Nature provides spiritual and artistic inspiration that enriches our lives. Intact ecosystems regulate the climate, purify air and water, mitigate floods and droughts, and provide food.
Unchecked development puts these gifts of nature to humans at risk. Development causes the extinction of plants and animals—biodiversity loss. Can development and biodiversity co-exist?
One proposal is “biodiversity offsets.” A widely cited 2013 article by Joseph Bull and coworkers defines these as follows: Where a new development will affect existing biodiversity, “create or restore additional comparable biodiversity elsewhere, resulting in no net loss.”
But too much biodiversity has already been lost. Where development occurred in the past, huge portions of the Earth’s land surface were stripped of their natural vegetation. Scientists warn that safe limits for human survival–tipping points–have been exceeded.
Bull and his coworkers say that biodiversity offsets require “accurate quantification of losses and gains, and therefore require robust metrics.” They claim that the use of simple metrics such as ‘area of habitat’ to represent biodiversity losses and gains has been “widely discredited.” As in nearly all scientific papers, they call for more research.
Research is great, but we’re running out of time. Prompt, effective, and universal action is needed. I take issue with the claim that ‘area of habitat’ has been discredited as a metric.
Here’s my proposal: Any development would trigger a requirement to conserve and restore nature, through designation of an equivalent area where Mother Earth holds sway.
All development projects have a footprint—a measurable area of land affected. Each new project would be accompanied by a set-aside of an equal or greater land area that is permanently off limits to development. No human activity can occur there. Let Mother Nature evolve on her own.
Even a “brownfield” development–such as a skyscraper on a paved parking lot—would be accompanied by an equivalent area of land protected elsewhere in perpetuity. Scientists can study how nature reoccupies areas that were formerly colonized and managed by humans.
Exceptions to the “no human activity” rule could be made only under strict conditions approved and overseen by a regional body of Indigenous and local community representatives. Activities such as reintroduction of native plants, or limited hunting and fishing, might be permitted.
Important questions are: “How would these set-asides be chosen and protected?” and “How much would they cost?”
The Indigenous regional body would operate a market in which landholders (including governments) would offer set-aside parcels that developers could purchase in trust. People and nature as a whole would be the beneficiaries. The regional body would collect a transaction fee to offset its operating costs—such as biodiversity assessment–plus some extra revenue that would go in a pool to fund restoration activities.
Mechanisms such as land trusts and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas would ensure permanent biodiversity conservation.
Bull and his coworkers argue in a subsequent 2017 article that it’s time for biodiversity gains that are “larger than associated losses.” With this I agree.
A “greenfield” development that impacts native biodiversity would be subject to the set-aside requirement, plus an additional requirement to restore an equivalent area of degraded land. Candidates might be abandoned oil and gas wells, mines and quarries, clear-cuts, overgrazed pastures, areas affected by industrial pollutants. The regional body would broker relationships between developer and landholder, estimate costs, collect fees, and monitor progress.
Of particular importance would be establishing and supporting regenerative agriculture on lands currently being degraded by industrial agriculture (pesticides, artificial fertilizers, etc.).
Another question is “Over what land area would the regional body operate?” Watersheds are a natural unit that might work.
My thinking is inspired by a December 10 article by Judith Lachapelle in La Presse. She tells of a small island in the Ottawa River, rich in biodiversity, that is now protected in perpetuity by descendants of the legendary Anishinabe chief Tessouat. This required creative negotiations between the Nature Conservancy of Canada and three Anishinabe communities (Kebaowek, Long Point, and Témiscaming) who couldn’t buy private land that they had never relinquished.
Mechanisms such as Indigenous land trusts–supported by regional bodies that carry out biodiversity assessments, operate set-aside markets, and oversee requirements for restoration of degraded lands–could create a sound conceptual framework for biodiversity conservation. Applied broadly, this could make development truly sustainable.
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