Monitoring in Biodiversity Offsetting

Abstract

Biodiversity offsetting is the process of using protection, habitat restoration and habitat maintenance to compensate for ecological damage to biodiversity caused by human activity, such as construction of infrastructure projects. Offsetting has been criticized for failure to deliver biodiversity no net loss, the common goal of offsetting. Reasons of failure can be broadly divided into failures in planning, failures in project-level implementation, and systemic failures of offset frameworks. One way to fail is inadequate monitoring that does not observe deficient implementation or unexpectedly poor outcomes of restoration or maintenance. Here, we consolidate understanding about the role and importance of monitoring in offsetting. We review different types of monitoring relevant in the context of offsetting and consider monitoring from the perspective of an individual project versus the offset system. We organize pros and cons of different types of monitoring from the perspective of different actors involved in offsetting. We also discuss funding for monitoring and the development of the offset framework: where should the money come from. Overall, we provide conservation managers a useful summary that can be used to formulate, update, and improve offset monitoring schemes, both for individual projects and for regional or national offset frameworks.