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The Queensland Government is reforming environmental offsetting arrangements by creating a new Environmental Offsets Act 2014 which if created, will significantly streamline and simplify the delivery of environmental offsets and improve environmental outcomes. The discussion paper details key improvements to the existing legislative environment and references sections in both the draft Regulation and the Bill, and the Financial Settlement Offset Calculation, Methodology specifies the calculation methodology that calculates the financial settlement for an environmental offset.
We are witnessing an alarming, global biodiversity crisis with an ongoing loss of species and their habitats. In response, a number of tools and approaches – including some that are contested – are being explored and promoted. Biodiversity offsets are one such approach, and deserve critical examination since the debate surrounding them has often been oversimplified and lacking practical evidence. As such, this study presents a refined typology including seven types of biodiversity offsets and taking into account different contexts, governance arrangements and drivers. It draws on a detailed analysis of theoretical concepts to explain the voluntary implementation of biodiversity offsets using an internet-based (netnographic) research approach. Furthermore it builds on a broad global explorative base of 72 practical examples and presents in-depth case studies for each type. The results reveal a number of global tendencies that allow recommendations to be made for different locations, contexts and stakeholders. They also encourage the expansion of this research field to respond to the pressing needs of policy and practice.
The purpose of this Guide is to assist in interpreting and implementing the Queensland environmental offsets framework. This Guide is not a statutory document, but it provides an explanation of each step of the process in determining whether or not an environmental offset is required, and guidance on how to deliver an environmental offset requirement.
This book deals with the new concept of biodiversity offsets. The aim of offsetting schemes is to achieve no let loss or even net gain of biodiversity. Offsets obey a mitigation hierarchy and reflect the precautionary and polluter-pays principle in regard to project impacts. Readers gain insights into current debates on biodiversity policies, with top experts outlining theoretical principles and the latest research findings. At the same time the focus is on practical application and case studies. Today there is a lively international discussion among practitioners and scientists on the optimal legal framework, metrics and design of habitat banks to ensure the success of biodiversity offsets and to minimise the risks of failure or misuse. Contributing to the debate, this volume presents the activities and practices of biodiversity offsetting already implemented in Europe in selected EU member states, and the lessons that can be learnt from them. Readers may be surprised at how much experience already exists in these countries. A further aim of the book is to offer grounded insights on the road ahead, and foster a more intensive and fruitful discussion on how offsetting can be extended and improved upon, so that it becomes a key and effective component of Europe’s biodiversity conservation policy framework.
The conservation of biodiversity is a daunting and complex public policy challenge. Over the past three decades, two clear themes have emerged in conservation science, policy and practice: greater experimentation with market-based policy instruments (MBIs); and an increased concern over the effectiveness of conservation policies. These two themes are interrelated, as a key driver of the rise in prominence of MBIs has been the promise of more effective, efficient and equitable conservation than that which is possible under 'traditional' regulatory approaches. However, scarce evidence is available on the efficacy of regulatory policies and MBIs alike, and it has been argued that "better theory, better methods, and better data" are required if conservation policies are to be more frequently and rigorously evaluated for effectiveness. This focus on the technical challenges of policy evaluation is incomplete, as effectiveness of conservation policy is influenced not only by the choice of policy instrument or combination thereof, but also the actors involved, the relevant institutional, social and political contexts, and decisions made at various stages of the policy process. In this thesis, I investigate the challenges and complexities associated with conservation policy in Australia, an advanced and politically stable economy. Using an interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach, I consider regulatory and market-based policy responses to a major driver of biodiversity loss, deforestation, and evaluate what outcomes, opportunities and risks these policies present for conservation. In Chapter Two, I document the recent shift away from 'command and control' policy responses to deforestation in Australia, and towards self-regulation and MBIs. Despite this change in policy style, little is known of their efficacy. In Chapter Three, I use a spatially explicit bent-cable regression model to evaluate what effect regulatory policies have had on the rate of deforestation in Queensland, Australia. I find some evidence of a policy effect after adjusting for covariates, but extreme variation in regional deforestation trends reduces this effect at the state level. In Chapter Four, I present findings which confirm that carbon farming is economically viable in degraded Queensland agricultural landscapes under an estimated $5 t CO2e-1 carbon price. In practice however, large-scale reforestation has not occurred despite being the 'rational' option, in part due to policy complexity and political uncertainty. In the final three empirical chapters, I consider challenges in the design, implementation and evaluation of biodiversity offset policy. In Chapter Five I describe a mathematical framework used to underpin the Australian Environmental Offsets Policy, which was designed to deliver 'no net loss' outcomes for protected matters. I subsequently illustrate in Chapters Six and Seven that improvements to policy design do not necessarily lead to better policy outcomes, due to complexities that emerge through policy implementation in the context of multi-actor, multi-level environmental governance. I draw on qualitative data from interviews with key informants to describe potential risks to biodiversity outcomes under current offset policy settings, including: ambiguous responsibility for long term security and management, fragmentation within government departments at the federal and state levels, and a lack of transparency and public accountability. I conclude the thesis and provide future research directions in Chapter Eight.
This book is a product of the initial phase of a broader study evaluating the voluntary and regulatory compliance protocols that are used to account for the contributions of forests in U.S.-based greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation programs. The research presented here is particularly concerned with these protocols’ use of the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data to describe forest conditions, ownership, and management scenarios, and is oriented towards providing regulators and other interested parties with an objective comparison of the options, uncertainties, and opportunities available to offset GHG emissions through forest management. Chapters focus on the protocols for recognizing forest carbon offsets in the California carbon cap-and-trade program, as described in the Compliance Offset Protocol; U.S. Forest Projects (California Air Resources Board, 2011). Readers will discover the protocols used for quantifying the offset of GHG emissions through forest-related project activity. As such, its scope includes a review of the current methods used in voluntary and compliance forest protocols, an evaluation of the metrics used to assign baselines and determine additionality in the forest offset protocols, an examination of key quantitative and qualitative components and assumptions, and a discussion of opportunities for modifying forest offset protocols, in light of the rapidly changing GHG-related policy and regulatory environment. Finally, the report also discusses accounting and policy issues that create potential barriers to participation in the California cap-and-trade program, and overall programmatic additionality in addressing the needs of a mitigation strategy.
The Lilliputians of Environmental Regulation offers a unique perspective about an understudied aspect of environmental policy, by sharing the stories of the front-line regulators that implement policy on a day-to-day basis in the United States.