Environmental Offsets

Environmental Offsets
Author: Tor Hundloe
Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2021-03-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1486313205

We are currently facing significant challenges in environmental management that must be addressed to maintain the health of our planet and our population. While carbon offsetting in its various forms is widespread globally, few countries have fully legislated and put into operation other offset policies. This edited collection aims to fill the gap of knowledge on environmental offsets, from theory to practice. Environmental Offsets addresses four major forms of environmental offsets – biodiversity offsets, carbon offsets, offsetting the depletion of non-renewable resources and offsetting the destruction of built heritage. The authors discuss their research and provide case studies from around Australia and across the developing world. Using examples such as the Sydney Olympics, the Bakossi Forest Reserve in Cameroon and green roof gardens, this book highlights the strengths and weaknesses of environmental offsetting and illustrates how jobs can be created in the offsetting process. Environmental Offsets is both a historical source in our understanding of environmental offsetting and a guide to the way forward. It illustrates what works, what does not and what can be improved for the future.

Biodiversity Offsets Between Regulation and Voluntary Commitment

Biodiversity Offsets Between Regulation and Voluntary Commitment
Author: Marianne Darbi
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2020-05-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030255948

We are witnessing an alarming, global biodiversity crisis with an ongoing loss of species and their habitats. In response, a number of tools and approaches – including some that are contested – are being explored and promoted. Biodiversity offsets are one such approach, and deserve critical examination since the debate surrounding them has often been oversimplified and lacking practical evidence. As such, this study presents a refined typology including seven types of biodiversity offsets and taking into account different contexts, governance arrangements and drivers. It draws on a detailed analysis of theoretical concepts to explain the voluntary implementation of biodiversity offsets using an internet-based (netnographic) research approach. Furthermore it builds on a broad global explorative base of 72 practical examples and presents in-depth case studies for each type. The results reveal a number of global tendencies that allow recommendations to be made for different locations, contexts and stakeholders. They also encourage the expansion of this research field to respond to the pressing needs of policy and practice.

Biodiversity Offsets

Biodiversity Offsets
Author: Wolfgang Wende
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2018-03-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319725815

This book deals with the new concept of biodiversity offsets. The aim of offsetting schemes is to achieve no let loss or even net gain of biodiversity. Offsets obey a mitigation hierarchy and reflect the precautionary and polluter-pays principle in regard to project impacts. Readers gain insights into current debates on biodiversity policies, with top experts outlining theoretical principles and the latest research findings. At the same time the focus is on practical application and case studies. Today there is a lively international discussion among practitioners and scientists on the optimal legal framework, metrics and design of habitat banks to ensure the success of biodiversity offsets and to minimise the risks of failure or misuse. Contributing to the debate, this volume presents the activities and practices of biodiversity offsetting already implemented in Europe in selected EU member states, and the lessons that can be learnt from them. Readers may be surprised at how much experience already exists in these countries. A further aim of the book is to offer grounded insights on the road ahead, and foster a more intensive and fruitful discussion on how offsetting can be extended and improved upon, so that it becomes a key and effective component of Europe’s biodiversity conservation policy framework.

The natural choice

The natural choice
Author: Great Britain: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 84
Release: 2011-06-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780101808224

This white paper sets out proposals for a detailed programme of action to repair damage done to the environment in the past, and urges everyone to get involved in helping nature to flourish at all levels - from neighbourhoods to national parks. The plans are directly linked to the groundbreaking research in the National Ecosystem Assessment that showed the strong economic arguments for safeguarding and enhancing the natural environment. They also act on the recommendations of 'Making Space for Nature', a report into the state of England's wildlife sites, led by Professor John Lawton and published in September 2010, which showed that England's wildlife sites are fragmented and not able to respond to the pressures of climate change and other pressures we put on our land. Key measures proposed include: i) Reconnecting nature with New Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) with a £7.5 million fund for 12 initial NIAs, biodiversity offsetting, New Local Nature Partnerships with £1 million available this year, phasing out peat, ii) Connecting people and nature for better quality of life with Green Areas Designation, better urban green spaces; more children experiencing nature by learning outdoors, strengthening local public health activities, the new environmental volunteering initiative "Muck in 4 Life" to improve places in towns and countryside for people and nature to enjoy and iii) Capturing and improving the value of nature with a Natural Capital Committee; an annual statement of green accounts for UK Plc, a business-led Task Force to expand the UK business opportunities from new products and services which are good for the economy and nature alike.

Aquatic Habitat Ecology & Conservation: Continental and Marine Ecosystems Connectivity

Aquatic Habitat Ecology & Conservation: Continental and Marine Ecosystems Connectivity
Author: Mario Barletta
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2020-10-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 2889660818

The ‘Aquatic Habitat Conservation in South America’ Symposium occurred during the XXI Brazilian Society of Ichthyology Meeting. The proceedings were published as a special issue in the Journal of Fish Biology (vol. 89, Number 1, June 2016). In this special issue, authors provided an analytical overview of problems faced by the conservation of fishes and aquatic habitats of South America. Habitat loss emerged as the greatest concern for all South American aquatic ecosystems, with a long list of causes related to unsustainable development models. Based on this finding, we would like to extend this topic to other continents, different climates, fauna and flora around the world. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary overview of variables that influence flora and fauna distributions and shape their ecological interactions within aquatic ecosystems

Conservation and Biodiversity Banking

Conservation and Biodiversity Banking
Author: Ricardo Bayon
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2012-04-27
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1136569170

The conservation of biodiversity is now big business. Whether called conservation banking, species banking, habitat banking, biodiversity banking, biodiversity offsets, compensatory mitigation or ecological footprint offsetting, the idea of financially valuing biodiversity and using the market and businesses to promote conservation is growing rapidly. This handbook is a comprehensive guide to conservation banking, explaining what it is and how it works. Written by leading ecosystem market experts, the book provides practical guidance, tools, case studies, analysis and insights into conservation banking and other market-based approaches to conservation. Coverage includes the origins of conservation banking, the pros and cons for conservation, how conservation banking works in reality, the legal, practical and financial aspects of setting up and running a conservation bank and how 'biodiversity off-sets' can be internationalized. Published with Ecosystem Marketplace

Selling Forest Environmental Services

Selling Forest Environmental Services
Author: Joshua Bishop
Publisher: Earthscan
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1849772509

The risks posed by forest destruction throughout the world are highly significant for all. Not only are forests a critical source of timber and non-timber forest products, but they provide environmental services that are the basis of life on Earth. However, only rarely do beneficiaries pay for the goods and services they experience, and there are severe consequences as a result for the poor and for the forests themselves. It has proved difficult to translate the theory of market-based approaches into practice. Based on extensive research and case studies of biodiversity conservation, watershed protected and carbon sequestration, this book demonstrates how payment systems can be established in practice, their effectiveness and their implications for the poor.

Locating Nature

Locating Nature
Author: Usha Natarajan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 724
Release: 2022-09-29
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108753531

For those troubled by environmental harm on a global scale and its deeply unequal effects, this book explains how international law structures ecological degradation and environmental injustice while claiming to protect the environment. It identifies how central legal concepts such as sovereignty, jurisdiction, territory, development, environment, labour and human rights make inaccurate and unsustainable assumptions about the natural world and systemically reproduce environmental degradation and injustice. To avert socioecological crises, we must not only unpack but radically rework our understandings of nature and its relationship with law. We propose more sustainable and equitable ways to remake law's relationship with nature by drawing on diverse disciplines and sociocultural traditions that have been marginalized within international law. Influenced by Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), postcolonialism and decoloniality, and inspired by Indigenous knowledges, cosmology, mythology and storytelling, this book lays the groundwork for an epistemological shift in the way humans conceptualize the relationship between law and nature.

Realising REDD+

Realising REDD+
Author: Arild Angelsen
Publisher: CIFOR
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2009-01-01
Genre: Climatic changes
ISBN: 6028693030

REDD+ must be transformational. REDD+ requires broad institutional and governance reforms, such as tenure, decentralisation, and corruption control. These reforms will enable departures from business as usual, and involve communities and forest users in making and implementing policies that a ect them. Policies must go beyond forestry. REDD+ strategies must include policies outside the forestry sector narrowly de ned, such as agriculture and energy, and better coordinate across sectors to deal with non-forest drivers of deforestation and degradation. Performance-based payments are key, yet limited. Payments based on performance directly incentivise and compensate forest owners and users. But schemes such as payments for environmental services (PES) depend on conditions, such as secure tenure, solid carbon data and transparent governance, that are often lacking and take time to change. This constraint reinforces the need for broad institutional and policy reforms. We must learn from the past. Many approaches to REDD+ now being considered are similar to previous e orts to conserve and better manage forests, often with limited success. Taking on board lessons learned from past experience will improve the prospects of REDD+ e ectiveness. National circumstances and uncertainty must be factored in. Di erent country contexts will create a variety of REDD+ models with di erent institutional and policy mixes. Uncertainties about the shape of the future global REDD+ system, national readiness and political consensus require  exibility and a phased approach to REDD+ implementation.