Categories of flexibility in biodiversity offsetting, and their implications for conservation

What is it about?

Biodiversity offsets are increasingly used in conservation, often with a like-for-like requirement, whereby any permitted losses in biodiversity must be offset by gains in similar ecological components. It has been suggested that some flexibility might improve offset outcomes — such as out-of-kind offsets, which channel compensation towards species or ecological communities that have been identified as priorities for conservation. But there has been little formal exploration of what the ecological consequences might be of using these types of offsets. Using a model that simulates offset policies, we explored two types of flexibility in offsetting, in type (i.e., losses in one habitat compensated for by gains in another) and in time (i.e., offsets implemented before or after development). The model showed that offsets that were flexible in time resulted in biodiversity declines happening sooner or later than they would otherwise — important, as conservation priorities can change with time. Incorporating flexibility in type resulted in significantly different outcomes for each vegetation community modelled, including some counter-intuitive results. Through discussing the results of our model, we emphasise the importance of policy-makers considering the full spectrum of flexibility in biodiversity offsets during policy development.

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Why is it important?

As offset policies become increasingly prevalent, insufficient consideration of the consequences of flexibility could lead to undesirable biodiversity outcomes.

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