Tag: Geographic North America

23 February 2015 | A two-year assessment of the potential to develop blue carbon projects on Louisiana’s coast estimates  that carbon finance revenue can provide up to $1.6 billion in critical funding to assist with wetland restoration over the next 50 years. The study, supported by Entergy Corporation through their Environmental Initiatives Fund, and prepared in partnership by New Orleans-based Tierra Resources and Portland-based nonprofit The Climate Trust, examines existing wetland restoration techniques—river diversions, hydrologic restoration, wetland assimilation, and mangrove plantings—identifying areas for future scientific investigation to support carbon offset programs.

Findings from the report will be shared by Tierra Resources and the American Carbon Registry at a free national webinar, scheduled for March 5, 2015, at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time.

Initial study findings showed that restoration in Louisiana has the potential to produce over 1.8 million offsets per year; almost 92 million offsets over 50 years. This is the equivalent of taking approximately 350 thousand cars off the road each year or 20 million cars off the road over 50 years.  Wetland restoration techniques identified in this study could potentially generate $400 million to $1 billion in offset revenue depending on the dollar value of the carbon offset—with the potential for almost $630 million more by including prevented wetland loss in the carbon accounting.

Entergy’s commitment to the study stems from the company’s mission to create sustainable value for all its stakeholders. Wetlands play a crucial role in storm protection for many Entergy communities, helping preserve industries, businesses, homes, and livelihoods along with Entergy’s own facilities and assets.

“Entergy was pleased to be able to sponsor this important work and help unlock the huge potential for wetland carbon credits in Louisiana,” said Chuck Barlow, vice president for environmental strategy & policy for Entergy Corporation. “By capitalizing on the economic benefits offered through carbon credits, more of Louisiana’s wetlands can be restored and preserved. Eventually, this work in Louisiana can be expanded to address other critical wetland areas throughout the nation and the world, making this study a first step, with the potential for major global impact.”

Of the restoration techniques studied, forested wetlands that receive treated municipal effluent, referred to as wetland assimilation systems, have the highest net offset yield per acre. However, it was concluded that river diversions and mangrove plantings have the potential to generate the largest volume of offsets in Louisiana due to the huge amount of acreage upon which these restoration techniques can be implemented. Additionally, carbon offsets from wetland assimilation systems and river diversions show potential to be stacked with water quality credits should these markets evolve in Louisiana.

The primary barrier to wetland carbon commercialization that was identified through this study is the high cost of wetland restoration. Carbon finance will likely lead to new public-private partnerships that leverage carbon funds with government restoration dollars to stimulate investment into wetland projects.

“The results of this study demonstrate that carbon finance has substantial potential to generate important revenue to support wetland restoration,” said lead author Dr. Sarah Mack, President and CEO of Tierra Resources. “Furthermore, this study points to Louisiana as an innovator of creative financing strategies for wetland restoration, and as creating new investment opportunities that will yield substantial economic and environmental benefits.”

The American Carbon Registry, a leading voluntary and California compliance Cap-and-Trade Offset Project Registry, in 2012 approved a methodology developed by Tierra Resources, which quantifies the greenhouse gas emission reductions and carbon sequestration associated with restoring degraded deltaic wetlands in the Mississippi Delta. This methodology allows landowners and project developers to document, quantify, and seek verification for the GHG benefit of their wetland restoration projects, ultimately leading to certified offset credits that can be sold as carbon credits in the voluntary market.

“Carbon markets provide economic incentives for reducing carbon emissions, as well as an important and innovative approach to finance environmental restoration and conservation,” said Dick Kempka, vice president of business development for The Climate Trust. “The opportunity to engage in this emerging sector and help provide a path for wetlands restoration to enter the carbon markets has been an exciting journey.”

The restoration of the Mississippi River Delta and the storage of blue carbon (the carbon captured by coastal ecosystems) is of national significance. The economic health of much of the United States depends on sustaining the navigation, flood control, energy production, and seafood resources of this valuable deltaic river system. Each of those functions is currently at severe risk due to a coastal wetland loss rate of approximately one football field an hour.

“Wetland restoration provides a wealth of benefits including storm surge reduction, habitat preservation, carbon sequestration and recreation; as well as job creation, and economic development that are vital to Louisiana’s sustainability and resilience,” states Michael Hecht, President & CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc. “By innovating creative financing solutions for coastal restoration, local companies like Tierra Resources are contributing to the growing hub of Emerging Environmental expertise that can be found in Greater New Orleans.”

1 January 2015 | Water flowing from Colorado watersheds are critical to many US states. Snowmelt sliding down the Rocky Mountains feeds rivers like the Colorado and Arkansas that supplies western states with a water source. But the catastrophic wildfire that has been tearing through the southwestern state in an increasingly more violent way puts the headwaters of these waterways in jeopardy.

The late 1990s and early 2000s saw two fires that together burned 150,000 acres of forestland and dumped 40 years’ worth of sediment into the Strontia Springs Reservoir. Strontia Springs is a key source of water. It helps supply the 1.3 million customers of Denver Water, a water provider, with clean water. The cleanup effort from those fires cost Denver $26 million on water quality, restoration, reclamation and sediment drainage beginning in 1996 after the first fire-Buffalo Creek Fire.

Fire suppression has made wildfire intensity that much worse. But fire isn’t the only threat Colorado’s watersheds are facing. Bark beetle and flooding plus a changing climate all pose a risk to Colorado’s forests and the water that runs through them.

Because of these threats-among others-various Colorado water providers have paid over $13 million in watershed investments and forged partnerships to identify and address problems plaguing the state’s forest ecosystems. These activities were highlighted last month during a webinar that showcased findings from Ecosystem Marketplace’s latest State of Watershed Investments report.

‘Prevent another Strontia Springs’ became a rallying cry for Colorado residents pressing for proactive forest and watershed management.

“It was a wake-up call for Denver that they needed to be in the watershed business, not just the water storage and delivery business,” says Heidi Huber-Stearns, a PhD candidate in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship at Colorado State University and also the presenter on Colorado during last month’s webinar.

The upstream watersheds of important waterways like the Colorado and Arkansas rivers fall primarily on land controlled by federal agencies like the Forest Service and the National Park Service. So in 2010 Denver Water partnered with the US Forest Service to address key challenges that included reducing wildfire and minimizing current erosion and reservoir sedimentation. To date, the Colorado water provider has paid the Forest Service $11 million to address these issues through forest thinning or fuel treatments, prescribed burning and erosion control.

Denver’s program is famous and has received national and international attention as a model to be adopted in other states and regions struggling with similar issues. It, along with more wildfire damage, influenced four other such partnerships to occur in Colorado. Aurora Water’s collaboration with the US Forest Service was the first in 2011. Aurora Water is a major water provider in the Colorado Front Range.

And after the record-setting High Park and Waldo Canyon Fires in 2012, water provider Northern Water, initiated the Colorado-Big Thompson Project together with the Bureau of Reclamation, US Forest Service and the Colorado Forest Service. The project restores forest and watershed health while also maintaining the hydropower facilities located in the Big Thompson reservoir.

The Waldo Canyon Fire was a deciding factor for another water company as well. After dealing with the aftermath of that fire along with another harrowing blaze the following year- the Black Forest Fire, which topped the Waldo Canyon Fire as the most destructive fire in Colorado history-the Colorado Springs Utilities partnered with the US Forest Service in 2013 following a similar model. Also in 2013, the Pueblo Board of Water Works forged a partnership with the same federal agency over wildfire risk and forest and watershed health.

Combined, investments in these programs led to some 21,000 acres of land undergoing fuel treatments to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire. These programs are relatively new, however, and how they will play out remains an open question.

But Huber-Stearns says they have made a lot of progress already. “The collaboration, planning and work that’s been done on the ground so far have really been invaluable in addressing current risks that we face as well as what we anticipate we’ll face with the changing climate.”

22 December 2014 | Washington state will jump back on board the cap-and-trade bandwagon, if Governor Jay Inslee gets his way.

As a member of the US Congress, Inslee was one of the major backers of a comprehensive climate bill that barely passed the House of Representatives in 2009 and his desire to put a price on carbon in his state was no secret. In April 2014, he signed an executive order to address carbon pollution and take action on clean energy, and it was widely expected that the taskforce established by the order would recommend some type of carbon pricing program. That expectation became reality on Wednesday when Inslee released a proposal for a cap-and-trade program.

The Evergreen State’s proposed program would cover an estimated 130 facilities and fuel distributors operating in the state that emit more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per year. The transportation sector is by far the largest contributor to the state’s GHG emissions at 46%. The proposed program would exclude the agriculture (6% of GHG emissions) and waste management (4% of GHG emissions) sectors and all emissions from biofuels and biomass.

In 2008, Washington’s state legislature adopted targets to reduce state-wide GHG emissions to 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, or 44 million metric tons. In 2009, however, the legislature voted against joining the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) the cross-border carbon trading program that, at its height, included seven US states and four Canadian provinces as members. Today, the WCI only features British Columbia, California and Quebec pricing carbon the latter two officially linking their cap-and-trade programs this year.

Following California’s example

Many policy watchers expected Washington’s program to closely emulate California’s cap-and-trade program. Those expectations turned into reality as many of the proposed provisions of Washington’s program match California’s program exactly, which could smooth the path for a potential linkage between the states. For example, the plan would allow the use of offsets to cover up to 8% of a regulated entity’s annual emissions.

“This is a very strong proposal from one of the strongest climate champions out there, said Derek Walker, Associate Vice President of the US Climate and Energy Program of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “This cap-and-trade proposal puts a price on pollution in Washington for the first time, and borrows many of the elements that have proven successful in California and elsewhere while tailoring the program design and the investment recommendations to address pressing needs and priorities of Washingtonians. Governor Inslee has laid out a sensible, forward-looking proposal that opens the door to collaboration with other states that have or are developing carbon markets, offering the prospect of even more impact at a lower cost.

The Washington proposal would also make offset buyers liable for the integrity of the offsets, following the lead of California’scontroversial buyers’ liability provisions. The state plans to use the lessons learned by other programs in California, the Northeast states and Europe to protect against any potential market manipulation in its cap-and-trade program, said Kristin Eberhard, Senior Researcher on climate change and energy issues for the Sightline Institute, a Northwest-focused sustainable policy think-tank.

“Europe learned the hard way that a poorly designed offsets program can open the door for scurrilous companies to manipulate regulators, so Washington will have tight controls on offsets: they must be approved projects, no more than 8% of emissions, independently verified, and purchasers of offsets are liable for their integrity,she said.

But the Washington proposal differs from California and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon trading program in the Northeast in several key ways, Eberhard observed. The proposal calls for 100% auctions, meaning no free giveaways to polluters, she said. California allocates some allowances for free to regulated entities and the RGGI program falls shy of 100% auctioning.

The RGGI program also only covers the power sector, accounting for 22% of the emissions of the participating states while California’s program covered 45% of emissions during the first two years, although it will ramp up to 85% of the state’s economy next year when transportation fuels and other sectors are phased into the program. Inslee’s plan starts with 85% coverage from the beginning of the program.

Next steps

With allowance prices likely starting at about $12 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, the plan estimates that regulated entities will pay $947 million in state fiscal year 2017 (the program starts July 1, 2016). About $780 million would be invested in education and transportation programs, according to the proposal.

Inslee must still contend with a Republican-led state Senate where some legislators and industry associates are gearing up to oppose the proposal. Washington’s next legislative session is scheduled to begin on January 12, 2015.

“The oil companies and their political allies are going to start beating the drum and repeating gas tax, Eberhard said. “It happened in British Columbia. It happened in California. They’ll do the same thing again in Washington.

16 December 2014 | In the US, there is an increasing number of programs that use a credit trading system to stem the flow of nutrient pollution flowing into waterways. The Pacific Northwest continues to assess possible approaches and in the Midwest, the Electric Power Research Institute is spearheading a program in the Ohio River Basin.

Now this market-based approach, called nutrient or water quality trading, has officially reached the Chesapeake Bay, a watershed so heavily polluted by nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients that President Barack Obama issued an executive order to restore water quality in the Bay in 2009.

Restoring water-quality is the intention of Virginia’s nutrient trading program. The initiative was recognized today by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) among other stakeholders. It was not only recognized for its potential to help the Chesapeake Bay but also for its ability to serve as a model for other watersheds dealing with similar problems.

“The Chesapeake Bay faces numerous challenges, and the Commonwealth of Virginia is responding with innovative thinking and collaboration across sectors, said Mike Boots, who leads the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “Not only do creative approaches like these provide new markets for private investors and generate new revenue for farmers, they also bolster the strength of our natural resources, improving their resilience to threats posed by a changing climate and other stressors.

Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality initiated this innovative program Boots is referring to. It created a supply and demand market for land conservation projects that help to minimize water quality impacts in the Bay. The agency’s stormwater program requires that road project developers reduce the phosphorus runoff pollution their development causes. They are able to do this through purchasing phosphorous credits from state-certified credit banks. The credits project developers purchase is generated from farmers operating in the Bay watershed that have permanently reduced their nutrient pollution through more sustainable land practices.

It’s a cost-effective approach. Purchasing the credits cost Virginia’s Department of Transportation-the agency developing and, in turn, impacting water quality-is half the cost of traditional infrastructure like underground filters and detention ponds. Also, implementing the sustainable agricultural activities comes from private investors so the program relies less on public funds. And because farmers sell their nutrient reduction credits to credit banks, the program opens up a new revenue stream for them as well.

Aside from the monetary advantages, the Bay’s ecosystem benefits from a more natural approach. Overall land preservation that includes restoring wildlife habitat and stream buffers are positive byproducts of the trading approach.

“Virginia’s nutrient trading program is a strong example of how to create economic opportunity and new income for rural America while protecting and improving local waterways and the Chesapeake Bay, said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “The program is a win for the environment and our economy and we encourage states to look at Virginia as a model and a resource as they adopt similar programs.

Federal support for nutrient trading, and environmental markets as a whole, is likely to increase in the coming year. The USDA and the EPA have a web-based water quality trading roadmap tool in the works that’s slated to come out in early 2015. Also in 2015, the agencies will sponsor a national conference on trading with the intention to move forward with the approach.

23 December 2014 | Greetings! This month, the sage-grouse wars raged on, with Congress – never one to pass on a fight – getting involved.The spending bill passed by the US Congress last week included the following provision:
Sage-Grouse Sec. 122. None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used by the Secretary of the Interior to write or issue pursuant to section 4 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1533) –

(1) A proposed rule for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)
(2) A proposed rule for the Columbia basin distinct population segment of greater sage-grouse;
(3) A final rule for the bi-state distinct population segment of greater sage-grouse; or
(4) A final rule for Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus) 
While mainstream conservationists balk at this Congressional rider, some say it gives the conservation community time to demonstrate that voluntary incentives can work, such as Habitat Exchanges in Colorado and Nevada.

Interior Spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw told Ecosystem Marketplace that while they weren’t happy about the Congressional intrusion, the bill doesn’t stop the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) from continuing to collect data and conduct analysis around a final decision, nor does it have implications for local and state plans or partnerships.

So will it be conflict or collaboration? We’re starting to get whiplash. Counties in Oregon recently hammered out a new multi-county Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances with USFWS. Meanwhile the Nevada Association of Counties, miners, and ranchers are suing the federal government over the 2011 agreement USFWS made with conservation groups that blocked the agency from considering “warranted but not precluded” when deciding whether to list a number of candidate species, including the greater sage-grouse. And the Center for Biological Diversity is suing the USFWS for listing the Gunnison sage-grouse bird as ‘threatened’ versus ‘endangered’ based on voluntary conservation actions.

This month we also have a number of terrific Opinion pieces from Bobby Cochran (on why nature matters for human health), William Coleman (on the “Farmer Brown” problem – or how mitigation prices can help EPA fix its penalty fees), and Carlos Ferreira (on why we need to make the offsets case to consumers). We’d love to hear what you think.

Happy holidays – and see you in 2015!

—The Ecosystem Marketplace Team

If you have comments or would like to submit news stories, write to us at [email protected].

Budget Deal Leaves Sage Grouse In Limbo. Can Private Conservation Do The Trick? The US government may have averted another shutdown with the passage of the Congressional spending bill last week. But a short paragraph nestled within the 1,603 page document was a provision to withhold funding for the Department of Interior to decide on the sage grouse’s endangered status.   Grouse habitats have declined significantly through the years, to the point where the Department of Interior (DOI) must decide whether or not to list the species as endangered by September 2015.   Over at the Interior Department, Spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw had harsh words for the uninvited Congressional intrusion, but said that, in the long term, it will make little difference to the department’s conservation work regarding the sage grouse.   And while mainstream conservationists balk at this Congressional rider, some practitioners cautiously view this as an opportunity to change the impeding conflict over the sage-grouse. – Keep reading at Ecosystem Marketplace. When COPs Converge: The Biodiversity And Climate Link Biodiversity and climate are intertwined in the physical realm though separate in the policy world. But during the ongoing climate COP in Lima, a diverse group of scientists and policymakers presented a declaration assessing current knowledge on connections between biodiversity vulnerabilities and climate change with the objective of increased integrated activity on the inter-linked issues.   “Biodiversity is affected by climate change and in turn affects the carbon balance of ecosystems,” says Holm Tiessen, the Executive Director of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), a research organization that spearheaded the creation of this declaration presented to COP 20 President, Manuel Pulgar Vidal. The declaration called for integrative research on biodiversity and climate change noting connections between the two issues. – Learn more. Opinion: Confirming What We Already Know: Human Health Is Linked To Nature Chronic conditions kill, disable, and ruin the quality of life of millions of Americans. Indeed, more than one-third of U.S. adults are now obese, incurring $148 billion in medical costs annually and contributing to 18% of U.S. adult deaths in recent years. Our healthcare costs are the highest per capita in the world. And that amount keeps increasing.   But consider an alternative. Consider a forest trail. Consider a fresh breeze. Consider the robust body of evidence linking human health to nature.   On both the quantitative and qualitative levels, we increasingly understand how more time outdoors improves our well-being. And this is spurring health professionals across the country to recognize something our ancestors accepted as fact. To that end, 30 leading health officials, academics and nature-focused nonprofits have issued theWingspread Declaration on Health and Nature. – Keep reading here. Opinion: Solving The Farmer Brown Problem: How The Cost Of Mitigation Credits Can Help The EPA Reach Right Penalty Price Last month, the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced its intention to levy penalties in the case of a California central valley almond farmer who seems to have knowingly bulldozed 33 acres of rare vernal pool habitat in an effort to expand his orchard operations.   My guess is that farmer Edward Brown is crying about the EPA action…all the way to the bank.   If we run the numbers according to current market prices for vernal pool credits, we can see that Farmer Brown has won the day. The EPA penalties will cost him $1.2 million in round numbers. If he had done as the Corps directed and bought 33 mitigation credits priced at $200-300,000 each, he would have spent $7-$10 million. By violating the law, destroying the habitat and subjecting himself to EPA justice, Brown has saved something like $7 million. – Read it at Ecosystem Marketplace. Opinion: Biodiversity Offsets As Corporate Responsibility: Opportunity Or Paradox? A visit to the SpeciesBanking website confirms what specialists have known for some time: that the practice of offsetting impacts to biodiversity is widespread. And while national, regional and local practices vary widely, one point is clear: offsetting is an increasingly important mechanism for conservation as more and more companies use them to mitigate their biodiversity impacts.   However, few firms are choosing to offset as a way to manage their image and show consumers that they are environmentally-responsible companies. Biodiversity offsets has the potential to implement high quality conservation in the face of encroaching development. But, unless it’s under attack, the concept remains almost unheard of among consumers. This is a big problem, according to a researcher on the subject who says growth and regulatory support depends on public opinion. And this unawareness at the consumer level could be impacting the sector’s ability to expand. – Read the opinion piece here. Voluntary Conservation Continues to Ruffle Feathers At the bare minimum, farmers and ranchers in the US West hope that Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances (CCAAs) will exclude them from USFWS restrictions and regulations should the bird be listed under the Endangered Species Act. But contention over these measures, which allow landowners to perform land-use activities beneficial to a species in exchange for exclusion from future regulations, continues.   The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the USFWS for listing the Gunnison sage-grouse bird as ‘threatened’ versus ‘endangered’ based on voluntary conservation actions. Meanwhile environmental organizations argue the CCAAs perform only minimal conservation and aren’t sufficient in ensuring a viable healthy species population. – Get the full story from the Capital Press. Adjustments to Florida Mitigation Bank Causes a Big Stir Disagreement surrounds the development of a parcel of land in Florida’s Volusia and Brevard counties. The Sierra Club is taking legal action against a regional water management agency that approved an investment company’s development agenda on an area deemed as part of a massive mitigation bank. The investment bank says their permit allows for them to remove acreage from the bank and that the removed part wasn’t an active area of the bank. Regardless, the Sierra Club says the development is harmful to the bank and the regional agency doesn’t have the authority to release conservation easements. – Keep reading. Environmental Funds Look to Play Ball with the Extractive Industry At last month’s World Parks Congress, participants took a closer look at environmental funds specifically looking at how they could engage earlier and more often with extractive industries. The benefits of a stronger relationship between the two are sizable. Industries like mining and oil could channel some of their revenue into these funds to benefit wildlife in areas surrounding their operations. In turn, a closer relationship with the funds could also perhaps help these industries lessen their impact on local biodiversity. – Read more at Forbes. ICMM Passes their Biodiversity Midterms, But Get Some Homework A new report prepared for the International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) found that ICMM members have greater focus and more specific commitments on biodiversity conservation than their non-ICMM peers. The Biodiversity Performance Review was commissioned by ICMM and the International Union on the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It includes recommendations for further engagement including developing a business case for biodiversity offsets, working with NGOs to align definitions of high biodiversity value areas, and minimum requirements for risk and impact assessments. – Learn more. – Get a copy of the report. Mitigation Roundup   Soil and water conservation districts in several Oregon counties signed a multi-county Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances with USFWS to protect the greater sage-grouse. The Nevada Association of Counties, miners, and ranchers have sued the federal government over the 2011 agreement USFWS made with conservation groups that blocked the agency from considering “warranted but not precluded” when decidingwhether to list a number of candidate species, including the greater sage-grouse. New York State’s Regional Economic Development Council awarded a $1 million grant to the Saw Mill Creek Pilot Wetland Mitigation Bank in Staten Island, the city’s first. The Wisconsin Wetland Conservation Trust inked a deal with the Corps to establish anew in-lieu fee program in Wisconsin. Rethinking Deforestation and Water Connections Surprising new research out of Australia found that deforestation doesn’t always have a negative impact on wetlands and in some cases, can result in an increase in biodiversity and water flow. Analyzing data from a pool of 245,000 global wetlands, report authors found that forests act like biological pumps and transport water into the atmosphere reducing the amount available for wetlands, rivers and groundwater. The authors say this study is a key tool when making decisions related to reforestation, wetlands and water quality. &nndash; Learn more here. A Good Report Card for Myanmar’s Nature Reserve Myanmar’s Taninthayi Nature Reserve Project got a favorable review from the nation’s Forest Department and the environmental organization, Wildlife Conservation Society. The project, which engages private companies in funding the creation and management of a protected area, is a public-private partnership and unique to Myanmar. It helps companies manage their development impacts on biodiversity in sensitive ecosystems although the project doesn’t meet biodiversity offsetting standards. If proven successful, the model could spread and be used in other parts of the country. – Learn more from the Biodiversity Consultancy. I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think it Means Market-based conservation is viewed as having great potential for alleviating big environmental challenges like deforestation but the diverseness of the term is creating such confusion, it’s stalling progress on the policy front. A study analyzing data related to market-based instruments (MBIs) found that many peer-reviewed articles on MBIs had little to do with actual markets. Several payments for ecosystem services projects act more like subsidies-with a government as a payment provider-than market mechanisms. Distinct definitions and stricter use of the term should result in greater clarity on the issue, but report authors note the difficulty in categorizing MBIs as many of them are multidimensional. – Learn more at the CIFOR blog. Thinking Green Means Managing Green Recent studies have found simply labeling an area as protected doesn’t ensure a positive outcome. Proper management is required. Last month during the World Parks Congress, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlighted the importance of good governance by unveiling its Green List, a compilation of 23 of the world’s best managed protected areas that result in favorable ecosystems for biodiversity. The Green List and initiatives like it encourages the type of international cooperation that is necessary for achieving global biodiversity targets. – Keep reading. JOB LISTINGS   Program Manager The Nature Conservancy – Washington DC, USA The Program Manager directs and manages all aspects of key science-based programs that are essential to developing thought leadership in select TNC science staff, to building community between staff scientists and the broader science community, and to support scientific development and leadership within The Nature Conservancy on key conservation and conservation science issues. S/he serves as principal contact for these key programs and, through her/his program leadership, helps establish the Conservancy as a major scientific thought leadership organization.   The Program Manager defines priorities and long-term strategies for TNC’s science thought-leadership training and post-doctoral programs, with an eye to increasing the diversity of scientists in thought leadership positions. S/he creates a culture of innovation, adaptive learning, risk-taking and cohort supportiveness within these programs. S/he initiates and develops key partnerships with mentors and public and private organizations that spur participants within these programs and across the programs as a whole to maximum impact. S/he directs and manages the programs’ ongoing activities, specifically:   Developing curricula for early- and mid-career science staff that increases the rigor, impact and effectiveness of their scientific research, improves their communication skills, promotes their ability to lead conservation through new ideas to better practices and more effective partnerships, and raises their profile in the external science community. Developing curricula for post-doctoral scholars that improves ability to conduct cutting-edge science that is useful for conservation, increases understanding of academic and NGO cultures, improves communication effectiveness in multiple media forms, and builds community among young conservation scientists and the broader conservation science and practice communities. Coordinates communications trainings and curricula with The Conservancy’s Science Communications Department Growing a network of university partners that establishes The Conservancy’s science staff and post-doctoral fellows as top notch colleagues, and improves opportunity creation for university partners to inform Conservancy practice on the ground Organizing and running workshops and conferences for the key programs that provide opportunities for participants to build community with each other and to benefit from interactions with program mentors. Bringing a fresh lens and inspiring creativity to all activities. Creating and identifying opportunities to use the programs to create a more inclusive and diverse conservation community. – Learn more here. EVENTS   2015 National Mitigation & Ecosystem Banking Conference The 2015 National Mitigation & Ecosystem Banking Conference, scheduled for May 5-8, 2015, in Orlando, Florida is the only national conference that brings together key players in this industry, and offers quality hands-on sessions and training as well as important regulatory updates. Proven to be “the” place to gain insights, explore new markets and learn from sessions, the 2015 Conference will continue its focus on educational content – both advanced and basic sessions as well as moderated exchanges and a variety of mini workshops that help to connect bankers, regulators, users and others involved in this industry. Pre and post- event workshops include Primer 101, Stream Banking, Long-Term Stewardship, Financing & Valuation and more. Hear perspectives from bankers, regulators and users, get updated on regulations, legislation and legal challenges, participate in field trips and benefit from the many opportunities to network! With a high attendance this past year, we anticipate a record attendance in Orlando and encourage you to make plans to submit to present, attend, even sponsor or exhibit! Orlando FL, USA. 5-8 May 2015. – Learn more here.

29 October 2014 | The United States supports roughly 200,000 species of plant and animal, but less than one percent are protected by the federal government under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The remainder are under state authority, sometimes managed on federal lands or subject to no oversight whatsoever. Thousands of those species are rare or declining.

Ideally, programs and policies would exist to encourage conservation efforts that help turn them around. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) just proposed exactly that opening the door to an entirely new market for advance conservation credits.

In November, they will finish taking public comments on this proposed policy that would make it possible for the federal government to recognize credits generated by state-sanctioned conservation actions taken to benefit an unlisted species. Ideally, those actions will be enough to keep a species from declining further, but if the species ends up under federal protection, the credits can be used to offset impacts from development or other projects. As proposed, credits would have to be accumulated through an approved state-managed program, but those programs could potentially benefit any of thousands of species that are rare or declining. Credits can be bought or sold. Both private and public lands can be used to accumulate credits, which is especially important given that some states are nearly 90% public land. Federal land-management agencies are likely to be some of the biggest investors in projects that generate advance credits.

Yet in order to encourage any investment, the policy needs to be better designed.

Crediting programs and offset markets have little value if no one knows how to produce a unit of credit or its exchange value against a debit. Whereas wetland banks, conservation banks and even Habitat Conservation Plans have defined responsibilities for the development of such accounting systems, this policy still lacks much detail on whether it is state or federal agencies responsible for that work and what standards an accounting system needs to meet. This can be fixed in the final policy simply by looking at the approach taken in many of these mature offset systems.

The agency has proposed a strong conservation goal for the program a version o net benefit to the species conservation or recovery. Assuming they can work out the details of the needed credit reserves, mitigation ratios and other structures to achieve that goal, credits and debit traded using these prelisting credits will move listed species closer to recovery. This is quite distinct from the current standards for Habitat Conservation Plans and for federal projects. The respective goals of those programs are just to minimize harm and to avoid pushing the species too much closer to extinction. This is perhaps why the draft policy has attracted criticism from the National Association of Home Builders who say that the policy goes “above and beyond the mandate of the statute. The agency should stick to the proposed net benefit standard which is actually not at all inconsistent with the law’s standard requiring federal agencies to develop programs to contribute to species recovery, but they should clarify that it is not the credit generator but the permittee who will need to achieve this net benefit by paying for or developing their own set of offset credits. Doing so is also in keeping with the agencies strong approach to mitigation for the Greater Sage Grouse.

The policy also needs to take account of other programs that exist in the space of landowner assurances and offset markets. In particular, Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances and Conservation Banks. The three tools could work together seamlessly. Candidate Agreements provide a form of insurance landowners who take conservation actions won’t face additional regulation and get a permit that covers future harm they might cause to the species. It makes perfect sense to let landowners in these programs, leave them if they are willing to give up that permit and sell benefits to businesses or agencies needing offsets. Doing so would result in longer term protection. Second, participants in either program could serve as a farm team for conservation banks adding permanent protection and endowments in exchange for an even stronger preference for these credits in future offset markets.

Even without these repairs to the draft policy, the new proposal from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a watershed moment actions benefiting any of thousands of rare species can earn credits. Given that there are more than 20,000 species in NatureServe database  of U.S. plants and animals at risk, this is a new world of opportunity to benefit biodiversity through a market approach.

12 December 2014 | It’s a short paragraph – only 88 words in total.

But these few words, nestled within a 1,603 page document, have laid bare the divisive politics behind conservation measures and big money. The $1.1 trillion spending bill, which just passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate, has included a small provision about the sage grouse.

The sage grouse, a bird similar to pheasants, presents enormous challenges to conservation as the species’ range meanders through eleven Western states and cuts across various public property and lucrative oil and gas lands.

While petroleum companies spend big bucks lobbying in D.C., the sage grouse has much more limited resources at its disposal. But there was one enormously powerful tool in its back feathers: the Endangered Species Act. Grouse habitats have declined significantly through the years, to the point where the Department of Interior (DOI) must decide whether or not to list the species as endangered by September 2015.

This threat of the Endangered Species Act effectively clipped the wings of oil and gas ambitions, which has prompted the deferral of more than 8 million acres of sales of potential oil and gas leases on sage grouse land.

All that has changed with the passage of the Congressional spending bill a few hours ago. The bill includes a provision to withhold funding for the Department of Interior to decide on the sage grouse’s endangered status.

Sage-GrouseSec. 122. None of the funds made available by this or any other Act may be used by the Secretary of the Interior to write or issue pursuant to section 4 of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1533) –

• (1) A proposed rule for greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)
• (2) A proposed rule for the Columbia basin distinct population segment of greater sage-grouse;
• (3) A final rule for the bi-state distinct population segment of greater sage-grouse; or
• (4) A final rule for Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus)

The End or Opportunity?

While mainstream conservationists balk at this Congressional rider, payments for environmental services practitioners cautiously view this as an opportunity to change the impeding conflict over the sage grouse.

“The fact that Congress intervened in this speaks to the need for conservation programs that engage landowners and communities as a solution for endangered species – rather than causing enough consternation that lawmakers intervene,” Says Jeremy Sokulsky, CEO of the performance-driven conservation company Environmental Incentives.

His company currently pilots two programs to save the birds. In Colorado, Environmental Incentives has teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund to create the Colorado Habitat Exchange, which focuses on preserving sage grouse habitats through land management incentives to ranchers. Nearby Nevada has a similar pilot at the state level, which will similarly create quantified conservation outcomes (credits) and impacts from human activities (debits) to encourage overall conservation benefits.

Though the threat of an Endangered Species listing helped motivate locals to participate, the pilots are already up and running. Now, what they really need is more time to monitor project outputs. In this sense, the delay can be an opportunity to quantify the project’s benefits and impacts.

This could give payment conservation projects more leverage in the later Department of Interior decision. While FWS has experience with mitigation and conservation banking measures behind Environmental Incentives’ work, the Department of Interior does not: and it is ultimately up to the latter to decide on the fate of the sage grouse. “They [DOI] need to see it work before it can be given full or significant weight in the listing decision,” Sokulsky said.

Still Steps on Federal Toes

Over at the Interior Department, Spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw had harsh words for the uninvited Congressional intrusion, but said that, in the long term, it will make little difference to the department’s conservation work regarding the sage grouse.

With regard to the potential listing, the funding bill does not stop FWS from continuing to collect data and conduct analysis around a final decision, nor does it have implications for local and state plans or partnerships.

Ultimately, Kershaw said that, “the Interior Department remains optimistic that conservation measures can be implemented to avoid the need to list the Greater sage-grouse, and the rider will not stop the unprecedented collaboration happening across 11 Western states.”

Which means there’s yet hope for the chicken-sized bird – and for incentivized conservation.

This article was originally published in the Mitigation Mail newsletter. Click here to read the original.

22 August 2014 | This month, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a new draft policy on building a crediting system that would protect threatened wildlife that hasn’t yet been listed as endangered. The policy, which is part of the Service’s Candidate Conservation program, seeks to incentivize landowners into early conservation.

“The adage ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ is appropriate here,” says the FWS’ Chief of Public Affairs, Gavin Shire. “This policy is one more tool that can be used in conjunction with the others to help prevent species decline.” Under the proposal, any landowning entity individuals, companies, government agencies, etc. can earn credits by practicing conservation that benefits an unlisted species.

But while early conservation isn’t disputed as a sure way to preserve a species, is some skepticism out there regarding voluntary measures. We cover the debate here. A public comment period on the draft policy is open until September 20, 2014.

In other news this month, environmentalists are not happy about evidence that a mining company successfully haggled down its mitigation costs by one-fourth, and Canada takes a crack at accounting for its natural capital values.

We also have two pieces on results-based finance: one looking back at the evolution of efforts to link payment to performance, and a blog post that considers how to refocus Farm Bill conservation subsidies on outcomes.

Happy reading,

The Ecosystem Marketplace Team

If you have comments or would like to submit news stories, write to us at [email protected].

Should landowners earn biodiversity offsets for conserving a species’ habitat before it becomes endangered? A new draft policy issued by the US Fish and Wildlife Service grants credits to all types of landowners for practicing conservation for wildlife not yet listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The credits generated can be redeemed or traded only after the species becomes listed, which is already leading certain parties to question the effectiveness of the conservation being practiced. Get coverage from Ecosystem Marketplace.   Results-based finance: breakthrough or backslide? Everyone loves “results-based finance at least in the abstract because everyone likes to get what they paid for. Quantifying those results and packaging them for buyers, however, has proven elusive once you get beyond payments for ecosystem services. Here, Ecosystem Marketplace takes a look back on the evolution of results-based finance. Read more.   Wrestling with orangutans: the genesis of the Rimba-Raya REDD Project In 2007, businessman Todd Lemons had a hunch that anthropologist Birute Galdikas could help him rewrite the rules of conservation finance and save the Seruyan Forest. He followed that hunch to Borneo, where the two embarked on a five-year ordeal that would take them from the swamps of Kalimantan to the pinnacles of Indonesian society. Read the latest in our series on palm oil versus the peatland forest.   Crossroads in climate negotiations when adaptation and mitigation meet in Bonn and Lima While the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change hasn’t yet considered identifying linkages between adaptation and mitigation, several Parties agreed over its importance at last month’s climate conference in Bonn. The topic is likely to come up again during upcoming sessions in Bonn and at COP20 in Lima. Learn more. Expansion of saltwater mitigation bank leaves opponents with bitter taste The controversial salt marsh mitigation bank in the Savannah River Basin in South Carolina may double in size. The bank would be 840 acres in all, with 350 of those acres converted from freshwater wetlands to salt marshes. The area is adjacent to a wildlife refuge and initially caused a stir because freshwater wetlands, which act as vital habitat for birds and other wildlife, are becoming increasingly rare whereas salt marshes aren’t. Conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the bank’s construction but the case was dismissed because salt was already found within the area. Meanwhile, S.C.’s Department of Natural Resources is claiming the Army Corp of Engineers’ alterations to a pipe allowed saltwater to infiltrate freshwater areas within the Savannah River Basin. The Corp’s Savannah District argues this isn’t true, and that it was authorized to carry out urgent work that protected property from being flooded. Get the full story on the bank expansion. Read about the debate between the SC DNR and the Corps.   Critics allege Australian mining co. ‘bargained down’ its offset requirements Australian government officials are on the defensive after documents surfaced revealing that a mining company was able to bargain down its biodiversity compensation obligations. Initially, the Labor government required that GVK Hancock secure AUD$800,000 (USD$744,000) in biodiversity offsets to mitigate for impacts from a proposed coal terminal. But after GVK Hancock came back with a counter-offer of $375,000, the two settled on $600,000. “The offsets package is meant to be a measure of last resort if it’s not possible to avoid damage. The quantum of that should be determined by the environmental impact, you shouldn’t be able to haggle the amount down,” Greenpeace campaigner Adam Walter tells the Guardian. A Department of the Environment spokeswoman says that the opportunity to comment on offset requirements is standard procedure. “Consistent with…legal requirements, Hancock was provided with the opportunity to comment on the proposed decision, conditions, and financial contribution before a final decision,” she said. Read more from the Guardian.   World wakes up to wetland values After discovering that wetlands act as buffers against flooding and hurricanes as well as act as huge carbon sinks, there is a newfound urgency to repair and maintain the world’s wetlands. Communities around the globe are looking for restoration techniques and ways to stem the ongoing loss. And several communities are delivering on innovative projects. In the Delaware Bay, for instance, a local non-profit is building a “living shoreline” with oyster shells and marine limestone which will protect the Bay’s marshes from erosion. Read more at Yale 360.   Natcap accounting arrives in Canada, courtesy of Ducks Unlimited Accounting for natural capital just got easier in Canada. The conservation organization Ducks Unlimited Canada published a report last month that measures the monetary and well-being value of the nation’s natural lands. The study is the first of its kind in Canada that establishes protocols for valuing natural assets like wetlands. The study also shows NGOs, governments and companies how to incorporate natural capital into their balance sheets. Read more here.   Mit banking roundup It’s been a busy month in the mitigation and conservation banking world. Here’s our roundup of news blasts: In Minnesota, the St. Louis County Board approved the Sax-Zim land exchange, removing another hurdle for Ecosystem Investment Partner’s 21,000+ acre venture – which will be the largest private wetland mitigation bank in the United States. Mitigation Solutions USA released a second round of American Burying Beetle credits from its Muddy Boggy Conservation Bank in Oklahoma, and plans to add another 579 acres to the bank. American Timberlands Company of Pawleys Island got approval for its 1,304-acre Carter Stilley Wetland and Stream Mitigation Bank serving South Carolina’s Horry and Georgetown Counties. Westervelt Ecological Services’ 160-acre Colusa Basin Mitigation Bank in California issued its first set of Giant Garter snake credits. The Doonan Creek Environmental Reserve received an AUD$970,000 (USD$902,000) offset payment from a federally funded highway project that will provide 9.3ha of new koala habitat. Sheboygan County, WI is buying the 322-acre Amsterdam Dunes property to develop its own wetland mitigation bank.   BLM’s Greater Sage-Grouse conservation plan receives failing grade in Wyoming Conservation for the declining Western bird, the Greater Sage-Grouse, can now be graded. A scorecard developed by six conservation organizations is rating greater sage-grouse conservation efforts across 60 million acres of public land based on specific scientific recommendations. Organizations involved in its creation include WildEarth Guardians and the Center for Biological Diversity. So far, the scorecard has failed the Bureau of Land Management’s field office in Lander, Wyoming, saying its sage-grouse conservation plan didn’t meet 24 management recommendations. Learn more about the scorecard.   Efforts made to keep Gunnison Sage-Grouse off the Endangered Species list Closely related to another candidate for Endangered Species listing, the Greater Sage-Grouse, the Gunnison Sage-Grouse is also rare and up for a possible listing this November. In the meantime, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is updating various conservation plans into one range-wide plan. The range-wide plan is intended to iron out inconsistencies in protecting the bird’s existing habitat and hopefully avoid a listing status. The Durango Herald has the story.   Louisiana farmers lend their fields to migrating water birds Louisiana farmers are proving themselves good neighbors. The Migratory Bird Habitat Initiative that was put into place after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has become popular among the locals. The initiative is meant to keep birds from settling in oiled areas by creating additional acres of water bird habitat by keeping water on cultivated fields longer. Research supports the program finding migrating birds did use the additional habitat on the agricultural lands. And because of its popularity, its creator the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has allocated $300,000 to continue the program. Learn more.   New South Wales ecosystem services, biodiversity regulations in question A review of Australia’s New South Wales’ environmental legislation is finally happening. A review panel will be addressing inadequacies in several of the state’s laws including the Native Vegetation Act 2003, Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 and the Nature Conservation and Trust Act 2001. Among several areas of interest, the panel will be looking at ecosystem services and biodiversity protection requirements the landowners must finance themselves. Learn more.   A new Farm Bill focus on conservation outcomes raises new challenges The 2014 Farm Bill gives the US Department of Agriculture authority to integrate (on a limited, experimental basis) performance-based metrics for wildlife and habitat outcomes, which would reward landowners for outcomes rather than implementing practices. That could mean better return on public investment. But a shift toward an outcomes-based approach also requires careful choice of indicators, and risks placing too much responsibility on the landowner. A new blog post up at the Pinchot Institute for Conservation website considers how to actually “get what we pay for.” Read the post here.   Live chat on natcap accounting searches for solutions to encourage investors How can private sector investment in natural capital be scaled up? The Guardian newspaper asked that question during a live chat with several experts in the fields of ecosystem services and finance. The responses covered a lot of ground on the subject, but experts focused on the significance of recognizing natural capital as a valuable concept to invest in and the necessary tools and mechanisms needed to scale up investments. Read the chat transcript at the Guardian.   Finding the value in restoration for coastal communities While there is strong evidence that natural infrastructure protects coastal communities from extreme weather, evaluating the economic benefits of ecological restoration projects at the local level remains difficult. But new studies that identify the hefty financial increase in storm damage costs from wetlands loss (one acre of wetland lost results in a $13,360 jump in flood damages), as well as specific data on investments in restoration, might help change that. Read more at The Nature Conservancy’s Cool Green Science blog. EVENTS 16th Annual BIOECON Conference: Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Sustainability The BIOECON Partners are pleased to announce the Sixteenth Annual International BIOECON conference on the theme of “Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Sustainability”. The conference will be held once again on the premises of Kings College Cambridge, England. The conference will be of interest to both researchers and policy makers working on issues broadly in the area of biodiversity, ecosystem services, sustainable development and natural capital, in both developed and developing countries. 21-23 September 2014. Cambridge, United Kingdom. Learn more here.   Biodiversity and Food Security From Trade-offs to Synergies This conference is the third in a series, organized by the French CNRS Institut Ecologie et Environnement (InEE) and the German Leibniz Association (WGL). The conference is based on invited keynotes and contributed posters for any of the topics relevant to the conference theme. Keynote speakers are now confirmed, including Professor José Sarukhí¡n, UNAM, México, and Professor Jacqueline McGlade, UNEP, Nairobi. Biodiversity at all levels, including the diversity of genes, species and ecosystems, is lost at alarming rates. Critical factors for these trends are habitat destruction, global warming and the uncontrolled spread of alien species. Pollution, nitrogen deposition and shifts in precipitation further affect biodiversity. Food security faces significant challenges due to population growth, poverty, globalization, climate change and other factors. Supplying healthy food to all citizens is crucial for global development – to reach it, not only food production but also equitable access to food for all people must be improved substantially. Biodiversity loss and global food security are hence two major challenges of our time. Linking biodiversity and food security issues from a research perspective, and seeking synergies between them is likely to generate multiple benefits for social, ecological and economic development. 29-31 October 2014. Aix-en-Provence, France. Learn more here.   ACES 2014 Conference: Linking Science, Practice, and Decision Making ACES: A Community on Ecosystem Services represents a dynamic and growing assembly of professionals, researchers, and policy makers involved with ecosystem services. The ACES 2014 Conference brings together this community in partnership with Ecosystem Markets and the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP), providing an open forum to share experiences, methods, and tools, for assessing and incorporating ecosystem services into public and private decisions. The focus of the conference is to link science, practice, and sustainable decision making by bringing together the ecosystem services community from around the United States and the globe. ACES 2014 will bring together leaders in government, NGOs, academia, Native American communities, and the private sector to advance the use of ecosystem services science and practice in conservation, restoration, resource management, and development decisions. We hope you will make plans to join more than 500 ecosystem service stakeholders in this collaborative discussion to advance use of an ecosystem services framework for natural resource management and policy. 8-11 December 2014. Washington DC, USA. Learn more here. JOBS Ecosystem Services Specialist The Willamette Partnership – Portland OR, USA The Willamette Partnership works to increase the pace, expand the scope, and improve the effectiveness of conservation. We believe that measuring, tracking, and communicating the results of conservation investments can spark an exciting leap in conservation outcomes. Our success depends on working with partners with roots in place and community, and on our ability to connect good ideas, good people, and good solutions. The Partnership is seeking to expand our team of policy and technical specialists that conduct research, analysis, and writing to support the ongoing work of the Willamette Partnership. Our specialists collaborate with project managers in developing the policy, science, and tools necessary to build and operate ecosystem markets and conservation incentive programs for water and biodiversity. This position is expected to contribute to new and ongoing projects that may include: Developing a set of national best practices for water quality trading; Designing policy and technical tools for quantifying, tracking, and communicating changes in water quality and habitat; and Operation of existing environmental markets. Learn more here.   Sustainable Fisheries Initiative Program Assistant Wild Salmon Center – Portland OR, USA The Program Assistant is a nonexempt full-time regular position, eligible for organizational benefits. S/he is responsible for providing Russian-language program support for WSC’s Sustainable Fisheries Initiative (SFI). This program is using innovative market-based approaches to support salmon conservation and sustainable fisheries in the Russian Far East and across the Pacific Rim. The ideal candidate will be independent and resourceful and will have real world experience working or living in Russia. Understanding the challenges and opportunities of working in the Russian Federation is a key to success in this position. The candidate should also have the ability to multitask, and have strong project management and Russian language skills. A background in international fisheries issues such as experience working as a fisheries observer or within the seafood industry and market incentives such as third party certification will be considered a valuable plus. Learn more here.

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21 August 2014 | There are markets for silver and there are markets for houses, and it doesn’t take a genius to see the difference between the two: an ounce of silver is an ounce of silver, interchangeable with any other ounce of the same quality, but the value of a house or any piece of property can fluctuate with the color of the flooring.

Carbon markets resemble silver markets because a ton of carbon dioxide has the same impact on the environment regardless of whether it comes from a smokestack in Germany or a forest fire in Brazil. That made it possible to create a global transparent marketplace designed to support sustainable development and identify the most efficient ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Biodiversity markets, however, have always been local because habitat is often unique and irreplaceable. A road that damages a bit of sage grouse habitat in the United States might be able to make good by restoring or preserving habitat of equal or greater environmental benefit in the same ecosystem, but even that approach has only a narrow band of effectiveness. “You can’t offset an extinction, as Joshua Bishop of WWF Australia once said.

As a result, most biodiversity banking is confined to the developed world, which has the resources if not always the political will to balance development with conservation. Most degradation, however, is taking place in the developing world, which has massive development needs and little resources for conservation.

That got Frank Vorhies thinking: While we can’t offset biodiversity loss in one part of the world by saving habitat in another, could we somehow introduce the elements of transparency and accountability that work so well in carbon into conservation? And if we do, might this free up more capital for proactively supporting environmentally valuable areas, regardless of their location?

These questions, posed in 2008, launched an evolutionary process that drew on expertise from across the biodiversity spectrum and led to the formulation of something called “Verified Conservation Areas, which are areas with specific conservation needs that have been identified and specific conservation actions that have been defined. As envisioned, many will be areas that haven’t yet been degraded, but that are under some sort of threat that can be identified and then either avoided or minimized through a process that is audited and transparent.

The areas and their action plans will be listed on the VCA Platform, much as houses are listed on a real estate board. Nearly 20 VCAs are currently being considered, and the first one is expected to be approved later this year.

Real Estate and Habitat

Vorhies, who set up the economics and business programs at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), says that to understand VCAs, you have to look at the real estate market.

“People will tell you what the going rate is for apartments to rent or to buy but each has got a different storyline, a different location, and that’s what biodiversity is like, he says. “Every bit of nature, every landscape on the planet, has a different set of issues and perspectives and legacies and threats and challenges.

Intuitively, we all know this, and the conservation community has long funneled money into protected areas around the world, but that money hasn’t flowed in a standardized way that makes it possible to determine its impact, and it rarely finds it way to areas that are environmentally important but unprotected. Contrast this with carbon, where there are extensive rules both guidelines and methodologies that must be followed, starting with establishing a baseline to measure any changes over time, and where the targets are explicitly those areas that aren’t already protected by law, in the case of forest carbon.

Where’s the Guidance?

“Nobody’s providing practical guidance on area-based biodiversity assessment, says Vorhies, explaining that to improve the conservation status of areas, we need to know baselines on ecosystems and their services, species and their habitats, and both the conservation and sustainable use of an area’s biodiversity.

“CI (Conservation International) produced a rapid biodiversity assessment tool, but it only looks at wild species, he explains. “CI, IUCN, FFI (Fauna & Flora International) and others are helping companies with biodiversity baselines, but these studies are generally not public.

What’s missing, he says, are publicly-available tools for developing conservation baselines that a critical mass of people can agree on.

2008: Why Reinvent the Wheel?

When the initiative first launched in 2008, the carbon markets were in full swing. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the first global trading platform for environmental credits, was backed by the auspices of the United Nations, and Europe’s compliance emissions trading program meant that companies were eager to participate.

“So the folks over in the biodiversity world were saying, Look at those guys in the carbon world  they’re getting a stack of money. Why can’t we create a Green Development Mechanism (GDM) for biodiversity financing?

Thus the idea of a GDM was born, but it was a name without structure; and, as Vorhies later learned, that name was as much of a hindrance as a help in securing finance.

What’s in a Name?

When he approached different countries and investors for support of the project, Vorhies encountered two types of people: those who liked the CDM and those who didn’t. On top of that, he found that both camps read too much into the acronym and, for better or worse, they both saw it as more akin to the CDM than it was.

“So we had to change the name, he explains ruefully, “After the 10^th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in 2010, we changed it to the Green Development Initiative, or GDI, to get rid of the CDM-GDM association because it was driving us nuts.

2010: Refining and Redefining

That letter change effectively stopped all comparisons between the two, but the initial problem remained: what would the initiative stand for? All Vorhies knew at the time was that he didn’t want it to be like the CDM.

“It was quite clear that it wasn’t a commodity market; biodiversity isn’t a commodity, he says. “The best market we could use was a property market to think of biodiversity as something that you would recognize, trade and indeed celebrate like you do in property management.

With a property market, such as apartments, each location has unique attributes: some might be close to public transportation; others may have a pool on the rooftop; and others might have a view. But aside from these additional features, all apartments can be described in terms of size, number of bedrooms, and other constant features.

Similarly, every landscape will have characteristics that can’t be replicated just as they will also have basic qualities, like size and ecosystem, which can be described anywhere around the world. Taken as a sum of these descriptors, every conservation hectare has a story and a price.

This holistic approach led to another key difference between the GDI and CDM, at a time when the latter began to crash in the carbon world. The initiative wouldn’t be limited to offsets, although offsets could be one of many options in a developer’s landscape management plan.

“The offset’s only there for when you’ve gotten to the point of irreparable damage and can’t do anything else, he explains. “But to get to that point, you have to do a whole lot of good things: like avoid, minimize, and restore. And that’s the stuff that needs to be recognized, celebrated and financed through making conservation visible.

Good Deeds Unrewarded

Vorhies spoke from experience, having previously consulted Yemen LNG, a natural gas company building a new harbor to export gas over a coral reef ecosystem. The company tried to minimize its impact, and it even contacted IUCN to review its decision to relocate the coral nearby, away from where the piers needed to be. Vorhies says they spent large sums on this innovative technique but received no recognition for their efforts. With nothing of value to show their shareholders and no external driver to conform to, the company couldn’t justify its costs.

“Do you see the coral reefs? asked the company’s environment manager in 2011, explaining his conundrum. “No. Just leave them. We’ve now got to get on with our business.

Vorhies believes that if the company had to do a performance report every year, and had an accountable action plan, that would at least give the environment manager an opportunity to fundraise inside of the company for a biodiversity budget. Indeed, they had already spent a large amount on relocation, and it would not take nearly as much to manage and monitor the conservation of the corals. The company and its investors, could also be recognized publically for their in-situ conservation efforts.

2013: Visibility, Accountability and Marketability

By now, Vorhies had a solid set of criteria for a biodiversity mechanism that he thought would work, but the GDI acronym didn’t quite capture it. “You try to do an elevator speech with the initials GDI and people say, that sounds really good but what is it?

Thus, the Verified Conservation Area (VCA) Platform rose from its rejected predecessors to become the final name of the initiative for now and it came with the elevator pitch that fit the name.

The elevator pitch is this: the VCA Platform will provide visibility, accountability and marketability to project areas, but the specific improvements are up to the project developer.  A verified conservation area may then focus on carbon, water, or any other “benefit while, ideally, the central focus would be a cohesive landscape approach much as the landscapes approach that’s evolving in the carbon world, where carbon sequestration is seen as a proxy for good land management.

But how do you create a methodology that’s applicable in any ecosystem?

A Wing and a Toolkit

Recognizing this challenge, the VCA Platform instead relies on making innovation as it goes by only requiring those involved with the project on the ground to have quantifiable metrics and present them publicly and transparently. Armed only with the standard and a basic toolkit approach, VCA hopes to develop best practice guidelines in this way.

“When it comes to actually measuring performance, we don’t have any agreed metrics to do a baseline assessment, let alone performance measurements, Vorhies explained.

Instead, the toolkit provides the basic building blocks for designing a management plan requiring a baseline assessment, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, and a concrete action plan. The latter goes onto the VCA Platform, with yearly updates including independent audits. Every year, an annual performance report will detail what exactly has happened in the area. Similar to an annual financial report, the audit will provide transparency about detailed activities in the area. Investors or donors could then go online, and look at actual projects before contributing.

2014: Building up the Brand

Despite the long journey from GDI to VCA Platform, the brand still needs greater recognition. For companies to buy into a new standard, they need assurance that the standard itself is credible. The VCA Platform doesn’t have that yet.

Currently, the platform has started a pilot program and has a mandate from two government agency donors the Swiss and the Dutch to coalesce all of these ideas into a solid business plan for scaling up This business plan is now being presented to potential investors in the platform itself seed capital to establish a new marketplace for verified conservation.

Already, there are a few protected areas (PAs) on the waiting list; even though those areas traditionally have a government mandate for conservation, they see the VCA as a way to state what they are delivering and as a way to raise funds. There are also areas on the other end of the spectrum: both private biodiversity restoration areas, including a rainforest in Brazil and a savannah wilderness in Mozambique, and projects linked to commodity supply chains or traditionally suspect sectors like mining and oil and gas. Yemen LNG, for example, has recently proposed to register its industrial harbor as a VCA.

Regarding working with extractive industries, Vorhies says, “I don’t see myself why mining can’t be just as responsible as the tourism which we run in our national parks in the U.S., with all the roads and hiking trails and the campgrounds and facilities required for tourists. With mining, they could come into a conservation area for 20-30 years and leave an endowment; whereas with tourism, when do we get rid of these people and what do they leave behind?

Similarly with agriculture, a field is often seen as having “destroyed conservation areas, yet Vorhies remains optimistic about their inclusion. This is evidenced by the growing use of sustainability standards for various commodities including coffee, cocoa, soy, and palm oil. The VCA Platform, however, brings a landscape level focus to sustainable agriculture which is of real interest to major food companies like Unilever.

“The VCA in that sense is not about recognizing that we’ve totally damaged this part of the world and therefore must pay. It’s more like saying this is where we are today and this is what we can do to make it better It isn’t a conservation story; it’s a process of improvement. That’s the idea. We’ve tried to move the language from compensation to good practice. If we want to conserve our planet, we need to create a market for delivering conservation.

19 August 2014 | It usually costs less to prevent a disease than it does to treat one, and it also costs less to manage forests in a way that prevents high-intensity wildfires than it does to fight those fires after they erupt.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is following this same line of thought into conservation by proposing a policy on building a crediting system that would protect threatened wildlife. The draft policy, which is part of the Service’s Candidate Conservation program, seeks to incentivize landowners into early conservation.

“The adage ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’ is appropriate here,” says the FWS’ Chief of Public Affairs, Gavin Shire. “This policy is one more tool that can be used in conjunction with the others to help prevent species decline.”

How it works

Under the proposal, any landowning entity individuals, companies, government agencies, etc. can earn credits by practicing conservation that benefits an unlisted species. The conservation includes larger actions such as habitat creation and restoration, but also includes actions like planting trees, forgoing timber harvest, and removing invasive species. If the animal that benefits from those actions is later listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), those credits can be redeemed and used as mitigation to avoid practicing further conservation for the species.

The credits generated can also be sold to a third party-another entity requiring conservation actions for a listed species.

For example, a landowner, under no legal obligation, plants trees that provide a nesting habitat for a warbler species. The conservation actions are assessed, and the landowner receives credits based on its benefit to the warbler. If that species becomes an endangered or threatened species under the ESA in the future, and the landowner would like to develop an area of warbler habitat, he/she can redeem the credits and practice those actions without additional conservation. However, the value of the conservation must be greater than the negative activity being offset. If this isn’t the case, then additional conservation would need to be carried out. A requirement of the policy is delivering a net conservation benefit to the species.

Other requirements are fairly evident. First, it must be voluntary. The entity can’t be under any legal obligation to carry out the conservation. And the conservation must benefit unlisted wildlife.

Any at-risk species qualifies under the proposal. But because credits can only be redeemed after a species is listed under the ESA, it’s most likely landowners will conserve candidate species, which are those already under review to receive an official ESA listing. The risk of them being listed is higher.

Cost-effective Approach?

The FWS doesn’t have the exact numbers on how much more cost-effective it is to conserve a species voluntarily, but Shire says it’s only a question of how much and not if.

“Bringing a species back from the brink of extinction is always going to cost more than conserving populations before they get to that desperate status,” he says.

Ultimately, healthier ecosystems for wildlife mean a more sustainable flow of ecosystem services for people. And restoring ecosystems for people is expensive, Shire says, so everyone benefits from proactive conservation actions.

But while early conservation isn’t disputed as a sure way to preserve a species, Wayne White of the National Mitigation Banking Association, an organization meant to influence policy on behalf of the mitigation and conservation banking industry, is skeptical of voluntary measures.

For one, White questions the rigor of voluntary conservation standards and if those actions can act as offsets for detrimental impacts. The concept is designed to prevent species listing but, because it’s voluntary, the conservation is at a lower standard and then less likely to enhance the animals’ numbers, White says. A well-known example is the lesser prairie chicken, whose population continued to decline despite voluntary actions. The bird was listed as threatened under the ESA this year.

Then there is the cost of voluntary conservation. And again, because the standards are lower, White says, the cost is lower. Voluntary actions don’t have to ensure long-term preservation for a species and therefore can appear less expensive than conservation banking, which conserves at a high level and manages land for wildlife conservation in perpetuity. White argues this draft policy will undermine private sector investment in conservation banks.

“What we’re not seeing is the true cost of mitigation,” White says. “There is no certainty the voluntary conservation actions are going to be there long-term.”

Administration

White’s take on the draft policy is most likely one of many that will be streaming in over the next month. The proposal is published in the Federal Register and open to public comments until September 22.

As for administration, that will fall to individual states should they decide to adopt the policy. The FWS’ role is largely one of assistance and overseer. The states will take on primary tracking and implementation responsibilities and then report this information to the Service annually. This way, the states can ensure their conservation efforts will be recognized by the FWS should the species be listed eventually.

The FWS is also clear on how the draft policy would operate in coordination with the agency’s other ongoing voluntary initiatives. While some prelisting conservation measures may qualify under different programs, it can’t be treated under more than one. The intended outcomes of these different initiatives are different, the document notes. Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances (CCAAs), for instance, are meant to represent a property owners’ entire obligation to conserving a species. The draft policy, on the other hand, is allowing a conservation action to act as mitigation. It doesn’t guarantee further conservation won’t be needed.

CCAAS are also only for non-federal landowners whereas the draft policy is for every type of property owner.