Conclusions: Lessons from Biodiversity Offsetting Experiences in Europe

Abstract

It is clear that Europe is still far from its target to halt the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services (EEA 2010a, b; European Commission 2015), and this is in large part due to biodiversity impacts in the wider environment, i.e. outside protected areas. Many such impacts are the result of multiple small, scattered developments that individually often do not justify refusal on environmental grounds, but nonetheless have substantial incremental and cumulative impacts; thereby leading to ‘death by 1000 cuts’. To tackle this problem and halt biodiversity losses, it is becoming increasingly evident that complementary measures to strict protection are required that have the realistic ambition of achieving no net loss, through the avoidance, minimisation and offsetting of residual impacts. Such no net loss/offset policies can form a key component of sustainable development in that they can help to regulate and manage necessary trade-offs between economic development and the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services (Quétier et al. 2014).