Respondent 2 (Environmental Campaigner)
Interviewer(s): Me
Interviewee(s): Respondent

Me: So as you know from our email correspondence, the project seeks to elicit stakeholder perceptions to biodiversity in the UK. I chose to study it because there has been not that much scholarship on the area and I think one of the main points in the literature was that Market-based instruments are kind of being institutionalised without kind of actually understanding or sufficiently acknowledging stakeholder perceptions and the kind of wider impacts the market based instruments will have on society and the economy. So, I think the best place to start is probably with the 'License to trash' rhetoric and kind of ask you: do you think biodiversity offsetting is going to lead to tighter or less stringent regulations around infrastructure?

Respondent: I mean I guess you're talking specifically in the UK context, right?

Me: urm, yep, I think so...

Respondent: urm... I mean I guess the first thing to say would be that if you look at what's happened in the past, so on the ground in countries like Australia, like USA, urm... like Costa Rica and in some of the more voluntary applications of this such as those used by the IFC or the World Bank you certainly do see a situation where biodiversity offsetting has kind of been y'know encountered or used as a reason why a certain project should go ahead. I mean those are very different regulatory environments because - for instance - in Australia I spoke to [Name] last week who I'm sure, whose literature I'm sure you've come across who wrote a lot about offsets and she said: yeah well for us auditing is our environmental legislation because we were saying OK we are concerned it is going to be weakening our environmental legislation and she said: well we don't have environmental legislation. So I think it really does depend in which regulatory context you are working in, but certainly in Europe we have - I mean I work specifically in the European context - and certainly in Europe we've got very strong, very clear, regulations that say what you are and are not allowed to do and those could always be better implemented of course. But as they stand - they are very clear - and biodiversity offsetting potentially - and of course we can only speak in terms of potentials because it hasn't been brought in yet - potentially does create areas, shades of grey where there were not any before

Me: So you don't really think - perhaps there is a bias of the policy communities - to represent only the stakeholders that are commensurate with their own views?

Respondent: Yeah right, Yeah. I think it is important to look at... So the regulation itself is one thing, but with all of these things you sort of have to look at them in the political context in which they are being developed within. And the political context within which we are working in at the moment - as environmentalists - is one where environmental values certainly are not very strong in comparison to economic values and that's, I think that's always kind of been the case, but certainly it's been very strong and we've noticed it very strongly in the policy making context since 2008 - where you can't really have an environmental policy unless you somehow urm... find some sort of economic reason why it's a good idea. Urm... so I think, given that context, urm... any new environmental legislation we are relatively wary of, or any proposal to change existing environmentalism we are wary of it because the likelihood is, y'know, it is probably going to weaken it. So you need to look at it with that critical - you do need to look at these things with that critical eye, with: what are they really trying to do here and certainly in the UK. It has been much stronger regulations than in any other European context - they made it very very clear that this is something that developers are going to gain from, it's going to speed up planning applications and you can't help but take y'know that rhetoric into consideration, it is very very explicit. Urm... so, y'know they are saying it themselves, I mean - yeah - is it going to create a license to trash - well that's what they kind of promised - they just said it different words really.

Me: and I was reading one of your articles saying that it's changed the actual environmental policy paradigm has changed from kind of no loss to no net loss. I was just wondering, from your point of view, what's the difference between the two. Or how do you think no net loss differs from net-loss?

Respondent: I mean, no-net loss - I guess on the face of it - seems like exactly the same thing but fundamentally, fundamentally different and doesn't take into consideration spatially and temporal issues of environment. So kind of environmental issues of urm... over space and over time, but also quality issues over space and over time. I mean no net loss, I mean, you as well aware as I am, means that y'know at the end of a certain time period you have the same thing. Urm... but I mean there are - for me - so many issues that poses. For instance, what do you do in that time. So let's take it at face value, so you are actually going to replace grain for grain, or molecule for molecule, what you had in the first place. Just take that at face value. What do you do in the meantime. What do those ladybirds do in the meantime, when that habitat isn't there. What do those communities do in the meantime when their green, or y'know local pond, or whatever it is - local wood - isn't there. What... it kind of very much complicates... I think Dorian Massey and David Harvey are both people who've been critical geographers thinking about those kind of issues for a long-time. Certainly those kind of things we can apply to the spatial and temporal environmental inequalities issues.

Me: Yeah, I think that's raised quite an interesting point and also - I had an interview with one of the offsetters yesterday - on the question of compensated and kind of remuneration for the communities and remuneration for the ecological communities and their perspective was that the communities that were affected by the loss in access to environmental amenities would be remunerated from the infrastructure development - whether it be a train track, or some kind of business complex. So, maybe a question, how do you think communities are remunerated?

Respondent: Yeah, I mean that's a typical sort of CSR type of answer. We've been seeing in the developed world for the past 30 years, in fact, you could arguably say we've been doing that since the beginning of colonialism, where you pay off communities. I mean I think it raises lots of questions as to who is controlling what in the community and what choice do they really have. Do they have - we sometimes talk about something called F-PIC in the development world, so free- prior-informed-consent. Urm... y'know are they actually - do they have the chance to say no - and who gets the chance to say no. We use communities in a very... that's a very complex term that we use kind of off-hand. So, the first question is who is deciding that: is it the powerful people within a community and I think we can directly apply analysis that we've been doing in the global south, in the developing world, to the European context. Y'know who in the community is really deciding, is it the large land owner or is it the y'know the people that have the council housing on the outerskirts. The second is an issue of social justice, there will be a tendency I think for communities - poorer communities - to accept remuneration or buy-offs than perhaps richer communities and they would have the luxury of saying no - we don't want this road here and we don't want this y'know 600 bloc housing estate. I think that certainly has to be brought into consideration. And at the end of the day, I do think communities should have a larger say over what - their land - but that should be done in the context of that gives them free prior and informed consent. Especially with the possibility to say no.

Me: And when your...

Respondent: and... urm... I was going to say something else.

Me: Sorry

Respondent: and... yeah... you need to be humble enough that that is not an offset, it's some sort of, it's not even a compensation it is a commiseration and that's fine, as long as that's what the community chooses and that's what the nation chooses as part of its land use planning framework. But that is not an offset, that is some sort of commiseration that you give and you kind of put a sticking plaster on an open wound, and if that's what you want to do then fine, but if that's what you want to do then that's fine, but we need to realise that's what is happening, that's what's going on.

Me: And when you... I saw that you had carried out a freedom of information act and I was wondering from what you extracted to what extent were communities being involved in the process?

Respondent: I mean... we've been trying to see, to what extent business interests have been guiding the European legislation on no-net loss and offsetting. Urm... I mean it's very mixed because some, some of the businesses are really against offsetting, because they are going to have to do something they wouldn't of had to have done before. And some of the more enlightened ones who have been looking more into it, see it as part of their, see it to their advantage. That they can then use that to, speed up the planning application, time is money, so that's very interesting for them. Urm... I am going to be looking at them this week to see what interesting things we've got out of that. So, far, I've been getting more information on the broader kind of financialisation of nature rhetoric, so not specifically about offsetting, but more to do with urm how the environment... sorry... European Investment Bank is urm... very interested in finding ways in financing biodiversity and making that, make money for them. But, yeah... I can't really answer that yet, because I would have to look more closely at that.

Me: That's no problem, I think you've brought us quite well onto the next point which is maybe to what extent do you think the benefits derived from ecosystems or habitats are really amenable to economic value. Because there has been a direction towards natural capital and ecosystem services...

Respondent: Yeah, I mean yeah...Urm... how are we doing for time... yeah. I think it is a real shame how polarised the debates are, we were at - I wasn't physically - but we were supporting the Natural Commons Forum, which was a counter-forum which was a kind of counter forum to the Natural Capital Forum which happened in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago and it really really showed how polarised the debates are. On one side you've got a group of mainly, mainly bankers at the moment, but some businesses as well and then a lot of do-good [webcam cut out]... very very keen to put a financial value on ecosystems and the environment. On the other side you've got a whole bunch of individuals that think it's the absolute anathema, it's the worse thing to do, bringing the environment to the economy. I think that actually we need to be a litte bit more nuanced with the debate and I think we can probably only become a bit more nuanced with the debate when there's a little bit more transparency and a little bit more understanding as to what exactly we are going to be doing with these numbers. I think it's one thing to be putting a value on a lake, a forest, a field or whatever and say that is how much, that that thing, the services within that ecosystem would cost if we had to replace it, with y'know, with... The easiest example is water, with electronic filtration for instance as opposed to with sediment, going through fields, that sort of thing. Urm... that's one thing. It is another thing, then to try and pretend who can sort of somehow get some sort of contingent value, so communities saying how much they would value a certain thing. I mean I think we need to be very clear as to what we can and cannot do with economics. Urm... and then I think it's only useful if it's a tool to show how valuable nature really is and for it's economic values.

Me: So it has a more conceptual role and an actual practical role in informing or guiding policy

Respondent: Right, so if it's there to guide policy than that's fine, but if it's then used to say: actually this, y'know, we want to build a commercial complex in the middle of a field and it's going to be much more viable than the forest values in that area... then we're shooting ourselves in the foot as environmentalist. We've got to be very clear the world in which we're living in. On the whole I tend to be relatively skeptical of this economic value, because are we really living in a world where we are putting an economic value on something in order to save it? Well, if we were living in that world, then we wouldn't need to put that economic value on it, we would just protect it because we would see its value and we would y'know - when you are speaking to indigenous community in a forest, you don't need to put an economic value on something because they know the value of it. But now we're living in a world where we have competing economic demands and economic growth is important. OK I understand that, but then I think as environmentalists we've got to realise that this is not a tool to protect the environment, it is probably a tool to at best guide economic decisions towards land that is less valuable. At the worst we're getting into the kind of typical Tragedy of the Commons vs Ellen Ostrom's celebration of the commons - where people that believe this tragedy of the commons, that the commons doesn't have an owner, really believe we need to put an ownership over our common land and that the only way we're going to save it then... and then... for me the real question is, does that mean that then they really own that thing and does that mean somewhere down the line, do we have to pay for that thing, as we have had to do with water. So I find that very very problematic and it raises questions about the democratic deficit I think.

Me: Are you OK for time - perhaps five more minutes

Respondent: Yep - that's fine.

Me: Just on the point of ownership, I was wondering your perspective, because I think Biodiversity Offsetting would insinuate that the private sector would provide these kind of landscapes, or biodiversity offsetting packages. What kind of opportunities or risks do you think are posed by that. Because I spoke the offsetter yesterday and her perspective was that, a lot of these communities were receiving quite severe council cuts because of austerity in the UK and the private sector could leverage biodiversity schemes to supplement the government provision of biodiversity.

Respondent: Yeah, I mean, obviously they're gonna say that and obviously if you put it in that perspective then it something which is very difficult to challenge and it immediately closes down the debate. The question is, is our environment, which is a commons, in the public interest, is that something that should be provided by the public y'know and we should prioritise that and y'know if it is so god damn economically valuable, isn't that just something we should be prioritising. Or, are we gonna go down the route as we are starting to do with health, as we are starting to do with education, that if you want a good service than the private sector is all to happy to provide money. I mean of course they are all too happy to provide money and then that's the situation where you've got to ask, they're only going to provide money if they get something out of it and y'know that's something we haven't quite grappled with as environmentalists... that they don't do anything for free. I used to work for the private sector, they really don't do something for free they're going to do something if it's in their interests, if it's in their business interests. There's no kind of warm, fuzzy, private sector world. That exists in CSR and it's about 0.1 percent - if not less. So y'know, that we're living in a hard economic world and they're gonna want something from that. I mean of course it's problematic that urm... that we're moving towards a model, sadly in the UK where our environmental services or environmental management or the care-taking role is being potentially handed over to the private sector. This is extremely problematic because it also raises questions not only with - I think in the offsetting discourse we often have a problem with the fact a lot of developments going to go ahead and I think we also need to start thinking what that means to the actual offset site - what does that mean in terms of access. What does that mean in terms of ... y'know if a local forest has been planted as an offset does that mean that it's then private land that you're not allowed to go into - in which case that raises questions about access to landscapes and it's the typical thing we have seen in the global south with carbon offsets and forest carbon offsets, where the offset site is something that indigenous communities are not allowed to go into. So, not only have they lost, not only is it being used to continue pollution in the global north, but it's also promoting fundamental changes to the way the community is allowed to join and access ...In many of these communities actually live off the land and directly rely on that - that poses massive social justice and livelihood and education questions. So yeah... I mean, obviously I'm going to say it's problematic and I'm going to challenge the private sector thing: Oh, we've got all this money for you... to be honest, if it's just to offset something that they've destroyed then it's not a very interesting deal.

Me: Yes, I think that's interesting. I think the perspective the offsetter is that this money is just completely socially benign and it goes straight to the like... Woodland Trust and they can use it however they wish. But as you stated there might be vested economic interests.

Respondent: Yeah... but then it is being used to offset something they have destroyed. Y'know, of course you go into the issue of - can you ever really offset something like for like. It is very very difficult, Germany has been trying to do it for the last 30 years and most often they're having to do unlike offsets because trying to recreate... At the end of the day if it's a market-based instrument they're just going to go for the cheapest possible application, so in that particular municipality it is cheaper for people to grow a grassland than a wetland than that's what they'll do.

Me: That's really really interesting. You've provided some good insight, definitely. Is there anything else you wanted to mention, just linked to the more institutional side of the EU and their direction on the Habitats Directive or Natura2000 network. Because by the sound of - the offsetter mentioned - there is very strict regulation around these Natura2000 networks, kind of saying there might not be as much conflict that is mentioned by environmentalists. But I just wanted to quickly get your perspective.

Respondent: You're starting to cut out a little bit - so I didn't catch all of that. But... I mean... at the moment there isn't any policy on the table at the EU level, so we don't have anything to worry about, but potentially if new legislation is formed which undermines those then we're in a very very bad situation in Europe. Then 50 years down the line they'll be even more proposals from the private sector to put a sticking plaster on our landscape because they'll be even more degraded, so I mean, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy really.