Reviewing the role of habitat banking and tradable development rights in the conservation policy mix

Abstract

SUMMARYHabitat banking and tradable development rights (TDR) have gained considerable currency as a way of achieving ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity and of reconciling nature conservation with economic development goals. This paper reviews the use of these instruments for biodiversity conservation and assesses their roles in the policy mix. The two instruments are compared in terms of effectiveness, cost effectiveness, social impact, institutional context and legal requirements. The role in the policy mix is discussed highlighting sequential relationships, as well as complementarities or synergies, redundancy and conflicts with other instruments, such as biodiversity offsets and land-use zoning.Habitat banking and TDR have the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation objectives and attain cost-effective solutions with positive social impacts on local communities and landowners. They can also help to create a new mind-set more favourable to public-private cooperation in biodiversity conservation. At the same time, these policy instruments face a number of theoretical and implementation challenges, such as additionality and equivalence of offsets, endurance of land-use planning regulations, monitoring of offset performance, or time lags between restoration and resulting conservation benefits.A clear, enforceable regulatory approach is a prerequisite for the success of habitat banking and TDR. In return, these schemes provide powerful incentives for compliance with regulatory norms and ensure a more equitable allocation of the benefits and costs of land-use controls and conservation. Environmentally harmful subsidies in other policy sectors as well as alternative offset options, however, reduce the attractiveness and effectiveness of these instruments. Thus, the overall performance of habitat banking and TDR hinges on how they are integrated into the biodiversity conservation policy mix and fine-tuned with other sectoral policies.

Tradable development rights under uncertainty: an experimental approach

“…At the same time, a similarly large body of overview studies for heterogeneous institutional and social contexts has been presented, providing determinants of successful implementations of TDR (for studies based on qualitative measures, see e.g. Santos et al, 2015;Harman et al, 2015;Kaplowitz et al, 2008;Machemer and Kaplowitz, 2002;Pruetz and Standridge, 1999;Danner, 1997; studies primarily using quantitative measures include Menghini et al, 2015;Kopits et al, 2008;Lynch and Musser, 2001;Lynch and Lovell, 2003). While an overall consensus has been established in the literature concerning a number of success factors of TDR systems (such as strong demand for additional development zones and receiving areas customized to the demands of the respective communities (Pruetz and Standridge, 2009)), we argue that these conclusions remain closely tied to specific regional and institutional contexts.…”

Implementing Nature-Based Solutions in Urban Areas: Financing and Governance Aspects

“…By making development rights tradable, a costefficient allocation of development can be assured as those landowners able to realize the highest net benefits from development will buy up rights and develop their land (Mills 1980). However, if such a system is to allow for a targeted protection of specific green infrastructures, it has to be accomplished by land-use zoning (Schröter-Schlaack 2013; Santos et al 2015).…”

The Role of Communication on an Experimental Market for Tradable Development Rights

“…Therefore, studies using qualitative indicators (e.g. Santos et al, 2015;Harman et al, 2015;Kaplowitz et al, 2008;Pruetz and Standridge, 2009;Machemer and Kaplowitz, 2002;Danner, 1997) as well as reviews using quantitative measures (Menghini et al, 2015;Kopits et al, 2008;Lynch and Musser, 2001;Lynch and Lovell, 2003) have been presented. While these studies have led to the identification of several determinants for the successful regional implementation of TDR, we argue that these conclusions are necessarily tied to the respective national and institutional contexts.…”