Seeing no net loss: Making nature offset-able

Policies for biodiversity no net loss and net gain underwrite narratives for green growth through advancing reparative logics to ongoing habitat impacts. By enabling offsetting practices that risk accommodating rather than averting land change developments, net principles are said to resemble modes of ‘accumulation by environmental restoration’. Biodiversity net principles are frequently depicted visually as a diagram of the mitigation hierarchy for communicational ease and have proliferated over recent decades despite little evidence for their ecological effectiveness. This paper combines economic sociology, visual media analysis of the net diagram and political ecology to account for the stabilisation of net principles in policy frameworks. It highlights the upstream imaginative work that this visual tool and its wider assemblages perform to support offsetting and habitat banking practices on the ground. The paper positions the NNL diagram as a conceptual and ideational technology. It traces the practices through which biodiversity is rationalised by the Cartesian coordinates of an XY schematic, and en-framed as a measure of numerical value on a vertical scale. The effect is to engender coherence to the idea of netting out differences in aggregate sums of biodiversity unit value, making nature conceptually offset-able. I develop this account through a history of the diagram as well as the broader processes that have shaped the policy and its arrival in English planning frameworks. Observers increasingly question how biodiversity offsetting and no net loss/ net gain have become so popular when their empirical foundations are so weak. This paper proposes that within the wider assemblages of actors, one answer is located in the potency and mobility of conceptual technologies such as diagrams of no net loss or net gain of biodiversity and the logic of balance-sheet accounting that is imbricated within the visual design.

Integrating Ecology into Land Planning and Development: Between Disillusionment and Hope, Questioning the Relevance and Implementation of the Mitigation Hierarchy

Scientific research on the mitigation hierarchy has steadily increased over the past few years at the international level. While some seek to improve the application of this public action instrument, others point out its shortcomings and risks. This opinion paper—which focuses on the French context—does not provide an exhaustive overview of existing research but instead targets specific issues considered to be a “priority”. We mainly investigate the relevance and implementation of the mitigation hierarchy, especially from an ecological point of view. Part of this paper thus questions the very principle of biodiversity offsetting (BO)—the last resort of the mitigation hierarchy that brings together numerous controversies—and the adequacy of the mitigation hierarchy with the objective of no net loss (NNL) of biodiversity. The general idea underlying this paper is to show how the mitigation hierarchy has been built and based on what values (mainly economic and legal, which leads us to conclude about the lack of ecology in the policy itself). In doing so, we provide a few perspectives as to what should be done to (better) integrate ecology into land use planning and development.

A teoria do ganho ambiental e as construções em áreas de preservação permanente - APP

O artigo analisa a possibilidade de aplicação da teoria do ganho ambiental a alguns casos de construções realizadas em Áreas de Preservação Permanente (APPs), áreas consideradas não edificantes pela legislação. Para tanto, examina-se os requisitos para a aplicação da referida teoria, com base nos princípios do direito ao meio ambiente equilibrado, do no net loss (impossibilidade de perda líquida), da razoabilidade, da proporcionalidade e da segurança jurídica. Concluindo, defende-se que, em alguns casos concretos, deve-se ponderar entre o desfazimento e a manutenção das intervenções para verificar qual solução é a mais benéfica para o meio ambiente. A melhor solução pode consistir, justamente, na escolha pela manutenção da construção em APP.

Modeling Alternative Approaches to the Biodiversity Offsetting of Urban Expansion in the Grenoble Area (France): What Is the Role of Spatial Scales in ‘No Net Loss’ of Wetland Area and Function?

It is increasingly common for developers to be asked to manage the impacts of their projects on biodiversity by restoring other degraded habitats that are ecologically equivalent to those that are impacted. These measures, called biodiversity offsets, generally aim to achieve ‘no net loss’ (NNL) of biodiversity. Using spatially-explicit modeling, different options were compared in terms of their performance in offsetting the impacts on wetlands of the planned urban expansion around Grenoble (France). Two implementation models for offsetting were tested: (a) the widespread bespoke permittee-led restoration project model, resulting in a patchwork of restored wetlands, and (b) recently-established aggregated and anticipated “banking” approaches whereby larger sets of adjacent parcels offset the impacts of several projects. Two ecological equivalence methods for sizing offsets were simulated: (a) the historically-prevalent area-based approach and (b) recently introduced approaches whereby offsets are sized to ensure NNL of wetland functions. Simulations showed that a mix of functional methods with minimum area requirements was more likely to achieve NNL of wetland area and function across the study area and within each subwatershed. Our methodology can be used to test the carrying capacity of a landscape to support urban expansion and its associated offsetting in order to formulate more sustainable development plans.

Luonnon monimuotoisuus ja vihreä elvytys

Suomi on toistaiseksi selvinnyt koronaviruksen (COVID-19) aiheuttamasta kriisistä taloudellisesti verrokkimaita paremmin, mutta työllisyystilanne on silti heikentynyt ympäri maata ja talouden ennustetaan supistuvan noin 4,7 prosenttia vuonna 20201. Negatiivisten talousvaikutusten minimoimiseksi hallitus on suuntaamassa EU:n elpymisvälineestä varoja käytettäväksi toimiin, jotka samanaikaisesti auttavat ratkaisemaan aikamme kahta merkittävää kriisiä: ilmastonmuutosta ja luontokatoa. Kyse on aidosti vakavista kriiseistä. Esimerkiksi Maailman talousfoorumi on listannut luonnon ekosysteemien romahduksen ja ilmastonmuutoksen torjunnan epäonnistumisen sekä vaikutuksiltaan että todennäköisyydeltään viiden vakavimman ihmiskuntaa uhkaavan riskin joukkoon. Elämämme on täysin riippuvainen ekosysteemien ja lajien olemassaolosta ja niiden toiminnasta. Suomen Luontopaneeli katsoo, että elvytystoimien pitää kokonaisuudessaan auttaa yhteiskuntaamme selviämään koronan aiheuttamasta talouden supistumisesta niin, että elvytystoimet samalla aikaansaavat siirtymän kohti hiilineutraaliutta ja luonnon kokonaisheikentymättömyyttä. Tässä kannanotossa Luontopaneeli arvioi ympäristöministeriön kestävän elvytyksen työryhmän ja Suomen ilmastopaneelin esittämien sekä muutamien muiden elvytystoimien luontovaikutuksia ja antaa suosituksia elvytystoimien mahdollisten haitallisten luontovaikutusten välttämiseksi. Kuvaan 1 (sivulla 3) on koottu Luontopaneelin näkemys eri toimenpiteiden luonnon monimuotoisuus- ja elvytysvaikutuksista. Lähtökohta ja tavoite on luonnon kokonaisheikentymättömyys (engl. “no net loss of the integrity of ecosystems”). Suomen maaekosysteemien, sisävesien ja meriluonnon tilan heikkeneminen tulee pysäyttää seuraavien vuosikymmenten kuluessa. Osa toimenpiteistä vaikuttaa luonnon monimuotoisuuteen suoraan, esimerkiksi maankäytön kautta, ja osa epäsuorasti ilmastonmuutoksen (ks. tietolaatikko s. 7 ), ilmansaasteiden (s. 10) tai rehevöittävien ravinteiden (s. 11) kautta. Moni taloutta elvyttävä ja hiilineutraaliutta edistävä toimi voi aiheuttaa luontohaittaa. Kyse ei ole vastakkainasettelusta vaan siitä, että aidosti hyvät toimet voivat olla elvyttävyys-, ilmasto- tai luontovaikutuksiltaan ristiriitaisia. Tällaiset toimet tulisi suunnitella niin, että ne ovat yhdenmukaisia luonnon kokonaisheikentymättömyystavoitteen kanssa. Väistämättömät haitat tulee hyvittää luonnolle ekologisilla kompensaatioilla (ks. s. 4). Tämän kannanoton tarkoitus on tunnistaa ristiriitoja ja löytää keinoja lieventää niitä. Jokaisen toimenpiteen vaikutukset on arvioitu ja niiden osalta on esitetty ehdotukset siitä, kuinka mahdollisia haitallisia luontovaikutuksia voidaan pienentää.

Exploring the ecological outcomes of mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain using evidence from early-adopter jurisdictions in England

Net outcome-type biodiversity policies are proliferating globally as perceived mechanisms to reconcile economic development and conservation objectives. The UK government’s Environment Bill will mandate that most new developments in England demonstrate they deliver a biodiversity net gain (BNG) to receive planning permission, representing the most wide-ranging net outcome-type policy globally. However, as with many nascent net-outcome policies, the likely outcomes of mandatory BNG have not been explored empirically. We assemble all BNG assessments (accounting for ~1% of England’s annual housebuilding and other infrastructure) submitted from January-November 2020 in four early-adopter councils who are implementing mandatory No Net Loss or BNG requirements in advance of the national adoption of mandatory BNG, and analyse the aggregate habitat changes proposed. Our sample is associated with a 21% reduction in the area of non-urban habitats, compensated by commitments to deliver smaller areas of higher-quality habitats years later in the development project cycle. Eighty-seven percent of biodiversity units delivered in our sample come from habitats within or adjacent to the development footprint managed by the developers. However, we find that these gains fall within a governance gap whereby they risk being unenforceable; a challenge which is shared with other net outcome-type policies implemented internationally.