Biodiversity Offsets Research Articles

On the political ontology of making things up in political ecology critique: Responding to Bormpoudakis (2019) and Knudsen (2023)

I engage with two recent articles published in the Journal of Political Ecology, both of which critique political ecology engagements with ontological and epistemological complexities. These complexities might be distilled into the idea that how 'the world' is socially known also shapes how the world is known to be. I explore three key issues worked through in these papers, partly with reference to work of mine, namely: 1) conservation struggles around biodiversity offsetting; 2) debates regarding plural and relational ontologies, particularly representations of 'flatness' and 'depth' in ontological considerations; and 3) critical realism, specifically distinctions between perspectives on transitive and intransitive dimensions in qualifying understandings of reality. I highlight a pernicious problem of dismissive approaches towards analysts trying to ask difficult and subtle questions about 'onto-epistemology.' This situation seems surprising given the effort in political ecology towards recognising and respecting plural knowledges, particularly knowledges often overridden by discourses emboldened by structures of power. My overall aim is towards clarity in ongoing political ecology debate on these issues, alongside the pursuit of respectful praxis in this burgeoning area of engagement.

Compensation landscapes

In this contribution, I explore compensation landscapes as a concept through which we can question the nature of ecological urbanism today, as an alliance of environmental degradation, urban development and landscape design. In urbanism and landscape studies, there is currently almost no debate on the spatial dynamics created by the compensation of environmental harm. This is remarkable, as green urban landscapes are increasingly developed through biodiversity offsetting, i.e. the process where open space assets that have been destroyed through urban development are replaced elsewhere. While the literature on these topics is booming in critical geography and political ecology, I explore three scopes in which biodiversity offsetting can be studied as part of urbanism and landscape studies. Through the spatialization of compensation, the linking of offsetting to planning research, and by giving attention to landscape design, this paper frames compensation as a socio-spatial urbanisation project.

Biodiversity offsets perform poorly for both people and nature, but better approaches are available

Biodiversity offsets perform poorly for both people and nature, but better approaches are available

Biodiversity Offsetting’s Lingering Issue: Under-Compensation

ABSTRACT Biodiversity offsetting is a criticised conservation tool that compensates for harm to biodiversity with positive actions. This paper, framed within a compensatory theory framework, starts from a charitable interpretation principle to defend that biodiversity offsetting omits from the compensatory calculous people’s attachment to a place: an element that cannot be fully compensated. Since compensation theory demands perfect and full compensation, biodiversity offsetting amounts to an ethically and politically questionable under-compensation. Consequently, the paper advocates for a shift to a radically protective justice understanding of biodiversity offsetting and for this tool not to be used to compensate for future damages.

Balancing forest area preservation and biodiversity offsets in the forest: Forest owners’ policy preferences

In many densely populated countries in Europe, land suitable for agriculture, forest and protected areas is becoming scarcer with expanding settlement area. One way to mitigate this pressure is to abstain from the in-kind replacement of forest clearances and to allow for their compensation by nature conservation projects on areas other than agricultural land, including the forest itself. It is particularly the latter that implies a difficult trade-off for forest owners who adhere to the forest area preservation principle but at the same time support biodiversity offsetting in the forest as a potential new source of income.This paper analyses the stated preferences of forest owners in the Swiss canton of Berne with a discrete choice survey experiment that allows examining how forest owners reconcile this trade-off and whether the requirement to spatially coordinate offsets affects their willingness to participate in such a scheme. The results show that while biodiversity offsetting in the forest is disputed and support is generally low, those forest owners that participate do not exclusively offer low-effectivity measures on marginal forest land. However, they also demand substantial financial compensation. A spatial coordination of biodiversity offsets is certainly not their main concern and thus needs to be secured by respective regulation.

Has a dedicated biodiversity offsets policy improved the environmental and social compensation outcomes of development in Australia?

AbstractBiodiversity offsets are used worldwide to provide environmental compensation for the impacts of development and to meet the goals of sustainable development. Australia has embraced the use of offsets and its offset methodologies have been used as models by other jurisdictions. However, the maturity of offset requirements in Australia is unknown. To understand this, development referrals submitted under the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth) between October 2011 and September 2017 were reviewed to determine if offset requirements in Australia were improving in complexity, transparency and/or environmental outcomes (termed maturity) over time. Despite the implementation of dedicated policy in Australia in 2012, our analysis showed that offset requirements were not on a trajectory towards improvement (maturity) over the 6-year period examined. There was no evidence to suggest the type of offsets required and compensation for impacts to specific species and habitats increased in complexity over time. The level of detail included for offset requirements, mandatory commencement dates and requirements for ecological outcomes similarly did not increase over time. Consequently, dedicated legislation for offsets is recommended to remedy these omissions and enable effective functionality for biodiversity offsets through the protection of the environment and conservation of biodiversity, ecosystem function and ecosystem services.

Biodiversity offsetting as a form of depoliticised nature: Social aspects of a pilot project in Lahti, Finland

We examine the public perceptions of an urban biodiversity offsetting pilot project and the implications of such a project for conflicts in urban planning. The City of Lahti was the first in Finland to pilot biodiversity offsetting in its urban planning in 2021. This pilot project demonstrates the contradictions of depoliticised nature, which the urban context makes visible. We draw on interviews with city planners and other city officials, residents and stakeholders, workshops, and documents tracing the pilot project. The case study shows how biodiversity offsetting risks rendering urban planning and its inherent conflicts over preserving greenspaces and enabling development to a set of technical measurements and valuation, while “the social” in urban planning becomes secondary. The theoretical framework of depoliticisation highlights the tensions between the biodiversity offsetting scheme and the participatory planning processes. The former is presented as depoliticised and incontestable, while the latter are overrun by a technocratic measuring of ecological values. We conclude that the contradictions of depoliticised nature are built into the core of biodiversity offsetting and consider ways to improve the social fairness of offsetting in urban contexts.

The limits of co-production: linking regulatory capacity to co-production of authoritative knowledge for environmental policy

Abstract This paper introduces a novel perspective on co-production of authoritative knowledge in environmental policy, shifting focus from perceived flaws in knowledge production to structural and governance challenges impeding knowledge uptake. It argues that these challenges, including diminishing support for public authority and widespread enthusiasm for collaboration, contribute to regulatory capacity deficits, which undermine knowledge claims’ authority. This account is tested through case study analysis of policy stakeholders in Colorado, USA, who sought to co-produce a scientific assessment for biodiversity offsetting. Despite repeated efforts, industry stakeholders disengaged twice, leading to abandonment of the policy initiative. Analysis demonstrates regulatory capacity’s crucial role in fostering co-production and integration of authoritative scientific knowledge in policymaking. By analyzing the failure to sustain stakeholder engagement in terms of interplay between regulatory capacity and co-production, this study contributes a critique of mainstream co-production and demonstrates the value of analyzing how institutional arrangements shape knowledge and policy integration.

Biodiversity Offset Mechanisms and Compensation for Loss from Exceptional to Popular: Rediscovering Environmental Law

The use of compensatory mechanisms for biodiversity conservation, also known as biodiversity offsets, has increased significantly in recent decades. The Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework mentions them as an innovative scheme in support of substantially and progressively increasing the level of financial resources for biodiversity conservation. This article traces the origin of compensatory mechanisms in international environmental law and their development in transnational biodiversity governance. The article points to the shifts in the application of the biodiversity offsets: from the context of wetlands to other habitats and ecosystems; from its use in intergovernmental conventions to an increasing number of transnational (business) networks; and from an instrument of last resort to a source of additional funding for biodiversity conservation. In the evolution, compensatory mechanisms have been decoupled from their original purpose as an exceptional mitigation measure and a strong focus of environmental law on the preventive function. The increased rhetoric of commitment to no net loss, net gain, restoration, and the mitigation hierarchy has not been matched by an improved status of wetlands and other ecosystems. The processes within the biodiversity conventions (Ramsar and CBD) have accepted an ongoing destruction of nature and limited the role of environmental law to minimizing harmful impacts on nature and consolidating the decline, rather than shaping socio-ecological outcomes. An ambiguous position about the spread of compensatory mechanisms has been part and parcel of this; biodiversity conventions have neither endorsed nor distanced themselves from the application, promotion, and justification of compensatory mechanisms. To maintain the integrity of environmental law, the rules that prevent biodiversity loss need to be emphasised and enforced.

Biodiversity offsetting destroys wildlife

Biodiversity offsetting is a net‐outcome policy by which metrics are used to quantify the loss of wildlife and habitat due to development (generally building for housing, industrial purposes or infrastructure). An equivalent or greater quantity of biodiversity is supposedly created, protected or restored elsewhere. The literature on the merit of biodiversity offsetting is equivocal, largely because the policy is prescriptive in favour of development but overlooks the conflict between development and environmental deterioration (much as in other policy within the ambit of ‘sustainable development'). The unadmitted contradiction can be seen relatively easily by appreciating that the site scale and wider scales are largely discrete. Even if biodiversity net gain really were achieved in going from site to site, the wider prejudice of development would still be the overriding influence in the observed (wide‐scale) decline of wildlife. By facilitating ever more human environmental impact, biodiversity offsetting does the opposite of what it purports to do; it destroys wildlife.

Biodiversity impact of the consumption of peat and wood-fired district heating

A shift from fossil fuels to biofuels is becoming an increasingly important part of national and corporate climate strategies, but the biodiversity impacts of biofuels are often ignored and remain poorly understood. Here we developed a novel eight-step general framework for the assessment of consumption-based biodiversity impacts of biofuels and applied the framework to assess the biodiversity impacts of peat and wood-fired district heating in Finland. We utilize the habitat hectare approach for which information about the ecosystem condition before and after the impact is needed. The habitat hectare approach has not yet been used on assessments of consumption-based biodiversity impacts. Of the different fuel types used in peat and wood-fired district heating in Finland, peat had the highest biodiversity impact per unit area, followed by chips from roundwood and logging residue chips. By-products from sawmill industry are argued to have no additional biodiversity impacts. Interestingly, however, when we consider the biodiversity impacts per unit energy, chips from roundwood had the highest and peat the lowest biodiversity impact. Our results suggest there is a truly substantial trade-off between the climate and biodiversity impacts of wood and peat firing. We conclude that the habitat hectare approach combined with the presented general assessment framework is a promising approach to be used in the assessment of consumption-based biodiversity impacts in different land use contexts, such as biodiversity offsetting, around the globe. This protocol should be further developed and refined in different systems and with different bio-based materials and land use contexts.

Spatiotemporal assessment of deforestation and forest degradation indicates spillover effects from mining activities and related biodiversity offsets in Madagascar

Mining has severe environmental and social impacts. To compensate for the environmental damage caused at mining sites, mining companies are required to engage in biodiversity offsetting activities elsewhere. In forest landscapes, most offsetting policies focus on compensating for biodiversity loss from deforestation, while forest degradation is largely ignored – even though it contributes substantially to biodiversity loss. One reason for this is that forest degradation is challenging to assess and monitor. This study focuses on a large nickel and cobalt mine in Madagascar. By analysing remote sensing time series, we assess detailed annual forest change dynamics and distinguish different types of forest disturbance within and around the mining lease area and the two main associated biodiversity offset areas between 2006 and 2020. Our results show that deforestation rates within the two biodiversity offset areas are low (18 ha, or 0.4%; 164 ha, or 2.4%), suggesting that conservation measures are effective. However, this is not the case when looking at forest degradation. We found that substantial shares of forest within the two biodiversity offset areas are affected by degradation (545 ha, or 11.4%; 662 ha, or 9.7%). In the surrounding unprotected landscape, the rates of deforestation (451 ha, or 6.7%; 553 ha, or 4.9%) and forest degradation (2360 ha, or 34.8%; 5794 ha, or 51.1%) are much higher. The spatiotemporal pattern indicates spillover effects for both deforestation and forest degradation. Taken together, our findings show that restrictions on local communities’ access to forest resources within biodiversity offset areas affect the surrounding landscape and can cause substantial additional adverse environmental impacts there. We also demonstrate that forest degradation monitoring is feasible, and that forest degradation is widespread even though it is still largely ignored. These findings should be considered in future biodiversity offsetting policies and best practices.

“Biodiversity Offsetting” in Uganda’s Protected Areas: A Pathway to Restoration of Forest Biodiversity?

With limited national financing for conservation, there is an increasing interest in using biodiversity offset funds to strengthen protected area management. Offsetting measures can potentially be used in the restoration of degraded protected areas. However, there are concerns related to the uncertainty of restoration outcomes and time-lags before the expected benefits can be observed. Using a case of the Gangu Central Forest Reserve in central Uganda, we contribute empirical findings showing the potential and limitations of biodiversity offsetting by means of the restoration of a degraded forest reserve. We use forest cover change analysis and community surveys to determine forest changes after eight years of offset implementation, and forest inventories to analyse the current forest structure and composition to ascertain taxonomic diversity recovery. The results revealed that biodiversity offsetting led to a 21% increase in Tropical High Forest cover, and enhanced restoration of forest species composition and diversity. However, attaining permanence of the restoration benefits requires the regulation of community forest resource access and use. Strengthening forest management capacity to monitor the offset sites and compensating impacted communities for foregone forest resource benefits are crucial for the successful implementation of biodiversity offsets.

Does the NSW vegetation integrity assessment underestimate the conservation values of derived native grasslands?

SummaryVegetation condition metrics are often used as a surrogate of biodiversity to support management decisions, conservation regulations and biodiversity markets. Vegetation condition metrics, which aggregate multiple attributes, are often criticised for simplifying the complexity of biodiversity. A particular challenge is substitution when high‐scoring attributes compensate for those with low scores (e.g. high vegetation cover compensating for low growth from diversity). The geometric mean is often suggested for aggregation to reduce these effects. In New South Wales, Australia, the Vegetation Integrity metric, calculated as the geometric mean of Composition, Structure and Function sub‐indices, measures the losses and gains in biodiversity values within the NSW Biodiversity Offsets Scheme. However, concern has been raised that Vegetation Integrity underestimates conservation values of derived native grasslands when the Function sub‐index (primarily tree‐related attributes) approaches zero. We explore this issue using two datasets and compare the current Vegetation Integrity metric with aggregation using the arithmetic mean, adopting a minimum value of 10/100 for the Function sub‐index and use of a grassland benchmark for derived native grasslands. Our evaluation draws on a large‐scale expert elicitation of conservation values in Critically Endangered Box‐gum Grassy Woodlands and 4018 Vegetation Integrity estimates undertaken during development assessments. We find that Vegetation Integrity underestimates conservation values of derived native grasslands and that the problem is widespread. Although evidence most strongly supports aggregation using the arithmetic mean, this change could be disruptive to the Biodiversity Offsets Scheme. Alternatively, a sub‐index minimum of 10/100 eliminates underestimation of derived native grasslands without substantial impacts in other circumstances. We found little evidence to support the use of a grassland benchmark, which tended to overestimate conservation values. This study highlights the need for sufficient flexibility in biodiversity policies and regulations to accommodate ongoing metric evaluation and revision to support more robust biodiversity outcomes.

Application and attitudes: active restoration in the context of biodiversity offsetting

The global trend in offsetting for no‐net‐loss (NNL) is increasing, focusing on protecting high‐condition habitats and restoring degraded ones. Australia's New South Wales (NSW) Biodiversity Offset Scheme (BOS) promotes active restoration (AR; reconstruction of missing ecosystem properties, AR) on offset sites. We examined (1) the adoption of AR under the BOS, and (2) practical constraints and attitudes toward AR. Records of management actions on 138 proposed offset sites revealed that AR was proposed for 19.3% (12,180 ha) of the total offset area (67,310 ha). For areas with a low‐moderate condition score (26,528 ha), AR was proposed for only 27.3% (7248 ha), despite these being the areas where it would be most likely to be necessary. A survey of 111 individuals involved in offsetting policy and restoration revealed that while 76% agreed AR was necessary for NNL, financial constraints were seen as a major barrier. A structural equation model indicated that positive attitudes toward AR rules and AR as a social imperative were strongly linked to agreement on the necessity of AR for NNL outcomes. Our results indicate that attitudes could influence the adoption of AR on offset sites, even in cases where policies are explicitly designed to provide financial incentives for AR, as exemplified in the context of NSW.

Big Cities, Big Impacts? A spatial analysis of 3,335 ecological offsets in France since 2012

This paper assesses the French policy of mitigation hierarchy, with the aim of no net loss of biodiversity, by studying the geographical aspects of the application of the concept of ecological offsets in equivalence between losses and gains using spatialized data. We seek to know whether the dynamics of urban and interurban development (notably built-up and transport infrastructures) lead to a spatially integrated implementation of biodiversity offsets taking into account local characteristics and areas under pressure from land artificialization. Our main finding reveals that the majority of ecological offsets are generated by projects related to transport infrastructures (38%) and urban planning and construction projects (23%). However, if there are fewer, the ecological offsets of projects such as waste storage or energy development are mostly located in natural preserved areas, revealing a potential risk of non additionnality of offset measures and a risk that the private sector (through ecological offsets) will gradually replace the state in the protection of biodiversity. Our analysis also points out that despite the diversity of projects, habitats and protected species across France, there is a typical spatial layout profile of ecological offsets, pleading for a “one size fits all” offsetting in the French policy context of tenuous regulators’ availability in time and competence level due to weakness of refresh training and downsizing of public services in the environment. This last result argues for a stronger control from environmental agencies between two tremendously tricky concepts of offsetting, the equivalence valuation methods and the adjustments coefficients (time delay and ecological risk), to drive ecological offsetting future decisions at local but above all regional- and national-level planning documents.

Evaluating offsetting as a component of biodiversity governance

AbstractBiodiversity offsetting is considered to be an innovative policy instrument to balance land use changes with conservation priorities. Although advocates have pushed to establish biodiversity offset markets for over 20 years and critics have contested the social and ecological implications of such policy innovations, in practice, offsetting schemes have been difficult to set up, replicate, and sustain over time. Observing the underperformance of biodiversity offsetting, we argue that a critical analysis is urgently needed. We identify a need to analyze offsetting in relation to other features of biodiversity governance rather than focus on the merits and flaws of offsetting as a standalone policy instrument. Using a set‐theoretic model, we consider how different institutional arrangements determine if and when biodiversity offsetting produces positive environmental outcomes. We find that offsetting adds to biodiversity governance only when three thorny challenges are met—muscular enforcement of environmental regulations, rigorous impact management aligned with the mitigation hierarchy, and the existence of evidence‐based and cost‐effective platforms for offsetting. Short of these conditions, outcomes are either uncertain or outright harmful to biodiversity. Reflecting more broadly on the prospects of institutionalizing offsetting mechanisms for protecting biodiversity, we conclude a need to recenter attention toward the supportive role of the state in facilitating effective policy innovations.

Local terrestrial biodiversity impacts in life cycle assessment: A case study of sedum roofs in London, UK

AbstractUrban development is a key driver of global biodiversity loss. “Green” infrastructure is integrated to offset some impacts of development on ecosystem quality by supporting urban biodiversity, a prominent example being green roofs. The effects of green infrastructures on urban biodiversity are not well understood and poorly included in life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. Here, we present a novel methodology that quantifies the local impact of green infrastructures on terrestrial biodiversity—demonstrated here for sedum roofs in London, UK—and integrates within LCA. It relates energy provision by plants to the metabolic requirements of animals to determine what species richness (number of species) and species abundance (number of individuals) are supported. We demonstrate this methodology using a case study, comparing the life cycle impact of developing 18 buildings, with either asphalt concrete or sedum roofs, on ecosystem quality. We found the sedum roofs (0.018 km2) support 53 species (673 individuals), equivalent to 1.3% of the development's life cycle impacts on ecosystem quality. Complete offsetting requires considerable reduction in transport use throughout the development's lifetime, and lower environmental impact material selection during construction (contributing 98% and 2%, respectively). The results indicate sedum roofs offer minor impact mitigation capacities in the context of urban development, and this capacity is limited for all green infrastructures by species richness in local species pools. This paper demonstrates the potential and limitations of quantifying terrestrial biodiversity offsets offered by green infrastructures alongside urbanization, and the need for realistic expectations of what role it might play in sustainable urban design.

Revisiting the effectiveness of biodiversity offsets in coastal wetlands of China through landscape connectivity

We modified the landscape connectivity calculation method and applied it to assess changes in temporal connectivity under different offsetting scenarios in the Yellow River Delta High-efficiency Ecological Economic Zone of China. We evaluated landscape connectivity based on resistance surfaces, least-cost distances, habitat areas, and the probability of dispersal between wetland patches in the landscape. The landscape connectivity declined between 1980 and 2015, with the degree of decline varying with the type of wetland. The cumulative percentages of freshwater marsh, salt marsh, and tidal marsh habitat areas that could be offset were 100 %, 100 %, and 34 %, respectively. However, the maximum landscape connectivity that was compensated for was only 1.2–10.4 %. When the offset patches were restored to freshwater marsh, the highest connectivity of coastal wetlands was achieved. There were substantial gaps between the area of habitat restoration offset required to achieve no net loss and the landscape connectivity that would ensure ecological effectiveness. The compensation area required to achieve no net loss of landscape connectivity was greater than that required to achieve no net loss of habitat area. We provide guidance for policy makers on how to implement offsetting to develop and manage green corridors, thus allowing movement that will ensure species’ survival. It was suggested that the passive restoration of isolated coastal wetland may be difficult to achieve. Policies that seek to increase landscape connectivity offsets can effectively promote population diffusion and migration, avoid habitat fragmentation, and are key to improving no net loss effectiveness.

The Biodiversity Offsets and Banking for Dam Ecosystem Conservation: A Case Study of Ramoua dam

This paper examines the application of biodiversity offsets and banking to the conservation of Ramoua dam, a man-made dam with a dam, used for fish culture, surrounded by agricultural lands, and supported by a canal for a constant water supply. The study explores the potential of biodiversity banking as a tool for balancing development pressures from nearby urban and highway areas with the need to maintain and enhance the dam's biodiversity.