Local conditions and policy design determine whether ecological compensation can achieve No Net Loss goals

Sonter, Laura J.; Simmonds, Jeremy S.; Watson, James; Jones, Julia P. G.; Kiesecker, Joseph M.; Costa, Hugo; Bennun, Leon; Edwards, Stephen R.; Grantham, Hedley S.; Griffiths, Victoria F.; Jones, Kendall R.; Sochi, Kei; Puydarrieux, Philippe; Quétier, Fabien; Rainer, Helga; Rainey, Hugo; Roe, Dilys; Satar, Musnanda; Soares‐Filho, Britaldo; Starkey, Malcolm; Kate, Kerry ten; Victurine, Ray; Hase, Amrei von; Wells, Jessie A.; Maron, Martine

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15861-1

Cited by 76 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Importantly, all new projects must adhere strictly to the principals of the Mitigation Hierarchy 38 , where biodiversity impacts are first avoided where possible before allowing compensation activities elsewhere. While compensation may help to overcome some of the expected biodiversity impacts of mining in some places 39 , rarely does this approach achieve No Net Loss outcomes universally 39,40 .…”

Section: Mining Properties;mentioning

confidence: 99%

Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

et al. 2020

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Renewable energy production is necessary to halt climate change and reverse associated biodiversity losses. However, generating the required technologies and infrastructure will drive an increase in the production of many metals, creating new mining threats for biodiversity. Here, we map mining areas and assess their spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities. Mining potentially influences 50 million km 2 of Earth's land surface, with 8% coinciding with Protected Areas, 7% with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16% with Remaining Wilderness. Most mining areas (82%) target materials needed for renewable energy production, and areas that overlap with Protected Areas and Remaining Wilderness contain a greater density of mines (our indicator of threat severity) compared to the overlapping mining areas that target other materials. Mining threats to biodiversity will increase as more mines target materials for renewable energy production and, without strategic planning, these new threats to biodiversity may surpass those averted by climate change mitigation.

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Section: Mining Properties;mentioning

confidence: 99%

Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity

et al. 2020

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“…While point (a) above should translate to 'no-go' edicts in instruments that regulate development and its impacts, for point (b), where some future losses may be acceptable, policies must include appropriate safeguards and require assurance of project developers to ensure that gains can be feasibly and realistically delivered (Maron al. 2012;Sonter al. 2020).…”

Section: Condition 3: Losses Are Avoided Where the Achievement Of Absolute Compensatory Gains Is Highly Uncertain Or Not Feasiblementioning

confidence: 99%

Aligning ecological compensation policies with the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework to achieve real net gain in biodiversity

Simmonds¹,

Hase²,

Quétier³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Increasingly, government and corporate policies on ecological compensation (e.g. offsetting) are requiring ‘net gain’ outcomes for biodiversity. This presents an opportunity to align development with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework’s (GBF) ambition for overall biodiversity recovery. In this perspective, we describe three conditions that should be accounted for in establishing or revising net gain policies to align their outcomes with the Post-2020 GBF: namely, a requirement for residual losses from development to be compensated for by (1) absolute gains, which are (2) scaled to the achievement of explicit biodiversity targets, where (3) gains are ecologically feasible. We show that few current policies meet these conditions, and thus we demonstrate a major disconnect between existing biodiversity net gain approaches and the achievement of the Post-2020 GBF milestones and goals. We conclude by describing how this gap can be bridged through a novel ecological compensation framework.

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“…But evidence is accumulating to suggest that restoration rarely compensates completely for these losses. 6 Moreover, attempts to offset biodiversity loss fail to avoid, minimize, or mitigate other impacts on climate change and social justice. 7 A further limitation is that the mitigation hierarchy is generally not used by agriculture and forestry sectors, which account for the greatest share of deforestation and land degradation globally.…”

Section: Reactive or Proactive Restoration?mentioning

confidence: 99%