'Conservation Credits' Idea in the UK

Becca Madsen on June 2, 2010 Comment

...The new party wants it, one private company has it, and Big Carbon says make it a global market

The UK is taking big strides in developing its idea of 'conservation credits,' but does it know where it's going? In November of last year, the UK's Conservative party floated the idea of conservation credits, and now that they're in power, there's moment to make good on the promise to "pioneer a new system of conservation credits to protect habitats." UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) will be the lead on developing this promise to fruition.

Even though it doesn't sound like the rules of the game are fixed yet, the Guardian reports that a private company, the Environment Bank, announced the launch of the first UK project developing 'conservation credits.' The company has invested £100 million in restoration "to restore and reconnect fragmented wetlands, woodlands and grasslands around the headwaters of the river Thames in the west of England." Developers could voluntarily purchase credits to help meet requirements associated with planning permissions.

Ian Dickie, Senior Consultant at economics for the environment consultancy (eftec) and co-author of a major report for the EC on habitat banking tells Ecosystem Marketplace:

"This is an innovative scheme. It will be interesting to see whether planning authorities recognize the 'conservation credits' it produces, and if they check that these credits are based on additional actions that benefit biodiversity. The potential market for conservation credits is indeed large, but is much more likely to grow if requirements are placed on developers and others who damage biodiversity to provide adequate compensation. These requirements should be designed to achieve no net loss of biodiversity."

Meanwhile, Big Carbon is weighing in and wants biodiversity to be... just like Carbon. In an earlier Guardian article (dated 17 May), Ben Caldecott, head of UK & EU climate change and energy policy at Climate Change Capital (CCC), argues that Britain should lead a charge for an international biodiversity market. The author thinks that in designing the UK's new conservation credit system, Britain could create rules for 'biodiversity equivalency' and scale-up international investment in biodiversity. The article notes that one of the reasons biodiversity has not been able to attract global investment like the carbon market is because of the problem of a common currency. The article suggests developing an equivalency: "One species per km², or "1 species equivalent", could be the common unit of account, with endangered species on the IUCN Red List given a multiplier that significantly increases their value."

This concept of trading conservation credits globally goes against the current stream of thinking on biodiversity offsets, which generally argue that an offset should be of the same ecosystem or species type as that impacted. The comments section of the article highlighted opposition to the concept, from general wariness of markets to complete disagreement with the commoditization of biodiversity.

Sources

UK's first 'conservation credit' scheme launched

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/28/uk-conservation-credits-scheme-thames

We have an international market for carbon, why not one for conservation?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/17/international-market-conservation-credits