Mitigation Hierarchy

Wind energy is growing worldwide as a source of power generation. Bat assemblages may be negatively affected by wind farms due to the fatality of a significant number of individuals after colliding with the moving turbines or experiencing barotrauma. The implementation of wind farms should follow standard procedures to prevent such negative impacts: avoid, reduce and offset, in what is known as the mitigation hierarchy. According to this approach avoiding impacts is the priority, followed by the minimisation of the identified impacts, and finally, when residual negative impacts still remain, those must be offset or at least compensated. This paper presents a review on conservation measures for bats and presents some guidelines within the compensation scenario, focusing on negative impacts that remain after avoidance and minimisation measures. The conservation strategies presented aim at the improvement of the ecological conditions for the bat assemblage as a whole. While developed u...

Global biodiversity is in crisis, with wildlife populations declining 69% since 1970 (WWF). Preserving and restoring ecosystems is essential for sustaining life on Earth. However, many countries rely on market-based instruments like biodiversity offsets, despite little evidence of their effectiveness. This study critically examines biodiversity offsets, identifying institutional, data, ecological, economic, and social failures that undermine their success. Using Indonesia, a global biodiversity hotspot, as a case study, we develop an econometric model to analyze key drivers of deforestation. The findings reveal that biodiversity offset schemes are fundamentally flawed: they lack scientific credibility, rely on arbitrary ratios, lack auditing and transparency, create value conflicts, and fail to achieve "No Net Loss" even over a 100-year timeframe. Offsets do not compensate for lost biodiversity, especially for affected communities, and are rarely supported by ecosystem mapping or robust valuation metrics. Without major reforms, they cannot halt or reverse biodiversity loss. A stronger, evidence-based approach is urgently needed. Rather than relying on ineffective offset schemes, the global community must prioritize genuine ecosystem restoration and sustainable conservation strategies to protect biodiversity for future generations.

In the USA, Species Conservation Banking is a prominent example of compensatory biodiversity impact mitigation, with an annual market value estimated at US$354.2 million. Species Conservation Banking represents a useful case study of a well-established program that can provide empirical insights into the practicalities of implementing quantitative compensatory biodiversity mitigation on-the-ground. Using semi-structured key-informant interviews structured around well-established technical challenges to compensatory mitigation, this study aimed to understand (i) how and why these challenges are or are not addressed in practice; and (ii) how these challenges relate to practical challenges faced by conservation banking stakeholders on-the-ground. Challenges identified included: (i) defining trading currencies and equivalence, (ii) regulatory and political uncertainty, (iii) regulatory agency capacity, will and knowledge, (iv) lack of policies, standards, and competition with other mitigation mechanisms, (v) long-term uncertainty/longevity, and (vi) lack of species knowledge and data transparency. These challenges are numerous, diverse, interlinked and transdisciplinary, and collectively inhibit the ability of practitioners to resolve underlying technical challenges-a finding likely applicable to related biodiversity offset programs. To help address challenges and navigate this complexity, we formulate several recommendations for conservation banking stakeholders to improve the chances of beneficial biodiversity outcomes being achieved.

This document is produced for project developers and their consultants responsible for preparing Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs). It summarizes "good practices" for biodiversity inclusive impact assessment and management planning in ESIAs. The document is based on a review and synthesis of various reports and guidance documents from multi-lateral finance institutions (MFIs), government regulators, industry associations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). It is not intended to replace ESIA guidance, but rather to supplement it where biodiversity is not adequately covered. This document is a companion to Good Practices for the Collection of Biodiversity Baseline Data.

To the Editor-The emerging deep-sea mining industry is seen by some to be an engine for economic development in the maritime sector 1. The International Seabed Authority-the body that regulates mining activities on the seabed beyond national jurisdiction-must also protect the marine environment from harmful effects that arise from mining 2. The International Seabed Authority is currently drafting a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining that includes measures for environmental protection. Responsible mining increasingly strives to work with no net loss of biodiversity 3. Financial and regulatory frameworks commonly require extractive industries to use a four-tier mitigation hierarchy to prevent biodiversity loss: in order of priority, biodiversity loss is to be avoided, minimized, remediated and-as a last resort-offset 4,5. We argue here that mining with no net loss of biodiversity using this mitigation hierarchy in the deep sea is an unattainable goal. The first tier of the mitigation hierarchy is avoidance. Potentially useful mitigation strategies in the deep sea include patchwork extraction, whereby some minerals with associated fauna are left undisturbed, or other means to limit the direct mining footprint. Even so, loss of biodiversity will be unavoidable because mining directly destroys habitat and indirectly degrades large volumes of the water column and areas of the seabed due to the generation of sediment plumes that are enriched in bioavailable metals. Although biodiversity loss within mines is inevitable, innovative engineering design could reduce or minimize some risks to farfield biodiversity [Au: Ok?]. For example, shrouds fitted to cutting equipment might reduce the dispersion of sediment plumes and the footprint of plume impacts such as the burial of organisms. Similarly, vehicle design might limit compaction of seabed sediments. Of course, the efficacy of such efforts in mitigating biodiversity loss would need to be tested. Remediation addresses the residual loss of biodiversity at and around a mine site after avoidance and minimization interventions. In the deep sea, native species are often slow to recruit and recolonize disturbed habitats: slow recovery on the scale of decades to

To the Editor-The emerging deep-sea mining industry is seen by some to be an engine for economic development in the maritime sector 1. The International Seabed Authority-the body that regulates mining activities on the seabed beyond national jurisdiction-must also protect the marine environment from harmful effects that arise from mining 2. The International Seabed Authority is currently drafting a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining that includes measures for environmental protection. Responsible mining increasingly strives to work with no net loss of biodiversity 3. Financial and regulatory frameworks commonly require extractive industries to use a four-tier mitigation hierarchy to prevent biodiversity loss: in order of priority, biodiversity loss is to be avoided, minimized, remediated and-as a last resort-offset 4,5. We argue here that mining with no net loss of biodiversity using this mitigation hierarchy in the deep sea is an unattainable goal. The first tier of the mitigation hierarchy is avoidance. Potentially useful mitigation strategies in the deep sea include patchwork extraction, whereby some minerals with associated fauna are left undisturbed, or other means to limit the direct mining footprint. Even so, loss of biodiversity will be unavoidable because mining directly destroys habitat and indirectly degrades large volumes of the water column and areas of the seabed due to the generation of sediment plumes that are enriched in bioavailable metals. Although biodiversity loss within mines is inevitable, innovative engineering design could reduce or minimize some risks to farfield biodiversity [Au: Ok?]. For example, shrouds fitted to cutting equipment might reduce the dispersion of sediment plumes and the footprint of plume impacts such as the burial of organisms. Similarly, vehicle design might limit compaction of seabed sediments. Of course, the efficacy of such efforts in mitigating biodiversity loss would need to be tested. Remediation addresses the residual loss of biodiversity at and around a mine site after avoidance and minimization interventions. In the deep sea, native species are often slow to recruit and recolonize disturbed habitats: slow recovery on the scale of decades to

To the Editor-The emerging deep-sea mining industry is seen by some to be an engine for economic development in the maritime sector 1. The International Seabed Authority-the body that regulates mining activities on the seabed beyond national jurisdiction-must also protect the marine environment from harmful effects that arise from mining 2. The International Seabed Authority is currently drafting a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining that includes measures for environmental protection. Responsible mining increasingly strives to work with no net loss of biodiversity 3. Financial and regulatory frameworks commonly require extractive industries to use a four-tier mitigation hierarchy to prevent biodiversity loss: in order of priority, biodiversity loss is to be avoided, minimized, remediated and-as a last resort-offset 4,5. We argue here that mining with no net loss of biodiversity using this mitigation hierarchy in the deep sea is an unattainable goal. The first tier of the mitigation hierarchy is avoidance. Potentially useful mitigation strategies in the deep sea include patchwork extraction, whereby some minerals with associated fauna are left undisturbed, or other means to limit the direct mining footprint. Even so, loss of biodiversity will be unavoidable because mining directly destroys habitat and indirectly degrades large volumes of the water column and areas of the seabed due to the generation of sediment plumes that are enriched in bioavailable metals. Although biodiversity loss within mines is inevitable, innovative engineering design could reduce or minimize some risks to farfield biodiversity [Au: Ok?]. For example, shrouds fitted to cutting equipment might reduce the dispersion of sediment plumes and the footprint of plume impacts such as the burial of organisms. Similarly, vehicle design might limit compaction of seabed sediments. Of course, the efficacy of such efforts in mitigating biodiversity loss would need to be tested. Remediation addresses the residual loss of biodiversity at and around a mine site after avoidance and minimization interventions. In the deep sea, native species are often slow to recruit and recolonize disturbed habitats: slow recovery on the scale of decades to

Major developments, such as mines, will often have unavoidable environmental impacts. In such cases investors, governments, or even a company's own standards increasingly require implementation of biodiversity offsets (investment in conservation with a measurable outcome) with the aim of achieving 'no net loss' or even a 'net gain' of biodiversity. Where conservation is achieved by changing the behaviour of people directly using natural resources, the offset might be expected to have social impacts but such impacts have received very little attention. Using the case study of Ambatovy, a major nickel mine in the eastern rainforests of Madagascar and Ambatovy, a company at the vanguard of developing biodiversity offsets, we explore local perceptions of the magnitude and distribution of impacts of the biodiversity offset project on local wellbeing. We used both qualitative (key informant interviews and focus group discussions) and quantitative (household survey) methods. We found that the biodiversity offsets, which comprise both conservation restrictions and development activities, influenced wellbeing in a mixture of positive and negative ways. However, overall, respondents felt that they had suffered a net cost from the biodiversity offset. It is concerning that benefits from the development activities do not compensate for the costs of the conservation restrictions, that those who bear the costs are not the same people as those who benefit, and that there is a mismatch in timing between the immediate restrictions and the associated development activities which take some time to deliver benefits. These issues matter both from the perspective of environmental justice, and for the long term sustainability of the biodiversity benefits the offset is supposed to deliver.

Adaptive management was first proposed in the early 1900s and its earliest relation to the natural resources management is found in publications of the 70s and 80s (Stankey et al. 2005; van der Brugge and van Raak 2007). Currently, there are several studies that provide information on the use of adaptive management approaches to resource management (Williams and Brown 2016). Adaptive management is widely considered to be one of the best available solutions for managing biological systems, although in the presence of uncertainty (Westgate et al. 2013). Adaptive management practices are also included in the Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability (e.g., Performance Standard 6) by International Finance Corporation for managing environmental and social risks and impacts (IFC 2012) or by IUCN (2016) in its Standard on Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use of Natural Resources. The increase of references and recommendations for the use of the adaptive management approach is directly related to the current challenges faced by natural resource managers, such as the increasing need to conserve and promote biologic diversity, react to climate change or provide the best solutions to restoration. The adaptive management strategy applied to biodiversity might be thought of as a systematic process of improving management through continuous learning. Adaptive management emphasises the importance of accounting for the future

Biodiversity offsetting-actions aimed to produce biodiversity gains to compensate for development impacts-has become an important but controversial instrument of sustainability governance. To understand how this occurred, we conducted a discourse analysis, iteratively applying a qualitative coding system to 197 policy documents produced between 1958 and 2019 across four institutional scales. We show that offsetting has historically been promoted by reformist approaches, which encourage economic growth without consideration of biocultural limits. More recently, those promoting more transformative approaches have reinterpreted offsetting as an instrument to transition towards sustainable economies respectful of planetary boundaries. However, we show that enacting this approach requires major structural governance changes that challenge the dominance of reformist coalitions across scales. Such changes would need to include a commitment by institutions to renounce non-essential projects and avoid damage and for offset stakeholders to become aware of how their contributions become enrolled in the service of specific discourses. Without such changes, offsetting risks structurally encouraging conservationists to produce natures compatible with a status quo development, rather than to advance transformative practices for biocultural diversity.

To the Editor-The emerging deep-sea mining industry is seen by some to be an engine for economic development in the maritime sector 1. The International Seabed Authority-the body that regulates mining activities on the seabed beyond national jurisdiction-must also protect the marine environment from harmful effects that arise from mining 2. The International Seabed Authority is currently drafting a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining that includes measures for environmental protection. Responsible mining increasingly strives to work with no net loss of biodiversity 3. Financial and regulatory frameworks commonly require extractive industries to use a four-tier mitigation hierarchy to prevent biodiversity loss: in order of priority, biodiversity loss is to be avoided, minimized, remediated and-as a last resort-offset 4,5. We argue here that mining with no net loss of biodiversity using this mitigation hierarchy in the deep sea is an unattainable goal. The first tier of the mitigation hierarchy is avoidance. Potentially useful mitigation strategies in the deep sea include patchwork extraction, whereby some minerals with associated fauna are left undisturbed, or other means to limit the direct mining footprint. Even so, loss of biodiversity will be unavoidable because mining directly destroys habitat and indirectly degrades large volumes of the water column and areas of the seabed due to the generation of sediment plumes that are enriched in bioavailable metals. Although biodiversity loss within mines is inevitable, innovative engineering design could reduce or minimize some risks to farfield biodiversity [Au: Ok?]. For example, shrouds fitted to cutting equipment might reduce the dispersion of sediment plumes and the footprint of plume impacts such as the burial of organisms. Similarly, vehicle design might limit compaction of seabed sediments. Of course, the efficacy of such efforts in mitigating biodiversity loss would need to be tested. Remediation addresses the residual loss of biodiversity at and around a mine site after avoidance and minimization interventions. In the deep sea, native species are often slow to recruit and recolonize disturbed habitats: slow recovery on the scale of decades to

The designation of geographical entities in this book, and the presentation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of IUCN.

Biodiversity offsetting mechanisms are increasingly applied worldwide as a new solution to the current biodiversity crisis. The offsetting approach is idealised as a means to achieve no net loss of biodiversity. Offsetting mechanisms aim to quantify residual biodiversity losses and enable developers to account for residual impacts off-site. Despite rising global application, the effectiveness of offsetting is by no means assured. The question of whether and how offsetting can be operationalised to achieve no net loss has become a key focal point in debates surrounding their effectiveness. Environmental Impact Assessment, or EIA, has been portrayed as an obvious 'vehicle' for integrating offsetting into existing corporate management systems and planning systems, and therefore a key factor over how offsetting mechanisms operate. This research critically investigated the nature of integration and interactions between EIA and offsetting using a three phase qualitative research design, which brought together analysis of emerging policy, expert interviews and in-depth case studies. The study provides insight into an emerging relationship between EIA and offsetting which is highly differentiated. It finds that EIA has considerable use value in the operationalisation of offsetting. The EIA process can play various roles in triggering offsets and in providing an analytical framework for offsetting metrics. However, there are also clear conceptual disconnections between these two mechanisms which limit the utility of EIA for operationalising offsetting and can equally place these two mechanisms in conflict. Interviews with policy-makers and practitioners reveal disillusionment with current EIA process, a perception that problems with EIA could have negative implications for offsetting, and a minority view that offsetting could be a catalyst for change in EIA practice. Case studies of the application of offsetting in four UK development planning applications give insight into two main forms of integration. These are based on different interpretations of the value and purpose of offsetting in relation to EIA. First, offsetting metrics have been integrated analytically into the EIA process and used as a new methodology. Second, in instances of more consecutive integration, offsets have been bolted-on to the EIA process to provide off-site solutions to unavoidable impacts. Through analytical integration, offset metrics can extend impact identification, challenge the place of subjective expert judgement and the acceptability of residual impacts, and provide a measure of mitigation (in)effectiveness. In contrast, under consecutive forms of integration, the application of offsetting is much more dependent on subjective conceptualisations of impact significance and subject to existing weaknesses in the EIA process. Therefore, the form of offsetting's integration with EIA has implications for how it works as a tool for mitigation. This research does not suggest that EIA and offsets are incompatible, but, that the uncritical combination of these two mechanisms should be avoided. These and other research findings suggest that despite complaints about the validity and reductionist nature of offsetting metrics, in relation to EIA they could have pragmatic value as a management and negotiation tool to engender change and account for current disillusionment with EIA performance. Furthermore, the dynamics of integration and interaction between EIA and offsetting, in the UK context, highlight fundamental questions still surround what offsetting is trying to achieve and the particular problems with the planning system we are trying to resolve through offsets. For future practice this research highlights that we need to pay greater attention to the variability in offsetting practice, to acknowledge different interpretations, formulations and outcomes. Declaration I declare that no portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

To the Editor-The emerging deep-sea mining industry is seen by some to be an engine for economic development in the maritime sector 1. The International Seabed Authority-the body that regulates mining activities on the seabed beyond national jurisdiction-must also protect the marine environment from harmful effects that arise from mining 2. The International Seabed Authority is currently drafting a regulatory framework for deep-sea mining that includes measures for environmental protection. Responsible mining increasingly strives to work with no net loss of biodiversity 3. Financial and regulatory frameworks commonly require extractive industries to use a four-tier mitigation hierarchy to prevent biodiversity loss: in order of priority, biodiversity loss is to be avoided, minimized, remediated and-as a last resort-offset 4,5. We argue here that mining with no net loss of biodiversity using this mitigation hierarchy in the deep sea is an unattainable goal. The first tier of the mitigation hierarchy is avoidance. Potentially useful mitigation strategies in the deep sea include patchwork extraction, whereby some minerals with associated fauna are left undisturbed, or other means to limit the direct mining footprint. Even so, loss of biodiversity will be unavoidable because mining directly destroys habitat and indirectly degrades large volumes of the water column and areas of the seabed due to the generation of sediment plumes that are enriched in bioavailable metals. Although biodiversity loss within mines is inevitable, innovative engineering design could reduce or minimize some risks to farfield biodiversity [Au: Ok?]. For example, shrouds fitted to cutting equipment might reduce the dispersion of sediment plumes and the footprint of plume impacts such as the burial of organisms. Similarly, vehicle design might limit compaction of seabed sediments. Of course, the efficacy of such efforts in mitigating biodiversity loss would need to be tested. Remediation addresses the residual loss of biodiversity at and around a mine site after avoidance and minimization interventions. In the deep sea, native species are often slow to recruit and recolonize disturbed habitats: slow recovery on the scale of decades to

Wind energy is growing worldwide as a source of power generation. Bat assemblages may be negatively affected by wind farms due to the fatality of a significant number of individuals after colliding with the moving turbines or experiencing barotrauma. The implementation of wind farms should follow standard procedures to prevent such negative impacts: avoid, reduce and offset, in what is known as the mitigation hierarchy. According to this approach avoiding impacts is the priority, followed by the minimisation of the identified impacts, and finally, when residual negative impacts still remain, those must be offset or at least compensated. This paper presents a review on conservation measures for bats and presents some guidelines within the compensation scenario, focusing on negative impacts that remain after avoidance and minimisation measures. The conservation strategies presented aim at the improvement of the ecological conditions for the bat assemblage as a whole. While developed under the European context, the proposed measures are potentially applicable elsewhere, taking into consideration the specificity of each region in terms of bat assemblages present, landscape features and policy context regarding nature and biodiversity conservation and management. An analysis of potential opportunities and constraints arising from the implementation of offset/compensation programmes and gaps in the current knowledge is also considered.