Abstract
Biodiversity Offsets (BO) and Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are sometimes used interchangeably to characterize innovative economic tools to conserve or restore biodiversity, ecosystems, or their services. We assume that a confusion between PES and BO can have negative implications for biodiversity conservation. In this paper, we argue that these two tools follow different targets and have different founding principles, and thus, their basic mode of functioning would only coincide under special circumstances and institutional contexts. Here, we propose a new definition of BO, delimiting them more clearly from PES, and use practical examples to underscore conceptual differences. Both tools require specific policy framework conditions, in terms of rights, responsibilities, and enforcement. If unmet, however, the implications for biodiversity conservation outcomes are stronger for BO than for PES since BO are explicitly linked to biodiversity losses, while PES typically are not. PES experiences can certainly inform BO implementation vis-à-vis contract design and enforcement, but these PES lessons need to be enacted vis-à-vis BO specific requirements, in order not to underestimate generic risks in their implementation: if a PES scheme fails, payments can be stopped; if a BO fails, biodiversity losses remain.
Highlights
Biodiversity Offsets1 (BO) and Payments for Environmental Services2 (PES) are both innovative tools to address environmental problems
Biodiversity Offsetting (BO) and Payments for Environmental Services (PES) are often considered jointly as innovative ways to tackle the ongoing biodiversity crisis, and BO are by many observers considered generically as a type of PES, i.e. falling under the same umbrella of intervention
We have argued above that this would generally be a misuse: compared to the most common definition of PES (Wunder 2015), there are few circumstances in which BO can structurally be considered as PES, especially because the PES inherent voluntariness criterion from both sides is hardly ever respected in BO
Summary
The BBOP adds that ‘a range of people and organizations, from indigenous peoples and local communities, to farmers, NGOs, local authorities and protected area management boards, can be paid to deliver the specific conservation outcomes needed for the biodiversity offset to achieve no net loss (or a net gain)’. This standard conveys the progressive interest or need of including social aspects, such as poverty alleviation, equity or stakeholders' participation, to biodiversity conservation objectives. We close with conclusions for practice and further research (Section 4)
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