Biodiversity Offsetting

Question 1

Sala et al. (2000)

Answer 1

One of the most striking features of our planet is its great variety of life, and yet one of the most pervasive environmental changes of our time is the global loss of this biological diversity

Question 2

Pimm et al., 1995

Answer 2

Human caused extinction rates are two or three orders of magnitude higher than past rates

Question 3

Bull et al. (2016)

Answer 3

Economic development delivers societal benefits, but also incurs costs through negative biodiversity impacts
Therefore a balance must be found between development and biodiversity conservation

Question 4

Gardner et al. (2013)

Answer 4

No net loss - NNL
Developers, having mitigated biodiversity impacts where possible, fully offset any residual losses through quantified gains elsewhere
When losses and gains are summed there is NNL

Question 5

Maron et al., 2016

Answer 5

NNL biodiversity policies have existed since at least the 1970s and continue to emerge
One such policy is biodiversity offsetting

Question 6

What is biodiversity offsetting?

Answer 6

A conservation tool that aims to counterbalance losses of biodiversity in one place by generating equivalent biodiversity benefits elsewhere
It acts as a way to reconcile competing objectives of conservation and development, and has been championed as a “win-win”, capable of mitigating development-related harm, while enhancing economic growth
Maron et al. (2016)

Question 7

Example of BO from Global North

Answer 7

French company Oc’via has invested millions of euros since 2008 to manage 1700 hectares of farmland in the south of France and improve the habitat of Little Bustards, in compensation for a high speed rail project which will damage the bird’s habitat
(Maron et al., 2015)

Question 8

Benabou, 2014

Answer 8

However BO is controversial
Many view it as a “license to trash” nature, whereby development projects can continue ahead without proven conservation gains

Question 9

Gordon et al., 2015

Answer 9

Offsetting practices have increased over the past decade, institutionalised through mechanisms such as “species banks”

Question 10

Madsen et al., 2011

Answer 10

BO is a growing policy tool around the world - at least 72 countries had a policy or were developing one by 2011

Question 11

Carroll et al., 2008

Answer 11

Theory of BO
Market based incentive
Balance of biodiversity loss at one place by equivalent or great biodiversity gain elsewhere - NNL
Lands managed for conservation values are “conservation banks”, bank owner sell “credits” (off-sets) to compensate for environmental impacts (“debits”) of other parties’ development projects elsewhere
In this way development, and habitat destruction in one place, leads to protection of valuable biologically rich land elsewhere

Question 12

Outline the mitigation hierarchy

Answer 12

Benabou, 2014
Offsetting is the last step of the “mitigation hierarchy”
MH is crucial for all development projects aiming to minimise/negate negative impacts
Based on a series of essential, SEQUENTIAL steps, limit any negative impacts on biodiversity
Avoid, minimise, restore, off-set - in this way offsetting should act to compensate any RESIDUAL, adverse impacts AFTER full implementation of the previous three steps
It should always be a last resort after all other measures have been put in place

Question 13

Positives of BO

Answer 13

1) Appeals to both sides somewhat - for conservation it makes good of big developments, which likely would have happened anyway, and a practical way for developers to work around regulations
2) The idea of having NNL is very positive, not about reducing loss but about having no loss

Question 14

Walker and Brower, 2009

Answer 14

BO has so far failed to achieve NNL, and in fact it may make biodiversity loss worse

Question 15

Maron et al. (2016) (on complexity of biodiversity)

Answer 15

Nature itself is complicated and so is the action of defining it
Therefore implementing schemes meaningfully is difficult
How can biodiversity in one place really be equal to that in another? - offsetting has no sense of space (Apostolopoulou and Adams, 2015)

Question 16

Brook et al., 2008

Answer 16

BO creates functional/spatial abstraction, separating biodiversity units from context - they are treated as static, independent
Overlooks established ecological concepts e.g. intra-species variation, role of key-stone species
If these are ignored could lead to trophic cascades of extinction

Question 17

Spash, 2015

Answer 17

Biodiversity destruction now legitimised/institutionalised by offsetting rather than opening up the floor to alternatives
It is the final fail in the coffin for conservation

Question 19

McKenney and Kiesceker, 2010

Answer 19

To be valid an offset must result in new and additional conservation outcomes that would not have been achieved in absence of offset funds - a widely accepted principle referred to as additionality
However, additionality is difficult to prove, and can be subject to risks such as cost-shifting

Question 20

Pilgrim and Bennun, 2014

Answer 20

In the context of BO cost-shifting refers to the practice of governments using offset funds provided by developers to fulfill pre-existing conservation commitments, thus shifting the costs of their own conservation programs to the offsetting program
Because the offset benefits and the precommitted benefits do not both materialise, this type of cost shifting leads to double counting and a diminished overall conservation outcome

Question 21

Narain and Maron (2018)

Answer 21

India’s national offsetting program is a case in point of cost-shifting
Recent legislation allows the diversion of offset funds to meet the country’s pre-existing commitments under the UNFCCC and UNCBD
With such diversions, no additionality occurs and development impacts remain uncompensated

Question 22

Lemos and Ferreria, 2000

Answer 22

Offsets often fund “paper parks” where a protected area on paper is actually not helping conservation in reality - as exemplified in Brazil

Question 23

Madsen et al., 2010

Answer 23

Offsetting opens up nature to the forces of the market
When species banks relies on credit sales, they may become vulnerable to falls associated with broader economic downturns
E.g. 20 species banks in N California exhibited “steady increase” from 2005-2008, followed by a decrease of almost 20% in 2009, in relation to the crisis

Question 24

Bekessy et al., 2010

Answer 24

The losses from development are immediate, but the benefits may be delayed or may never happen

Question 25

Gibbons et al. (2018)

Answer 25

Looked at an area in New South Wales
Although more vegetation area has been protected than destroyed it still has not yet resulted in NNL
NNL will only occur in many generations, which is not consistent with intergenerational equity, and by substituting different habitat attributes so gains are not equivalent to losses

Question 26

Apostolopoulou and Adams, 2015

Answer 26

Most scholars focus on the technical aspects but there are also social and political issues that arise
BO is presented as a win-win but this obscures the contradictions occurring within it
For example the territorial inaction of land to offset legitimises control of land and claiming of authority of who can use/generate wealth from it

Question 27

Buscher et al., 2012

Answer 27

BO is a neoliberal conservation technique - which promotes the commoditisation of conservation, and allows for the expansion of capitalism

Question 28

Splash, 2009

Answer 28

BO is part of a new environmental pragmatism grounded on the caricature of “Tragedy of the Commons” (Hardin, 1968) - grounded in the belief that private is better suited than government to manage natural resource

Question 29

Gordon et al. (2015)

Answer 29

BO often promotes fast-tracking through the mitigation hierarchy, whereby people do not attempt other prerequisites- this has been keen in wetland policy in Alberta, Canada (Clare et al., 2011)

Question 30

Wunder, 2013

Answer 30

Presents BO as a “win-settle” situation for development/conservation

Question 31

Bidaud et al., 2017

Answer 31

BO has both “sweet and bitter” effects

Question 32

Kill et al. (2016)

Answer 32

Rio Tinto Mine BO
To compensate for ilmenite mining (used for paint), in Madagascar
Launched their offsetting strategy in 2004
6000ha ilmenite mining concession at Fort Dauphin
Yet villagers feel restrictions imposed without negotiation
Income-generating alternatives to compensate loss of access to forest promised but yet to materialise while severe restrictions on forest use already in place
By partnering with NGOs to try and protect this Rio Tinto is drawing attention away from its impacts of destroying unique coastal forest - presents itself as rescuing biodiversity
In contrast the locals are presented as being damaging - the destruction “other” - in order to appear as ecologically helpful the mine constructs an alternative of who is damaging
Talk about the impact of slash and burn agriculture and poverty in their brochures
The Bermangiddy area is already protected by State Decree, so therefore this is just cost-shifting anyway
Also a different type of frost, so not like for like

Question 33

Spash and Aslaksen, 2015

Answer 33

Converting nature into exchangeable units is a fundamental violation of its intrinsic value

Question 34

Rangarajan and Shahabuddin, 2006

Answer 34

BO sees places without people
By moving conservation somewhere else, makes biodiversity independent of place and the people who depend on it, and reinforces the idea that landscapes are void of social or ecological histories

Question 35

Apostolopoulou and Adams, 2017

Answer 35

Locks in biodiversity loss
“Reframed conservation as a pragmatic search for the least worst outcome in the face of development demands”
This process is allowing developers to push forward damaging schemes, which has warped the original intentions of conservation
BO exposes the crucial capitalist contradiction regarding nature; it must be conserved as a future resource, but also must be exploited and degraded in the present to support current accumulation

Question 36

Ferguson, 1994

Answer 36

BO is an example of “anti politics in action”

The political act of doing away with politics

Question 37

Dempsey and Collard, 2017

Answer 37

We need to “shame and tame capitalism” rather than accept it
Through divestment from companies involved in deforestation
And payments for historical ecological debt, rather than for ongoing ecosystem services

Question 38

Phalan et al., 2017

Answer 38

Need to move back up the mitigation hierarchy towards avoiding in the first place

Question 39

Possible solutions

Answer 39

1) Requiring replacement of biodiversity before development occurs (Walker and Brower, 2009)
2) Higher global standards (Maron et al., 2015)
3) Have specific local policies e.g. SA provincial governments have their own policy frameworks, “learning through doing” - methods tailored to local ecological, social and political realities (Jenner and Howard, 2015)

Question 40

Quigley and Harper (2006)

Answer 40

63% of projects designed to fest fish habitat loss in Canada failed to achieve NNL even when projects were fully compliant with legal standards, suggesting that even properly implemented BO policy has its flaws