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https://theconversation.com/the-government-hopes-private-investors-will-help-save-nature-heres-how-its-scheme-could-fail-193010>
"This week’s federal budget reiterated the government’s plan to establish a new
scheme for encouraging private investment in conservation, called a
biodiversity market (now, rebranded to a “nature repair” market).
A biodiversity market would see landholders granted certificates for restoring
or managing local habitats. Landholders could then sell these certificates to,
for instance, businesses.
But the effectiveness of such schemes overseas and in Australia can at best be
described as mixed. Whether biodiversity markets can actually improve the dire
trajectory of our native plants and animals depends heavily on two things:
1. whether they reward environmental stewardship, which delivers overall
benefits for biodiversity or
2. whether they rely on the use of “offsets”, and the loss of biodiversity
elsewhere, to generate market demand.
Unfortunately, the government is sending mixed messages on this critical issue.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has said while the market “is not
designed to be an offset scheme”, companies could still buy certificates to
compensate for damage they cause to nature.
In submissions to the recent public consultation on the proposed market, we and
other experts argued the scheme should explicitly rule out the use of
certificates as compliance offsets for biodiversity damage. Here, we give three
major reasons why this is important."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
