Impact mitigation

Wetlands have been the focus of conservation and restoration efforts for over a century, and governments, international actors (NGOs and academia) and local communities around the world are now increasingly engaging in wetland restoration or avoiding wetland degration activities for climate change mitigation.

Governments, companies, banks and civil society are placing more emphasis on the rigorous application of the mitigation hierarchy to avoid, minimize and compensate for projects' impacts on biodiversity. The final step in the mitigation hierarchy sequence are biodiversity offsets to achieve No Net Loss (NNL) or Net Gain (NG). Thirty-nine countries have existing laws or policies on NNL/NG, biodiversity offsets or compensation, and twenty-two countries are developing them.

The goal of biodiversity offsets -- measurable conservation outcomes resulting from actions designed to compensate for significant residual adverse biodiversity impacts arising from project development after other appropriate prevention and mitigation measures have been taken -- is to achieve no net loss (or net gain) in biodiversity. This report assesses the conditions under which biodiversity offsets may provide the best outcomes for biodiversity and achieve no net loss.

This study compares compensation approaches taken with respect to impacts on biological diversity in selected countries from four different continents: Africa, Asia, North America, and South America. Background on specific legal and institutional frameworks for each country are elaborated and assumptions for further research are formulated.