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

Summary report for policy makers: Towards no net loss, and beyond: Addressing practical challenges for biodiversity offsetting in the UK (260 KB pdf)

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

Session 1 – Mechanisms for offsetting, their practicality and potential in the UK context

Part A – Scoping the mechanisms for operating offsetting

Part B – Requirements for changes in public policy and practice

Session 2 – Methods to assess biodiversity loss and gain

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)

NCI-presentationdavidhillenvironmentbank

NCI-networking