Conservation Planning for Offsetting the Impacts of Development: A Case Study of Biodiversity and Renewable Energy in the Mojave Desert

Balancing society’s competing needs of development and conservation requires careful consideration of tradeoffs. Renewable energy development and biodiversity conservation are often considered beneficial environmental goals. The direct footprint and disturbance of renewable energy, however, can displace species’ habitat and negatively impact populations and natural communities if sited without ecological consideration. Offsets have emerged as a potentially useful tool to mitigate residual impacts after trying to avoid, minimize, or restore affected sites. Yet the problem of efficiently designing a set of offset sites becomes increasingly complex where many species or many sites are involved. Spatial conservation prioritization tools are designed to handle this problem, but have seen little application to offset siting and analysis. To address this need we designed an offset siting support tool for the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) of California, and present a case study of hypothetical impacts from solar development in the Western Mojave subsection. We compare two offset scenarios designed to mitigate a hypothetical 15,331 ha derived from proposed utility-scale solar energy development (USSED) projects. The first scenario prioritizes offsets based precisely on impacted features, while the second scenario offsets impacts to maximize biodiversity conservation gains in the region. The two methods only agree on 28% of their prioritized sites and differ in meeting species-specific offset goals. Differences between the two scenarios highlight the importance of clearly specifying choices and priorities for offset siting and mitigation in general. Similarly, the effects of background climate and land use change may lessen the durability or effectiveness of offsets if not considered. Our offset siting support tool was designed specifically for the DRECP area, but with minor code modification could work well in other offset analyses, and could provide continuing support for a potentially innovative mitigation solution to environmental impacts.     

Development by design: mitigating wind development's impacts on wildlife in Kansas

Wind energy, if improperly sited, can impact wildlife through direct mortality and habitat loss and fragmentation, in contrast to its environmental benefits in the areas of greenhouse gas, air quality, and water quality. Fortunately, risks to wildlife from wind energy may be alleviated through proper siting and mitigation offsets. Here we identify areas in Kansas where wind development is incompatible with conservation, areas where wind development may proceed but with compensatory mitigation for impacts, and areas where development could proceed without the need for compensatory mitigation. We demonstrate that approximately 10.3 million ha in Kansas (48 percent of the state) has the potential to provide 478 GW of installed capacity while still meeting conservation goals. Of this total, approximately 2.7 million ha would require no compensatory mitigation and could produce up to 125 GW of installed capacity. This is 1,648 percent higher than the level of wind development needed in Kansas by 2030 if the United States is to get 20 percent of its electricity from wind. Projects that avoid and offset impacts consistent with this analysis could be awarded "Green Certification." Certification may help to expand and sustain the wind industry by facilitating the completion of individual projects sited to avoid sensitive areas and protecting the industry's reputation as an ecologically friendly source of electricity.     

《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》指引下中国生物多样性主流化实施路径探析

《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》制定了未来一段时期全球范围内生物多样性保护的重要行动,包括将生物多样性及其多重价值纳入经济和社会活动的主流。中国作为联合国《生物多样性公约》(CBD)缔约方之一,在持续推进生物多样性主流化方面作出了不懈努力且成效显著。该文通过探讨解析生物多样性主流化的概念内涵,梳理总结我国生物多样性主流化的具体实践和阶段成效,对标《昆明-蒙特利尔全球生物多样性框架》目标,围绕政府、企业、公众不同行为主体,提出新时期我国全方位推进生物多样性主流化的4个主要实施路径:(1)引入统一的行动框架;(2)发挥政府治理的主导作用;(3)联动企业采取共同行动;(4)提高公众意识以促进其广泛参与,致力于将生物多样性融入各级政府部门政策机制及社会生产生活实践活动中,为完善生物多样性治理决策提供参考。     

Policy Development for Environmental Licensing and Biodiversity Offsets in Latin America

Attempts to meet biodiversity goals through application of the mitigation hierarchy have gained wide traction globally with increased development of public policy, lending standards, and corporate practices. With interest in biodiversity offsets increasing in Latin America, we seek to strengthen the basis for policy development through a review of major environmental licensing policy frameworks in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. Here we focused our review on an examination of national level policies to evaluate to which degree current provisions promote positive environmental outcomes. All the surveyed countries have national-level Environmental Impact Assessment laws or regulations that cover the habitats present in their territories. Although most countries enable the use of offsets only Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru explicitly require their implementation. Our review has shown that while advancing quite detailed offset policies, most countries do not seem to have strong requirements regarding impact avoidance. Despite this deficiency most countries have a strong foundation from which to develop policy for biodiversity offsets, but several issues require further guidance, including how best to: (1) ensure conformance with the mitigation hierarchy; (2) identify the most environmentally preferable offsets within a landscape context; (3) determine appropriate mitigation replacement ratios; and (4) ensure appropriate time and effort is given to monitor offset performance.     

Carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation using macroalgae: a state of knowledge review

The conservation, restoration, and improved management of terrestrial forests significantly contributes to mitigate climate change and its impacts, as well as providing numerous co-benefits. The pressing need to reduce emissions and increase carbon removal from the atmosphere is now also leading to the development of natural climate solutions in the ocean. Interest in the carbon sequestration potential of underwater macroalgal forests is growing rapidly among policy, conservation, and corporate sectors. Yet, our understanding of whether carbon sequestration from macroalgal forests can lead to tangible climate change mitigation remains severely limited, hampering their inclusion in international policy or carbon finance frameworks. Here, we examine the results of over 180 publications to synthesise evidence regarding macroalgal forest carbon sequestration potential. We show that research efforts on macroalgae carbon sequestration are heavily skewed towards particulate organic carbon (POC) pathways (77% of data publications), and that carbon fixation is the most studied flux (55%). Fluxes leading directly to carbon sequestration (e.g. carbon export or burial in marine sediments) remain poorly resolved, likely hindering regional or country-level assessments of carbon sequestration potential, which are only available from 17 of the 150 countries where macroalgal forests occur. To solve this issue, we present a framework to categorize coastlines according to their carbon sequestration potential. Finally, we review the multiple avenues through which this sequestration can translate into climate change mitigation capacity, which largely depends on whether management interventions can increase carbon removal above a natural baseline or avoid further carbon emissions. We find that conservation, restoration and afforestation interventions on macroalgal forests can potentially lead to carbon removal in the order of 10's of Tg C globally. Although this is lower than current estimates of natural sequestration value of all macroalgal habitats (61–268 Tg C year⁻¹), it suggests that macroalgal forests could add to the total mitigation potential of coastal blue carbon ecosystems, and offer valuable mitigation opportunities in polar and temperate areas where blue carbon mitigation is currently low. Operationalizing that potential will necessitate the development of models that reliably estimate the proportion of production sequestered, improvements in macroalgae carbon fingerprinting techniques, and a rethinking of carbon accounting methodologies. The ocean provides major opportunities to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and the largest coastal vegetated habitat on Earth should not be ignored simply because it does not fit into existing frameworks.     

GIS-Based Multicriteria Evaluation and Fuzzy Sets to Identify Priority Sites for Marine Protection

There is an increasing momentum within the marine conservation community to develop representative networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) covering up to 30% of global marine habitats. However, marine conservation initiatives are perceived as uncoordinated at most levels of planning and decision-making. These initiatives also face the challenge of being in conflict with ongoing drives for sustained or increased resource extraction. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop large scale theoretical frameworks that explicitly address conflicting objectives that are embedded in the design and development of a global MPA network. Further, the frameworks must be able to guide the implementation of smaller scale initiatives within this global context. This research examines the applicability of an integrated spatial decision support framework based on geographic information systems (GIS), multicriteria evaluation (MCE) and fuzzy sets to objectively identify priority locations for future marine protection. MCE is a well-established optimisation method used extensively in land use resource allocation and decision support, and which has to date been underutilised in marine planning despite its potential to guide such efforts. The framework presented here was implemented in the Pacific Canadian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) using two conflicting objectives - biodiversity conservation and fisheries profit-maximisation. The results indicate that the GIS-based MCE framework supports the objective identification of priority locations for future marine protection. This is achieved by integrating multi-source spatial data, facilitating the simultaneous combination of multiple objectives, explicitly including stakeholder preferences in the decisions, and providing visualisation capabilities to better understand how global MPA networks might be developed under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.     

A Currency for Offsetting Energy Development Impacts: Horse-Trading Sage-Grouse on the Open Market

Background

Biodiversity offsets provide a mechanism to compensate for unavoidable damages from new energy development as the U.S. increases its domestic production. Proponents argue that offsets provide a partial solution for funding conservation while opponents contend the practice is flawed because offsets are negotiated without the science necessary to backup resulting decisions. Missing in negotiations is a biologically-based currency for estimating sufficiency of offsets and a framework for applying proceeds to maximize conservation benefits.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Here we quantify a common currency for offsets for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) by estimating number of impacted birds at 4 levels of development commonly permitted. Impacts were indiscernible at 1–12 wells per 32.2 km². Above this threshold lek losses were 2–5 times greater inside than outside of development and bird abundance at remaining leks declined by −32 to −77%. Findings reiterated the importance of time-lags as evidenced by greater impacts 4 years after initial development. Clustering well locations enabled a few small leks to remain active inside of developments.

Conclusions/Significance

Documented impacts relative to development intensity can be used to forecast biological trade-offs of newly proposed or ongoing developments, and when drilling is approved, anticipated bird declines form the biological currency for negotiating offsets.Monetary costs for offsets will be determined by true conservation cost to mitigate risks such as sagebrush tillage to other populations of equal or greater number. If this information is blended with landscape level conservation planning, the mitigation hierarchy can be improved by steering planned developments away from conservation priorities, ensuring compensatory mitigation projects deliver a higher return for conservation that equate to an equal number of birds in the highest priority areas, provide on-site mitigation recommendations, and provide a biologically based cost for mitigating unavoidable impacts.     

Traits-based approaches support the conservation relevance of landscape genetics

Calls for evaluating general principles in landscape genetics reflect a broader recognition that multispecies inference is a promising strategy for supporting conservation actions across wide-ranging taxonomies and geographies. Formal evaluation of frameworks for multispecies inference is critical to identify opportunities for generalization and to avoid misguided extrapolation that results in ineffective conservation and management efforts. Traits-based approaches are now widely recognized as useful in addressing knowledge gaps where species-specific data may not be available or feasible to obtain. Here we present a case for the application of traits-based approaches in landscape genetics to improve conservation application. We discuss the fundamental theoretical framework and growing empirical evidence supporting the utility of traits-based approaches in landscape genetics, and we highlight an example of the implementation of traits to predict landscape genetic relationships for a range of aquatic taxa native to the southwestern United States. Finally, we discuss opportunities, challenges, and future directions of using traits to characterize landscape genetic relationships. Ultimately, traits-based approaches can help address growing calls for the development and testing of general principles in landscape genetics in order to improve application to conservation challenges.     

Framework to improve the application of theory in ecology and conservation

Ecological theory often fails applied ecologists in three ways: (1) Theory has little predictive value but is nevertheless applied in conservation with a risk of perverse outcomes, (2) individual theories have limited heuristic value for planning and framing research because they are narrowly focused, and (3) theory can lead to poor communication among scientists and hinder scientific progress through inconsistent use of terms and widespread redundancy. New approaches are therefore needed that improve the distillation, communication, and application of ecological theory. We advocate three approaches to resolve these problems: (1) improve prediction by reviewing theory across case studies to develop contingent theory where possible, (2) plan new research using a checklist of phenomena to avoid the narrow heuristic value of individual theories, and (3) improve communication among scientists by rationalizing theory associated with particular phenomena to purge redundancy and by developing definitions for key terms. We explored the extent to which these problems and solutions have been featured in two case studies of long-term ecological research programs in forests and plantations of southeastern Australia. We found that our main contentions were supported regarding the prediction, planning, and communication limitations of ecological theory. We illustrate how inappropriate application of theory can be overcome or avoided by investment in boundary-spanning actions. The case studies also demonstrate how some of our proposed solutions could work, particularly the use of theory in secondary case studies after developing primary case studies without theory. When properly coordinated and implemented through a widely agreed upon and broadly respected international collaboration, the framework that we present will help to speed the progress of ecological research and lead to better conservation decisions.     

Basic mathematical errors may make ecological assessments unreliable

Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) are used globally as the evidence-base for planning decisions, yet their efficacy is uncertain. Given that EIAs are extremely expensive and are enshrined in legislation, their place in evidence-based decision making deserves evaluation. The mean is the most commonly used summary statistic in ecological assessments, yet it is unlikely to be a good summary where the distribution of data is skewed; and its use without any indication of variability can be highly misleading. Here, using bats as an example, we show that EIAs frequently summarise these data using the mean or fail to define the term ‘average’. This can lead to the systematic misinterpretation of evidence which has serious implications for assessing risk. There is therefore a pressing need for guidance to specify data processing techniques so that planning decisions are made on a firm evidence-base. By ensuring that data processing is systematic and transparent it will result in mitigation decisions and conservation strategies that are cost-effective and proportionate to the predicted degree of risk.     

Winners and losers of national and global efforts to reconcile agricultural intensification and biodiversity conservation

Closing yield gaps within existing croplands, and thereby avoiding further habitat conversions, is a prominently and controversially discussed strategy to meet the rising demand for agricultural products, while minimizing biodiversity impacts. The agricultural intensification associated with such a strategy poses additional threats to biodiversity within agricultural landscapes. The uneven spatial distribution of both yield gaps and biodiversity provides opportunities for reconciling agricultural intensification and biodiversity conservation through spatially optimized intensification. Here, we integrate distribution and habitat information for almost 20,000 vertebrate species with land‐cover and land‐use datasets. We estimate that projected agricultural intensification between 2000 and 2040 would reduce the global biodiversity value of agricultural lands by 11%, relative to 2000. Contrasting these projections with spatial land‐use optimization scenarios reveals that 88% of projected biodiversity loss could be avoided through globally coordinated land‐use planning, implying huge efficiency gains through international cooperation. However, global‐scale optimization also implies a highly uneven distribution of costs and benefits, resulting in distinct “winners and losers” in terms of national economic development, food security, food sovereignty or conservation. Given conflicting national interests and lacking effective governance mechanisms to guarantee equitable compensation of losers, multinational land‐use optimization seems politically unlikely. In turn, 61% of projected biodiversity loss could be avoided through nationally focused optimization, and 33% through optimization within just 10 countries. Targeted efforts to improve the capacity for integrated land‐use planning for sustainable intensification especially in these countries, including the strengthening of institutions that can arbitrate subnational land‐use conflicts, may offer an effective, yet politically feasible, avenue to better reconcile future trade‐offs between agriculture and conservation. The efficiency gains of optimization remained robust when assuming that yields could only be increased to 80% of their potential. Our results highlight the need to better integrate real‐world governance, political and economic challenges into sustainable development and global change mitigation research.     

Wind Power Compensation is not for the Birds: An Opinion from an Environmental Economist

This article advocates for better implementation of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) framework as applied to wind power development, with a particular focus on improving compensatory restoration scaling. If properly enforced, the environmental impacts hierarchy “avoid‐minimize‐compensate” provides the regulated community with incentives to prevent wildlife and habitat impacts in sensitive areas and, if necessary, compensate for residual impacts through restoration or conservation projects. Given the increase in legislation requiring resource‐based environmental compensation, methods for scaling an appropriate quantity and quality of resources are of increasing relevance. I argue that Equivalency Analysis (EA) represents a transparent and quantitative approach for scaling compensation in the case of wind power development. Herein, I identify the economic underpinnings of environmental compensation legislation and identify weaknesses in current scaling approaches within wind power development. I demonstrate how the recently completed REMEDE toolkit, which provides guidance on EA, can inform an improved scaling approach and summarize a case study involving raptor collisions with turbines that illustrates the EA approach. Finally, I stress the need for further contributions from the field of restoration ecology. The success of ex ante compensation in internalizing the environmental costs of wind development depends on the effective implementation of the environmental impacts hierarchy, which must effectively encourage avoidance and minimization over environmental restoration and repair.     

Perceived human–elephant conflict and its impact for elephant conservation in northern Congo

Human–elephant conflict is a common conservation problem throughout Africa, but poorly studied where forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) occur. Here, we investigated people's perceptions towards the impact of elephants around Nouabalé‐Ndoki National Park, northern Congo. We aimed to understand the perceptual differences amongst residents of four villages that varied substantially in the degree of conservation benefits received. We used a multivariate analysis to investigate how socio‐economic variables, such as employment, wealth, education and ethnicity, influenced perceptions. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, we found that the majority of respondents experienced elephant impacts, mainly through crop raiding. Residents of the village where the local conservation project is based had significantly more positive perceptions of elephants, whereas perceptions of farmers were mostly negative. We identified some misunderstandings regarding the responsibilities of elephant impact mitigation regarding benefit sharing, stakeholder involvement and lawbreaking, but also willingness to apply mitigation measures. To mitigate the prevalent impact of elephants, a comprehensive approach of measuring impact, exploring community‐based mitigating strategies and understanding of the root causes of the conflict is crucial. We propose a long‐term programme within logging concessions organizing groups of farmers to cooperate on mitigation techniques and explore alternative incomes.     

Maximising return on conservation investment in the conterminous USA

Efficient conservation planning requires knowledge about conservation targets, threats to those targets, costs of conservation and the marginal return to additional conservation efforts. Systematic conservation planning typically only takes a small piece of this complex puzzle into account. Here, we use a return‐on‐investment (ROI) approach to prioritise lands for conservation at the county level in the conterminous USA. Our approach accounts for species richness, county area, the proportion of species' ranges already protected, the threat of land conversion and land costs. Areas selected by a complementarity‐based greedy heuristic using our full ROI approach provided greater averted species losses per dollar spent compared with areas selected by heuristics accounting for richness alone or richness and cost, and avoided acquiring lands not threatened with conversion. In contrast to traditional prioritisation approaches, our results highlight conservation bargains, opportunities to avert the threat of development and places where conservation efforts are currently lacking.     

基于层次分析-有序加权平均多准则评估的雄安新区生态安全格局模拟研究

稳定、高效的生态安全格局对于"建设雄安新区"国家战略具有重大意义。然而,目前尚缺乏一套科学、弹性的规划方法,用于指导新区建设。采用层次分析(AHP)和有序加权平均(OWA)空间多准则评估方法,结合Google Earth Engine遥感云计算技术和InVEST模型,在量化生态系统服务和生态风险的基础上,模拟新区生态安全格局。首先,生态安全格局涉及众多专业领域,内涵较为丰富,决策过程应采用参与式方法,建立包含生态环境和社会经济因素在内的综合指标体系,奠定格局构建的决策基础;其次,AHP-OWA方法按不同决策情景(风险),提供了一整套"完全保护—中立—完全开发"的空间决策集,定量揭示"保护—开发"权衡关系,为格局构建提供充足决策支持;最后,白洋淀保护地以及启动和起步区建设,会对生态安全格局产生重要影响,所以构建工作应在科学规划启动和起步区建设的同时,围绕白洋淀开展。未来在"绿色生态宜居新城区"目标指引下,新区建设方案应以"保护优先"为基本原则,结合重要区域、现有规划和资金预算等要素共同确定,实现保护与开发的"双赢"。     

Direct and indirect interactions with vegetation shape crocodylian ecology at multiple scales

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The impact of biomass crop cultivation on temperate biodiversity

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A planning framework based on system theory and GIS for urban emergency shelter system: A case of Guangzhou,China

The urban emergency shelter is of great significance to disaster prevention and mitigation. In China, the demand is enormous for emergency shelters while their construction generally lags behind the economic and social development, which has resulted in heavy casualties and economic losses. This article considers emergency shelters as a complete system from systemic perspective and also proposes a planning framework for emergency shelter system, including the function, hierarchy, type, scale, layout, standard, and supporting-service system of the shelters. Then, an empirical study applying the framework in GIS platform in the urban emergency shelter planning of Guangzhou city was conducted and highly valued by local experts and citizens as a feasible scheme to guide the construction of emergency shelters, indicating that the framework is an appropriate tool for urban emergency shelter planning.     

Managing biodiversity under climate change: challenges,frameworks, and tools for adaptation

The myriad challenges facing biodiversity under climate change are reflected in the challenges facing managers planning for these impacts. An ever-expanding number of recommendations and tools for climate change adaptation exist to aid managers in these efforts, yet navigating these various resources can lead to information overload and paralysis in decision-making. Here we provide a synthesis of the key considerations, approaches, and available tools for integrating climate change adaptation into management plans. We discuss principal elements in climate change adaptation—incorporating uncertainty through scenario planning and adaptive management—and review three leading frameworks for incorporating climate change adaptation into place-based biodiversity conservation planning. Finally, we identify the following key questions needed for long-term conservation planning and review the associated tools and techniques needed to address them: (1) How is the climate projected to change in my study area?; (2) How are non-climatic stressors projected to change?; (3) How vulnerable are species to climate change impacts?; (4) How are species ranges likely to respond?; and (5) How are management strategies expected to affect outcomes? In doing so, we aim to aid natural resource managers in navigating the burgeoning field of climate change adaptation planning and provide managers a roadmap for managing biodiversity under climate change.     

Incorporating climate change adaptation into marine protected area planning

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