Figure - available via license: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Content may be subject to copyright.
Framework Highlighting the Key Challenges Associated with the Application of the Mitigation Hierarchy with Suggested Ways Forward for Ensuring Biodiversity Outcomes and Parallel Approaches to Promote Positive Well-Being Outcomes
Source publication
Economic development projects are increasingly applying the mitigation hierarchy to achieve No Net Loss, or even a Net Gain, of biodiversity. Because people value biodiversity and ecosystem services, this can affect the well-being of local people; however, these types of social impacts from development receive limited consideration. We present ethi...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... There are wellrecognized challenges to achieving biodiversity Net Gain, and many have analogs in efforts to deliver positive social outcomes. Below we present a framework highlighting eight key challenges for efforts to deliver good outcomes for people as well as biodiversity from the mitigation hierarchy, and potential ways forward (Table 1). We hope that by laying out these issues side-by-side, we will help those tasked with designing and delivering Net Gain initiatives to address both together. ...Citations
... Thirdly, nature is intimately intertwined with human lives in ways that vary in time and space, requiring locally situated conservation [1]. Social impact assessments cannot just focus on material wellbeing or livelihoods; they must include bottom-up conceptions of what matters to people and how biodiversity-focused interventions affect them [5]. And finally, the global evidence base for planning action to recover nature is patchy and biased, regarding both biodiversity trends and their drivers, as well as knowledge about how best to intervene. ...
Existing power imbalances and injustices could be exacerbated by large flows of international funding for nature recovery. Conservationists are still grappling with what social justice means in practice; a major shift in mindset is required.
... This complexity also hinders the identification of a single currency for global biodiversity credits trading, equivalent to what carbon-dioxide equivalents (CO2e) are for greenhouse-gas emissions (GHG). In addition, the values placed upon biodiversity are characteristically place-based (Jones et al. 2019), hence creating difficulties for comparisons across geographies. Measurement across scales involves functional, structural, and compositional indicators, necessitating a multi-faceted approach to assess the holistic state of nature. ...
... Drawing on key lessons from PES and forest carbon markets (Pascual et al., 2014), several approaches aim to incorporate equity and benefit-sharing elements into biodiversity offsetting (Jones et al. 2019), and recently credits markets. Incentive payments may provide a motivation for initially establishing improved governance mechanisms, e.g. ...
Biodiversity credits are an emerging vehicle for pro-environmental financing. Here we define and delimit biodiversity credits and explore the pathways through which credits can be issued. We scrutinize early evidence from pilots and suggest lessons from other market-based incentives for conservation and climate mitigation, including biodiversity offsets and forest carbon credits that have attracted large private funding flows, but have been questioned regarding their additionality, permanence, and leakage. All these issues apply to biodiversity credits, but they face yet another challenge: rendering biodiversity commensurable. While new monitoring technologies can help quantify biodiversity, tradeoffs exist between simple metrics that enable liquid markets, and costly ones that more adequately represent biodiversity. To avoid carbon and offset market mistakes, biodiversity credit design, implementation, and impact evaluation requires more robust crediting baselines, standards, and governance. Quality credits will be more expensive than those cutting integrity corners, which may dampen the expected biodiversity credit boom.
... { Move toward biodiversity net gain and IFC standards should encompass wildlife hunting and trade (223). ...
Several hundred species are hunted for wild meat in the tropics, supporting the diets, customs, and livelihoods of millions of people. However, unsustainable hunting is one of the most urgent threats to wildlife and ecosystems worldwide and has serious ramifications for people whose subsistence and income are tied to wild meat. Over the past 18 years, although research efforts have increased, scientific knowledge has largely not translated into action. One major barrier to progress has been insufficient monitoring and evaluation, meaning that the effectiveness of interventions cannot be ascertained. Emerging issues include the difficulty of designing regulatory frameworks that disentangle the different purposes of hunting, the large scale of urban consumption, and the implications of wild meat consumption for human health. To address these intractable challenges, we 222 Ingram et al. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 2021.46:221-254. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Access provided by 67.86.227.218 on 02/09/24. See copyright for approved use. propose eight new recommendations for research and action for sustainable wild meat use, which would support the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
... We conclude by echoing the reminder of Jones et al. (2019) about the importance for projects to develop good practices to ensure a net zero loss for biodiversity. They add that it is just as important to ensure that this is the case concerning the impact on people (Jones et al., 2019). ...
... We conclude by echoing the reminder of Jones et al. (2019) about the importance for projects to develop good practices to ensure a net zero loss for biodiversity. They add that it is just as important to ensure that this is the case concerning the impact on people (Jones et al., 2019). In other words, it is essential to take into account especially affected communities' living conditions and human rights to reduce projects' social risks and ensure that the notion of environmental protection considers these multiple dimensions. ...
... Compensation design also faces trade-offs between biodiversity and social values, since conservation is not always prioritized over economic development Jin et al., 2021;Taherzadeh & Howley, 2018), while the well-being impacts of development and associated compensatory actions on local people are often ignored (Bidaud et al., 2018;Jones et al., 2019). Future assessments of China's compensation approach could provide understanding of when and where social wellbeing has been prioritized and how solutions that work for both nature and people can be designed and implemented. ...
Over the past three decades, China's government has implemented many projects under its ecological compensation policy, including paying compensation fees for habitat creation to redress natural habitat losses caused by development. However, a critical evaluation of both the policy design and its ecological outcomes, has not previously been carried out. We assemble diverse data sources to provide the first evaluation of China's eco‐compensation policy and practice, identifying several challenges. In policy, the pricing of forest restoration fees is insufficient in several provinces, and there is no requirement for use of biodiversity metrics or for ecological equivalence of compensation and losses. In practice, only 23% of a sample of 31 developments applied quantitative biodiversity metrics, and fewer than 1% of China's local governments have disclosed information regarding compensation implementation. Thus, to improve the validity of its compensation policy and practice to better secure biodiversity, China may need to embrace higher compensation standards, having first prevented ecological losses where possible. Equally important, China may also need to improve compensation governance for data tracking and conservation effectiveness monitoring.
... A typical approach for developers of a proposed project to minimise environmental and socio-economic impact is by adopting a mitigation hierarchy [2,[21][22][23]. It consists of three different levels, 1) avoid impacts as a form of primary mitigation, 2) impacts are minimised with secondary mitigation measures, and in some instances 3) impacts are compensated for. ...
Infrastructure at sea to accommodate a transition to renewable energy and meet global climate commitments is proliferating around the world. Although there is seemingly more space at sea than on land for these new developments , anticipated and existing conflict with existing marine users such as the fishing industry have raised concerns. Yet, countries around the world have committed to a just energy transition, which should avoid disproportionate impacts on specific communities. This study introduces a framework that considers three dimensions of justice at different project planning stages to analyse whether strategies to foster justice for fisheries align with remaining barriers to justice. It was used to understand how existing and planned cable and renew-ables projects in Scottish waters account for energy justice in relation to the fishing industry. Procedural justice aspects of project planning have improved over time, with greater involvement of the fishing industry during the siting and design of projects. However, resource constraints limited the involvement of smaller fishing fleets, indicating a barrier to recognitional justice. Distributional justice at project level was steered by decision-making at a national level, and national targets for renewable energy generation made the fishing industry feel they are not on equal footing with project developers. The findings of this study provide key insights into the multiple dimensions of energy justice and their implications for the consideration of fisheries. Identified best practices and potential barriers to a just transition can be helpful for other nations seeking to introduce new developments into their marine space.
... In light of shifting climate zones, restoration may need to do the same under climate change. However, if biodiversity-offsetting programs limit local people's access or cause loss of services on which their livelihoods depend, this can create negative impacts on adaptation (44). Socialecological trade-offs and disconnects between the loss of local and "off-stage" (distant, diffuse, and delayed) biodiversity benefits can be minimized if the scale, type, and distribution of NCP are considered in restoration and offsetting initiatives (45,46). ...
Earth’s biodiversity and human societies face pollution, overconsumption of natural resources,urbanization, demographic shifts, social and economic inequalities, and habitat loss, many of whichare exacerbated by climate change. Here, we review links among climate, biodiversity, and society anddevelop a roadmap toward sustainability. These includelimitingwarmingto1.5°Candeffectivelyconservingand restoring functional ecosystems on 30 to 50% of land, freshwater, and ocean“scapes.”We envision amosaic of interconnected protected and shared spaces, including intensively used spaces, to strengthenself-sustaining biodiversity, the capacity of people and nature to adapt to and mitigate climate change,and nature’s contributions to people. Fostering interlinked human, ecosystem, and planetary health for alivable future urgently requires bold implementation of transformative policy interventions throughinterconnected institutions, governance, and social systems from local to global levels.
... Mapping EI performance, following our recommendations above, will help to identify natural areas of high importance to society in terms of service delivery, which could be a useful metric indicating the degree of offsetting needed (McVittie & Faccioli, 2020). At the same time, the EI performance measure can be helpful in quantifying the often neglected site-specific social impacts of economic development (Jones et al., 2019). Finally, EI performance is one comprehensive metric that includes several aspects of an ecosystem service, while most often, only one aspect is considered, e.g., delivery potential (McVittie & Faccioli, 2020), and thus it could better inform site selection and management that considers both the social and ecological sides of the SES. ...
... There is an opportunity for biodiversity credit schemes to be designed through a fair and inclusive process, when including strong social safeguards applied based on existing principles and guidelines. These could include: ensuring no net loss -or ideally positive outcomes -for people as well as biodiversity (Bull et al., 2018;Jones et al., 2019), a human rights-based approach to conservation (Boyd & Keene, 2021), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Natural Resource Governance Framework (Springer et al., 2021), the International Finance Corporation Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability (IFC, 2012), and the Global Environment Facility Policy on Environmental and Social Safeguards (GEF, 2019). Some key practices for embedding procedural and distributional justice into biodiversity projects include: ...
Voluntary biodiversity credits are standardised and verified units of positive biodiversity outcomes. Biodiversity credits have the potential to enable business and finance to make increased voluntary contributions to a nature-positive future by providing confidence that contributions are effective and are aligned with societal goals for nature. Biodiversity credits are not an alternative to making reductions in negative biodiversity impacts resulting from business activity. Businesses have opportunities to align with emerging societal expectations for corporate action on nature by: Voluntary biodiversity credits are at an early stage of development, but a number of initiatives are developing crediting standards and publicly accessible registries with the intent of providing frameworks for verified, transparent systems for financing nature conservation and recovery. Early engagement by market leaders in business and finance can help structure the market to align with business needs by making early contributions and testing credit schemes. Until standards of good practice are recognised by global standards bodies, careful due diligence is required to evaluate the potential biodiversity gains and risks of investment options.
... Biodiversity offsetting has been proposed as a key tool to address the loss of biodiversity (Bull et al., 2013a). The general idea is that development projects result in "no net loss" of biodiversity, or -more recently -a "net gain" of biodiversity (Jones et al., 2019) or even "net positive impact" on biodiversity (Moilanen and Kotiaho, 2021). Biodiversity offsetting is often defined as conservation actions used to compensate for the unavoidable, residual damage at the last step of the mitigation hierarchy (Bull et al., 2013a). ...
... Overall, a main critical argument is that the goal of no-net-loss is rarely reached (Gardner et al., 2013;Levrel et al., 2017) and that monitoring and evaluation of implemented offsets is poor . Based on such criticism some scholars suggest to go one step further and aim for a net-gain instead of a no-net-loss (Jones et al., 2019;Wilson et al., 2015). Another important debate issue relates to the commodification of nature and the instrumental focus on only certain aspects such as some ecosystem services, values, or species (Hough and Robertson, 2009;Lave et al., 2010). ...
... All this notwithstanding, there are indications that overall effectiveness in achieving the objectives of biodiversity offsetting schemes such as no-net-loss is, until present, relatively low (Bull et al., 2013a;de Silva et al., 2019;Gibbons et al., 2018;zu Ermgassen et al., 2019a). Related to this, the choice of metrics that are used to assess biodiversity is crucial (Carreras Gamarra et al., 2018), and effectiveness also depends on which other variablessuch as social, ethical or legitimacy aspects (Jones et al., 2019;Karlsson and Björnberg, 2021). Another question regards how to accurately account for the effectiveness of more flexible approaches that involve off-site offsetting and pooling (Santos et al., 2015;Tarabon et al., 2021;zu Ermgassen et al., 2020). ...
We analyze the development of biodiversity offsetting governance through a research-weaving approach. Here, we combine information from a systematized review of the literature and a qualitative analysis of the institutional developments in different world regions. Through this triangulation, we synthesize and map the different developmental streams of biodiversity offsetting governance around the globe over the last four decades. We find that there is a global mainstreaming of core principles such as avoidance, no-net-loss, and a mitigation hierarchy, as well as pooling and trading of offsets for unavoidable residual damages. Furthermore, we can observe an ongoing diversification of institutional designs and actors involved. Together this constitutes an emerging regime complex of biodiversity offsetting governance that comes with both a set of shared norms and a growing institutional complexity. While this may imply institutional innovation through diversification and policy experimentation, it also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of offsetting practices.
