WCS 3-Sentence Science

The Limits of Biodiversity Offsetting

December 26, 2019

CREDIT: JULIE LARSEN MAHER/WCS

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS on determining new ways to compensate for loss of biodiversity to development.

1. Researchers review the limitations of biodiversity offsetting, and in response, propose a new framework for compensating for biodiversity losses from development in a way that is aligned explicitly with jurisdictional biodiversity targets.
2. In the framework, targets for particular biodiversity features are achieved via one of three pathways: Net Gain, No Net Loss, or (rarely) Managed Net Loss.
3. They outline how to set the type (“Maintenance” or “Improvement”) and amount of ecological compensation that is appropriate for proportionately contributing to the achievement of different targets, thus advancing ecological compensation beyond a reactive, ad‐hoc response, to ensuring alignment between actions addressing residual biodiversity losses and achievement of overarching targets for biodiversity conservation.

Study and Journal: “Moving from biodiversity offsets to a target‐based approach for ecological compensation” from Conservation Letters
WCS Co-Author(s): James Watson, Director, Science and Research Initiative; Hugo Costa, COMBO Project Manager, WCS Mozambique; Hedley Grantham, Spatial Planning, Conservation Science and Solutions; Hugo Rainey, Director COMBO Project; Ray Victurine, Director Business and Conservation.

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.