ECOS 34(3/4) 2013 ECOS 34(3/4) 2013 Biodiversity offsets use in the UK: How, Where and When? Leaping to rash conclusions about biodiversity offsets based on a limited outlook on their use could cause missed opportunities for UK nature conservation. JOSEPH BULL Recent articles on biodiversity offsetting in the UK have tended towards rather apocalyptic titles such as “A license to trash? Why Biodiversity Offsetting (BO) will be a disaster for the environment”.1 The authors refer to the use of biodiversity offsets in the UK, which are being trialed as part of a two year voluntary pilot scheme. Offsets are also the subject of a recent Green Paper and consultation, and are therefore being seriously considered by policymakers. So, to what degree are the fears of those writing these articles well founded? I argue that, whilst the biodiversity offset approach does have its challenges, which are well documented in the literature, these are not insurmountable, and some of the key concerns raised in the media actually result from a misunderstanding of the approach. What biodiversity offsets are Biodiversity offset policies essentially require companies to fully compensate for any This barren area provides an opportunity for habitat restoration and creation under new offset schemes being devised in ‘unavoidable’ ecological impacts they cause through development; for instance, Uzbekistan. The location is a former natural gas exploration site on the Ustyurt plateau which was created and closed off clearing habitat to make way for mineral extraction. To do so, they must create by Gazprom, and is on land owned by the state and managed by the Karakalpak regional authorities in NW Uzbekistan. additional equivalent habitat somewhere nearby: by planting a woodland, digging Photo: Joseph Bull a wetland, restoring degraded native grassland, increasing the productivity of fish Biodiversity offsets in England spawning habitat, and so forth. The objective of most biodiversity offset schemes is In 2011, using the experience from elsewhere in the world to craft a methodology, to achieve ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity alongside development.2 Defra launched a biodiversity offset pilot study in England. The pilot is intended to run for two years and explore the use of biodiversity offsets in the planning system, Biodiversity offsets shouldn’t be seen in isolation. They are intended to achieve no net for six counties officially participating in the scheme and a number of complementary loss as part of a ‘mitigation hierarchy’, i.e. any developer must first attempt to Avoid, public and private sector projects. Biodiversity offsets are not mandatory in these Minimize and Mitigate any likely ecological impacts. Biodiversity offsets are then a last regions, and it is not yet clear whether they would become so under any subsequent resort for residual impacts, if and only if those impacts are deemed acceptable by people, offset policy. As a result of the extensive work put into the scheme by local planning policymakers and planners. If the hierarchy is well designed, the requirement to pay for authorities and ecologists, the first offset projects have started to come through offsets should become an incentive to reduce impacts upon nature in the first place. the official system now. However, counties such as Somerset and companies such as Thameslink, both involved in complementary projects, have made even more Offsetting is not an entirely new idea. Native vegetation offsets have been tangible progress in developing offset-type mechanisms. The 2013 Green Paper on implemented in parts of Australia for over a decade, and a comparable wetland biodiversity offsetting has made clear that the concept of offsetting is still being compensation policy has operated in the US for much longer. In fact, there are over taken seriously by policymakers. 40 countries that have some kind of compensatory biodiversity mitigation policy in place, and such policies are under development in at least another 20.3 That is not The current Defra methodology is consciously highly simplistic, and will require to mention the growing number of large companies that are voluntarily attempting modification and improvement. The pilot has yet to produce numerous examples of to achieve ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity through a suite of mechanisms, including offset projects, but as I have often heard Kerry ten Kate (one of the leading experts offsets.4 There is plenty of experience to draw upon. on biodiversity offsetting) say, countries can take a decade to establish a functioning 2 3 ECOS 34(3/4) 2013 ECOS 34(3/4) 2013 offset market. The true motivating philosophy behind biodiversity offsetting in the UK is still unclear, i.e. whether it is intended to allow more transparency in relation to development impacts on nature, to help us realize the true costs of losing wildlife, to prevent development from occurring in certain habitats, to leverage funding for restoration activities, or some other motivation. But the groundwork has been laid from which a robust policy could feasibly be built. One consequence of all this has been a wave of media attention, and the voicing of numerous serious concerns. Concern in the media A license to trash The main concern of so many writing about biodiversity offsets is that they will become a “license to destroy”5 or “license to trash”.6 It is common to see comments such as: “[Offsetting] means that if a business or developer wants to build on an area that has protected species on it, they can do so as long as the ecosystem is re-created elsewhere”.1 This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the whole concept of biodiversity offsets. The point is not to allow developers to destroy habitats or kill off species that they would not have been able to otherwise. In fact, this has been stated repeatedly and explicitly throughout the development of the approach in the UK.7 Rather, offsetting is generally intended to provide compensation for losses that would have been permitted, but not compensated for, without the offset policy. Consequently, it is widely intended for use where biodiversity is currently falling through the cracks in the system, as a way of providing a safety net for species when they wouldn’t otherwise be protected, either in that specific case or in general. So if we implement offsets properly, it would not allow developers to trash our remaining An offset site in Victoria, Australia, where farmland is being successfully returned to native grassland, funded by offset policy. ancient woodlands. It would force them to stop eroding other habitats that are less The tract of created native grassland to the left is being extended to the existing farmland on the right. This is an area outside protected, like certain grasslands. If this has been ignored in some cases, then it is the Melbourne urban growth boundary where a private land holder is converting areas of land to native grassland. The aim a problem of inappropriate application of the approach, not a problem with the is to sell the biodiversity credits obtained (measured in habitat hectares) through the BushBroker mechanism, to compensate for development closer to Melbourne. The State of Victorian oversees biodiversity credit trades. approach per se. This is absolutely not a reason to write off offsetting. It would be like Photo: Joseph Bull saying that protected areas are a bad approach to conservation in general, because a few unscrupulous regimes have misused them to evict people from their homes.8 conservation. You do indeed risk “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” as Woodfield warns10: because in some cases, offsetting can work. Failure to prevent biodiversity loss It is true, as has been pointed out in debates, that the approach may not resolve Take New South Wales, Australia: since a biodiversity offset policy for native grassland some of the root causes of failure to prevent wildlife loss under the existing was introduced there less than a decade ago, planning permission approvals for planning system, such as deliberate misinterpretation, ineffective enforcement or a clearing this habitat have apparently dropped by 80%.11 And to date this is not lack of monitoring. As a result, there may be cases when the concept of offsetting is even considered the most successful offset policy in Australia. That is partly because abused. Although I personally know very little about the development in question, offsetting there is not in principle about “making nature as fungible as everything one example repeatedly put forward by those opposing offsetting involves the else”5 or applying the “same process of commodification that has blighted nightingales of Lodge Hill. There are arguments on both sides as to whether the everything else the corporate economy touches”1, as some have speculated. Rather, proposed habitat creation would be good9 or bad10 overall for nature in the area. it is about making development in areas with some conservation value prohibitively Given that the site to be cleared for thousands of new homes is being considered expensive through the mitigation hierarchy (i.e. ensuring that damage to nature is as a potential SSSI, on account of containing an important nightingale population, not an economic externality), thus pushing development elsewhere and preventing I too have yet to be convinced that the development should go ahead. But even ecological loss in the first place. The perfect biodiversity offset policy in the UK if development is inappropriate there, it is wrong, and actually irresponsible, to would thus, arguably, be the one in which there were almost no offsets at all – but use one potentially bad example to discredit and demonize an entire approach to few who oppose offsetting seem to appreciate this. 4 5 ECOS 34(3/4) 2013 ECOS 34(3/4) 2013 A sense of place References Another common concern that has been voiced; and again, I agree; is that no 1.