Biodiversity offsetting is an increasingly popular means to balance out the impact developments have on the environment. Just as many of us will purchase a carbon offset to compensate for the emissions we generate when we take an overseas flight, biodiversity offsetting aims for “no net loss” of biodiversity values from a development project.
Like carbon offsets, biodiversity offsetting is a controversial topic. Recent media in the UK has highlighted how contentious it can be, with the UK government’s trial of its new biodiversity offsetting scheme decried by some as “a license to trash nature”.
One of the problems for biodiversity offsetting is working out whether “no net loss” is actually being achieved. Despite the widespread and growing use of offsets, very little evidence is available to demonstrate what those offsets deliver.
Read the whole story at “The Conversation”
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