Thread by @sophusticated

Although not the most important thing right now, policymaking doesn't stop for global crises: the Biodiversity Net Gain #BNG consultation is open. I urge everyone who cares about English nature to respond. My consult recommendations based on our research conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…:

Q33. Do you agree that developers which are able to exceed the biodiversity gain objective for a given development should be allowed to use or sell the excess biodiversity units as off-site gains for another development, provided there is genuine additionality?

My take. The major problem here is that it assumes that the biodiversity units promised by developers on-site will be delivered in reality. If the governance is not in place to guarantee that, it risks letting developers sell unenforceable, overambitous promises as offsets.

There is good reason to believe that biodiversity units promised by developers on-site will be significantly higher than those that are actually delivered. An academic study (pre-Net Gain) which surveyed developments where habitat enhancements were promised at the application...

...stage found that most of these did not meet the ecological criteria promised by the developers years later. sciencedirect.com/science/articl….

There may be many reasons, but key is that many of the ecological management companies which are charged with maintaining the aesthetic value of housing developments have little expertise in ecological management...

...and there may be residents who prefer having open areas managed for amenity purposes rather than biodiverse habitats, and this risks them moving away from the habitats that were promised when the development received planning permission (which might have been decades ago).

@Jamesxparsons amazing investigation on @BBCCountryfile found only 20% of local authorities have any in-house ecological expertise - so they don't have the capacity or resource to actually monitor or govern on-site biodv promises of developers.

Most scarily even if the habitats were monitored, local authorities are explicitly advised not to take enforcement actions against violations of planning conditions unless the violation represents a 'serious harm to a local public amenity'. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-brief…

It is very likely that the failure to deliver on-site habitats that were promised when a development was approved many years ago will fail to meet this threshold, leaving these on-site gains in essence unenforceable.

Therefore, until this governance system is cleaned up (i.e. there is a genuine prospect of enforcement) and we have robust, real-world evidence that on-site biodiversity gains are being delivered in reality, I'll be opposing this measure in my consultation response.

Question 34. Do you agree with the proposed scope of the UK Government’s role in facilitating the market.

My take: The proposal suggests the government will not set up a trading platform for the exchange of credits, or record the prices of transactions between buyers and sellers

This goes against the lessons from international examples, which suggest a transparent trading platform in which prices are publicly available is essential. It is essential that the prices and transactions between buyers and sellers are not negotiated in secret, but are...

...recorded in a transparent public database. In other offset systems, like New South Wales in Australia, journalist @_LisaMCox has been able to uncover insider trading and exploitation of the offset system. Transparency of prices, buyers & sellers and credit types is key!

Question 45. Do you think that A) the non-designated features or areas of statutory protected sites and/or B) local wildlife sites and local nature reserves, should be eligible for enhancement through biodiversity net gain?

My take: In the academic literature on biodiversity compensation systems, many (e.g. @martine_maron) are concerned with the concept of ‘cost-shifting’ – where governments use the funds of offsetting to meet biodiversity targets that they would be legally obliged to deliver anyway

However, I recognise that some of the most valuable wildlife sites in the country are local wildlife sites, and these can sometimes represent the areas that can with additional investment deliver the best outcomes for nature.

A key solution is that government track its spending on conservation separately from the spending on conservation that is attributable to funding derived from Biodiversity Net Gain. In short, separate accounts are needed – the ‘core statutory funding’ account should...

...track how much is being spent on improving nature which is not compensating for a loss, and the ‘compensation’ account should track how much is being earned and spent to compensate for losses. @JNCC_UK - account for these separately in the annual biodiversity spending reports!

Question 44. Do you agree with our proposed approach to combining payments for biodiversity units with other payments for environmental services from the same parcel of land?

A review of stacking & bundling implemented in biodiversity compensation schemes globally found bundling is by far the most common arrangement, because the experience of systems which have allowed stacking is that the benefits are very rarely additional.forest-trends.org/wp-content/upl…

The major problem with stacking is that it is rare, and very challenging to conclusively prove, that the benefits of environmental credits are additional. If, for example, we allow the purchase of carbon credits from a site where a high-carbon habitat was being created anyway...

...under biodiversity net gain to generate biodiversity credits, then those carbon credits have not sequestered additional carbon, and the polluter who purchases the credits has not compensated for the emissions it has caused.

There is likely to be pressure for landowners to allow stacking of environmental credits, cos it potentially increases number of potential revenue streams. But I disagree on environmental grounds, because environmental credits which are not additional are actively damaging.

Q52 & 54 both relate to enforcement, and in my response I'm repeating my points about need for better monitoring, credible enforcement, and ensuring the system & LPAs have sufficient capacity to ensure the system delivers benefits for nature.
Consult: consult.defra.gov.uk/defra-net-gain…