Respondent 4 (Academic Researcher)
Interviewer(s): Me
Interviewee(s): Respondent

Me: So as you know the project is designed to elicit stakeholder attitudes to biodiversity offsetting. I wanted to study it because there is quite a low level of scholarship on biodiversity offsetting in the UK and it intersects with a lot of environmental discourses - making it quite an interesting topic. I think the first place to probably start is the 'License to Trash' rhetoric that is sometimes associated with biodiversity. To what extent do you think biodiversity offsetting undermines of enhances current regulations around infrastructure development?

Respondent: So, when I first, coming from an academic rather than a consultant ecologist background, probably the first thing to say, so I'm not particularly up on all the legal framework and the current practice with that. Certainly when I speak to people and from what I know and research that I did the license to trash thing is kind of the first thing that comes up when you first explain biodiversity offsetting to either a member of the public or probably more consultant ecologist that haven't heard the term before, or environmental groups - that seems to be where it's coming from. I think that's quite an understandable gut emotional reaction and fear because there are examples from abroad where it has happened in that way in the past. But my viewpoint from the research that I did and the people that I spoke to is that it's a tool and a tool can be applied in many different ways depending on the people who apply the tool and the economic and political climate we are within. So, from the examples that I saw biodiversity offsetting at its best could be a fantastic way to deliver biodiversity gain, to deliver the stuff called for in the Lawton Report, so it could be real gains for nature, these real big visions, to link up areas of small isolated nature reserves in a larger matrix which is from an ecological point of need - really what we need and what Sir John Lawton was calling for in his report. On the other side of the pendulum swing, there's a possibility that the biodiversity offsetting in quotes could be misapplied without the specific rules, checks and balances that are needed for it truly to be biodiversity offsetting within the mitigation hierarchy and in that case, it could be a complete license to trash. I do have fears that the way things seem to have gone over the last year or two, the way the pilots were run, some of the rhetoric that is coming out of government at the moment, I do have fears it's not going to be applied to the gold standard of biodiversity offsetting.

Me: Speaking to some of the offsetters, they were saying there is a lack of congruence between ecologists or people within the same profession. These ecological consultants, there's no standard or mainstreamed way of applying biodiversity offsetting and there is such a disparity between how it's applied.

Respondent: Yeah, I think that's because there are - first of all there are different ways of doing it - in Australia, the offsetting they do, their bush broker scheme, you have to have quite extensive training and be certified and then do things in a particular way. Obviously, because it's still developing in here there's confusion and some local authorities have gone ahead and some ecologists have gone ahead and used biodiversity offsetting in one way that is used in a different way. The CIEEM have recognised this and there is a conference early next year and they are working on improving the debate at least among ecologists and get some proper standards about how that happens. So, probably because it's new here, there is difference among ecologists about how it's be applied and viewed within the places it's applied.

Me: Assuming that it is applied quite effectively and the goals were achieved, should it be made mandatory for businesses with every kind of infrastructure development?

Respondent: So from the people I spoke to and research, my view would be that it doesn't make sense for it not to be mandatory, I think it either has to be not used at all or be within a mandatory system. What we have seen with the pilots is that the pilots are voluntary, it just wasn't making sense, people on the ground involved in the pilots were saying we're having real trouble getting developers to sign up to this, it's this new thing - why would they sign up for this, when it's voluntary, if they can't see the benefits for it yet. So, I would suggest that it would need to be part of a mandatory system that is really well controlled, not a crazy one it could develop into.

Me: After speaking to one of the campaigning organisations, the respondent was saying there might be rogue traders that crop up if there is no regulatory system of certified offsetters.

Respondent: Absolutely, there's a real problem, I think we've seen some of that in the US going on as well. I know The Environment Bank are very keen to be part of a legal framework and mandatory system - they are concerned there could be rogue traders and which undercut them and don’t applying things in the proper way.

Me: Maybe there are parallels between carbon offsetting and biodiversity offsetting in that there is a race to the bottom in providing the cheapest offsets?

Respondent: Absolutely, that's the risk when you make it a market system. There can be advantages of it being a market system, but that is a risk. Certainly people that are negative about BO were pointing to CO world and what's going on there.

Me: More from an equity point of view: when people undertake BO, do you think affected communities are remunerated, or should they be, is it always practical?

Respondent: The situation in the UK is very different to where it has happened in other places in Australia. We're both the way that our landscape is, we have changing landscape at finer spatial scales, compared to Australia. We have a social system which emphasises... as ecologists we are clear of the importance of engaging people with nature and generally the point of view as we are taught as ecologists is that it's very important to engage with local people to engage with nature and we need to consider them all the time. Whereas I get the impression in the US and Australia, there's a different point of view because they have more wilderness landscapes. From an ecological point of view there are advantages and disadvantages of having people - there are different degrees of engagement and advantages and disadvantages of having people involved in your nature reserve. If you think about a nature reserve and coming in and using it a lot and in term of health benefits that's really clear that's important. In some situations that's fine. But in other situations where you really don't want people to be coming in to your nature reserve - they might be able to appreciate it, or have their access managed in many ways. For example, down near the Dorset Heathlands area that has been heavily fragmented, as you chop and chop and chop these heathlands up and get increased edge area you get more housing close to heathlands, dog walking can significantly impact on your wildlife. So, some ecologists are more from the hands-off POV and some have characterised BO as being about that, we're trying to get these large areas that we're trying to join up and therefore that's a kind of ‘hand off - keep people out’ thing.

Me: So is it more ecological compensation than social and community?

Respondent: It’s a really difficult one and I think it will be by a case by case basis. But if we’re going with the way it is set up now that lower biodiversity areas that are built on are gonna be offset with higher quality biodiversity offset areas that might be a smaller size or that we are improving the quality of existing areas that should be higher biodiversity. You could end up that areas that aren’t particularly valuable, say small areas of woodland or scrub arable farmland, from a biodiversity point of view you could get gains but you could get differential access to nature.

Me: Have stakeholders been included at the local level?

Respondent: My point of view is that yes it would be really important to be including local stakeholders but considering the other part of my research looking at the local authorities and the resources they have yes it would be really important to have that process happening and be including ... but considering the way ecological impact assessment is happening at the moment, even without extra need for considering BO, there's not the resources there to do this process. The less you have particular local authorities that have very engaged planning officers, or particularly have ecologists actually employed by the local authorities or a very strong relationship with ecologists that are used by the local authority, then there's a risk that that process doesn't happen and the local people are ignored. The other way would be to have a developer that very strongly wanted to take part in that process and you might have developers that are like that because that's very important for their PR, but that kind of needs to be managed in a way, otherwise you end up with people at loggerheads and no constructive debate at all I guess. I don't really know to what extent that has or hasn't happened. I think looking abroad and saying this happened here so that's gonna happen here isn't necessarily true because I think we have a very different situation in the UK to the US or Australia. I'd say, look at the planning system at the moment, look at the flaws in it. The real lack of ecologists. The biodiversity duty just not being properly considered at all within many local authorities.

Me: Is it a resource problem?

Respondent: It's a resource problem, it's massive cuts within local authorities, the ecology.

Me: this cropped up a lot in the interviews.

Respondent: This was happening before this...

Me: This signals the entry of the private sector into conservation. It obviously presents opportunities and risks. What kind of opportunities and risks do you think it poses?

Respondent: Do you mean in terms of having consultant ecologists being involved in the process?

Me: From the point of view of of offsetters and then the developers creating pots of money for wildlife trusts.

Respondent: There is a massive opportunity there for conservation and it could be really exciting if it's done as an additional and that causes a fear, that this money that is meant to be additional to enhance areas or give additional land around SSSIs might creep into what should be the statutory duty of government to be funding, that that could end up being used private money. I suppose a pragmatist would say look what the situation is at the moment, if we want there to be funding for nature conservation this is the way we are going to have to go. So it's a difficult one.

Me: What happens, this is what no one has been able to fathom. What happens to the biodiversity offsetting site, does it go into private hands and also, does it acquire some kind of new status? Or can you build on a biodiversity offset site?

Respondent: That would just completely defeat the object if you could build on a biodiversity offsetting site. But without the proper legal framework in place, which I believe, .... lot of talk about conservation covenance, but...

Me: what is conservation covenance?

Respondent: The government have asked a legal body, looking at law and offsetting land. There might be a law about what you can do with a site between 50-100 years. From an ecological perspective, you need to have at least a 100 year agreement in order to bring it up to this standard. It is gonna have to be for at least 100 years. When I was speaking to landowners and particularly farmers. If we want to get farmers involved, that would be a real way to provide large areas we want. But farmers work in sort of next year and five year, 10 year cycles. They can't be sure the money from having this offset, that is going to still be viable economically if we want to have people other than simply the wildlife trust and conservation organisations being part of managing offsets, you've gotta sort the legal framework out before that happens.

Me: Will there be an incentive for more conservation to be outsourced to the private sector if they can undercut the well recognised conservation organisations?

Respondent: Businesses cropping up to carrying out offsetting rather than just being the broker? I didn't get a feeling as to how people thought about that. It might be seen as a high business risk. This is why we need to have checks on biodiversity offsetting sites that actually they are being brought up to the quality required for this number of units and managed through time and not degraded.

Me: What do you think of the emphasis on market based instruments for conservation?

Respondent: From a pragmatic point of view we do need to embrace them, as a tool to get people to see the hidden value of nature and the ecosystem services we get from nature, because at the moment, a lot of the time in decision making, I get the feeling within government, conservation is an added extra thing that you tack on the side. The current coalition said what's good for business is good for the environment, vice versa. I'm not sure that attitude has run deep yet.

Me: How should we use the numbers? As a tool for agenda building or to guide policy

Respondent: I think the number should be used as a rough indicator, not as an absolute: this is the value of this in absolute terms. There are certain habitats where we shouldn't get money involved, that are ecologically irreplaceable because we can't rebuild them in any reasonable time scale. From an ecologically point of view, there are great benefits to show it translates. If we get into a complete viewpoint where everything we can put a monetary value on it and all into economic terms and not consider our moral and almost spiritual need for nature then that's quite a depauperate way of viewing nature, so I think you can use those tools with caution. But you need to step outside that and recognise both the irreplaceable aspects of nature and moral, intrinsic aspects of nature you can't value. It will depend on how you apply the tools. We are meant to have a system where we are using the mitigation hierarchy. But on the ground we're not applying the mitigation hierarchy. Talking from the point of view of some developers : Nature is fluffy animals and nature can be moved, not nature or biodiversity as a whole system. At the moment, the current framework is habitat-focused. There is still the whole legal framework, so biodiversity offsetting can't wash over that. Where biodiversity offsetting should be is as part of the biodiversity mitigation hierarchy so you tick the legal boxes for particular species. But you should start right at the beginning with avoidance, about where is appropriate. There are ecologists which aren't certified. I don't see it as a substitute for avoidance and mitigation. I can see on the ground, the things on the ground implemented for mitigation, there has been no research done on them at all as to whether they actually work. I would call for more research into mitigation techniques and whether these techniques work. On failure of bat bridges that are really expensive it's not protecting the bat population. It's almost as if it's there as a tick box for the developer to say look: we built this nice shiny thing, it's a bat bridge for bats to cross the road so they don't get squashed and you keep these populations connected. We've spent a lot of money and it's not ecologically delivering at all. I see offsetting slotting in at the compensation stage because compensation simply isn't happening. If you put the footprint of a building down, I'm not convinced you're getting no net loss, however great your mitigation is.

Me: I spoke to people who said they had achieved net gain on their last three projects.

Respondent: This is the other can of worms it opens up because people calling biodiversity a number, you're not quantifying biodiversity, you're putting a number on something that kind of represents what we can measure. I guess the current way, with the matrix, it's using a consultant’s knowledge and experience and putting it in broad brush strokes about how much biodiversity is on a site. But if people start thinking that this is a highly developed science then there is a risk. If people say, we are achieving net gain because we have ‘this much biodiversity’, these numbers are broad representatives to try to do better than we do at the moment, but compared to some other schemes they are quite laughable in their simplicity.