when there are con­stant changes to man­age­ment plans as the doc­u­ment is reviewed by the dif­fer­ent par­ties. To illus­trate, a change of a man­age­ment action requested by the reg­u­la­tor, needs to be accept­able to the land­holder and of course be prac­ti­cally imple­mentable on the ground, and also to be able to be legally defended and to be mea­sured for com­pli­ance purposes.

With a through process, under­stand­ing of the tech­ni­cal, legal and finan­cial processes and vari­ables and the deter­mi­na­tion from the start of the process as to the out­comes required by each of the par­ties involved, off­sets can be nego­ti­ated and secured within a rea­son­able period of time and be legally and finan­cially respon­si­ble to the par­ties involved.