Towards no net loss and beyond – Workshop 1:
Addressing practical challenges for biodiversity offsetting in the UK
Charles Darwin House, London. 22 June 2010
The first ‘Towards no net loss and beyond’ workshop drew together experts in the legal, policy and governance aspects of biodiversity offsetting to identify some practical challenges for its further implementation in the UK, and to work out how these may best be resolved.
The event involved invited experts drawn from a range of different organisation types, including developers, government, regulatory agencies, the non-profit sector and academia.
Specific challenges addressed by the workshop were:
- The practicality of available methods to assess biodiversity loss or gain under an offsetting scheme
- Practical ways of operating biodiversity offsetting schemes, including the creation and operation of habitat banks
- Changes in public policy and guidance that might be appropriate, or necessary, in order to introduce a system of biodiversity offsetting in the various UK devolved administrations
Event documentation
Briefing note (410 KB pdf)
List of references: Biodiversity offsetting in the UK (319 KB pdf)
Programme
Note that presentations are for viewing on the website and may not be copied or circulated. The authors and/or their employers retain copyright.
Introduction
- Introduction to the day
Bruce Howard, NCI - Introduction from the Chair
Paul Rose, JNCC - Biodiversity offsets – what are they and what might they be for
Andrew Dodd, Head of Site Conservation Policy, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Session 1 – Mechanisms for offsetting, their practicality and potential in the UK context
Part A – Scoping the mechanisms for operating offsetting
- Overview of the basic classes of biodiversity offsets
Marianne Darbi, Leibniz Institute of Ecological and Regional Development - A suggested approach for how offsetting could be developed in the UK
David Hill, Environment Bank Ltd.
Part B – Requirements for changes in public policy and practice
- UK laws and policy supporting use of biodiversity offsets in England
Jo Treweek, Independent Consultant - Public policy challenges around the increased use of biodiversity offsetting in England
Bronwen Jones, Defra - Implementation of development control policy on the ground: how this works at present
Mike Oxford, Association of Local Government Ecologists
Session 2 – Methods to assess biodiversity loss and gain
- Measuring biodiversity loss and gain
Jo Treweek, Treweek Environmental Consultants - Project Pinewood: a worked example of how offsetting methodology has been applied
Neil Harwood, ARUP
Further workshops in this series
Addressing scientific and environmental information challenges for biodiversity offsetting in the UK (29 September 2010)
Designing a system to offset for the residual impacts of terrestrial development on ecosystem service provision (7 December 2010)
