Shut the Front Door. Richard Branson is Talking about Ecosystem Services.

See on Scoop.it – Nature + Economics

I am floored. My favorite mega-millionaire Richard Branson (is he Batman? you gotta wonder) just posted a piece on the WSJ’s LiveMint.com about how it’s important to pay attention to biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Let me boil down WHY he thinks it’s important:

– Consumer demand: “Consumers are becoming increasingly frustrated with corporations that are only out for themselves, rather than helping their communities and the planet. Our group and other companies are going to need to know the answers to such questions [about biodiversity and ecosystem services]”

– Community relations (eg, impacts of a company’s operations on ecosystem services/biodiversity upon which local communities rely upon/enjoy): “What impact will our new offices have on the surrounding ecosystem?”

– Company innovation (/employee retention): “Everyone was energized by this challenge of envisioning and creating a sustainable future… And as I was listening to the researchers and my team, I was reminded that learning is not just a luxury, but integral to the growth of our group and the health of our company.”

Here’s WHEN it’s important:

– Siting a new facility: “Where is the most suitable and sustainable location to position our new factory?”

Here’s HOW Virgin is considering biodiversity and ecosystem services:

–  Measuring impacts: “we are looking at ways to better account for the impacts our activities are having on the natural resources”

So cool to see a topic like this coming out of a CEOs mouth. My work here is done.

See on www.livemint.com

Digging in: 2013 Research on ‘Level Playing Field’ of 2008 Wetland Mitigation Rules

In 2008, the US EPA and Army Corps of Engineers released their final rule on Compensatory Mitigation for Losses of Aquatic Resources (2008 Rules). The 2008 Rules were intended, in part, to right some wrongs of earlier wetland mitigation. For one, originally compensatory mitigation was steered towards mitigating close to the site of impact. But that could lead to postage-stamp mitigation, isolated from other resources and minimal ecosystem services. So the 2008 Rules gave preference to larger-scale wetland restoration in a watershed context.

(Image credit: Kerry ten Kate presentation, BBOP, circa 2010)

Another wrong to right was temporal loss of wetland functions and values. Let’s say I start restoring a wetland. Year 1 doesn’t look pretty – muddy, goopy mess with some tiny sticks trying to become trees. But it starts looking better and better as hydrophilic plants get established, as the hydrology is restored, etc. And as the wetland gets better, so do its functions – like its ability to filter water, its ability to absorb and slowly release storm flows, its ability to provide a home for critters. Mitigation banks have to have restoration in place before selling credits,*so the restoration is in place before the impact. Prior to the 2008 Rules, In Lieu Fee programs (ILFs) could collect funds and then perform the mitigation. Permittee-responsible mitigation didn’t and still doesn’t have to happen in advance of impacts.

Prior to 2008, there was not a ‘level playing field’ for mitigation. In-advance, larger-scale mitigation was costlier and riskier than at-the-time-of-impact mitigation. Cheaper, smaller-scale permittee-responsible mitigation could beat out other forms of mitigation even if it wasn’t the best thing for the environment.

The 2008 Rules set out a preference hierarchy for mitigation**:

“In order to reduce risk and uncertainty and help ensure that the required compensation is provided, the rule establishes a preference hierarchy for mitigation options. The most preferred option is mitigation bank credits, which are usually in place before the activity is permitted. In-lieu fee program credits are second in the preference hierarchy, because they may involve larger, more ecologically valuable compensatory mitigation projects as compared to permittee-responsible mitigation. Permittee-responsible mitigation is the third option, with three possible circumstances: (1) conducted under a watershed approach, (2) on-site and in kind, and (3) off-site/out-of-kind.” (Source: [2008 Rule] Questions and Answers, see also 40 CFR Chapter I § 230.93(b)(2))

So how’s that been going? Mitigation bankers say the preference hierarchy has not been followed in many US Army Corps of Engineers Districts. There is not, however, a national analysis of this (that I’ve seen). So it takes some digging at the District scale to see what’s going on. Like:

• What are these “consolidated mitigation areas” that are being used in Arkansas for frac pond mitigation? There is zero mention of the term in the 2008 Rules.
• Why did an Alaskan ILF sit on mitigation funds for more than 10 years before figuring out what to do with it?

The latter question is something that I wrote about on Scoop.It. Following that post, I was contacted by a law firm who asked that I dig into questions like these. So I’ll be digging in to the ‘level playing field’ question, FOIAs and all, and posting white papers and blog posts synthesizing the research. Wish me luck!

*Actually, they get to sell a small amount of credits after legal protections have been put in place.
**The 2008 Rules include a caveat to the preference hierarchy of mitigation:
“However, these same [see above] considerations may also be used to override this preference, where appropriate, as, for example, where an in-lieu fee program has released credits available from a specific approved in- lieu fee project, or a permittee- responsible project will restore an outstanding resource based on rigorous scientific and technical analysis.” (40 CFR Chapter I § 230.93(b)(2))

Academic Criticisms and Recommendations for the US Wetland Mitigation Banking System

See on Scoop.it – Nature + Economics
“Faustian bargains? Restoration realities in the context of biodiversity offset policies” was published in October 2012 by the journal Biological Conservation. Authors: Martine Maron, Richard J. Hobbs, Atte Moilanen, Jeffrey W. Matthews, Kimberly Christie, Toby A. Gardner, David Keith, David B. Lindenmayer, and Clive A. McAlpine.

This journal article includes criticism and recommendations for the current US wetland mitigation system from ecologists at University of Illinois. Here’s a quick synopsis.

Criticism 1: The emphasis on larger-scale restoration could lead to spatial arrangements that may not be optimal for society – aka, city folks might miss the wetlands/services they used to have as restoration focuses on cheaper land, further away in the watershed. The opposite of NIMBY: I *want* it in my backyard.

Criticism 2: There are time lags associated with replacing destroyed wetlands with wetlands created at the time of impact (aka “permittee-responsible mitigation”). Mitigation bankers agree with this criticism, which is why they lobbied to have a preference for mitigation from already-restored wetlands, seen in the 2008 Rules.

Criticism 3: Non-equivalence of the sites that are impacted and the sites that are restored.

“The deeper you look into complex ecosystems, the more nonequivalence you find,” [author] Matthews said. “You could look at two forests and say they’re the same. But as you look closer, you might find that species composition is different. Nutrient cycling processes, for example, may be very different in those two forests. And so as you look in finer and finer detail, you find layers and layers of nonequivalence. Where we place the value becomes critically important. The scale at which we consider two sites to be equivalent or nonequivalent and how we place value on certain uniqueness in sites becomes critical in what we accept as a truly successful restoration.”

Recommendations: Scientists are pushing for restoration that is closer to cities to maintain value to communities; includes more finer-scale like-for-like requirements; includes more monitoring and research; and utilizes adaptive management.

Reality Check: The recommendations would most likely translate to more costly restoration. And who would have to pay for this? Anyone who impacts wetlands: Departments of Transportation (everyone’s taxes), oil and gas developers (who have lobbyists), builders (who have lobbyists)… see what I’m getting at here? In order to change the system, you’d have to have enormous political will and evidence that the increased value to society would be offset by the increased cost to permitees.

See original article at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-wetlands-longer-devil.html#jCp

Guest Blog: Ginormous Midwest HCP for Wind Energy Impacts to Bats et al.

Guest blogger Jemma Denny discusses a large Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan being developed for impacts to endangered species from wind energy in the Midwest.

Parts of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin could be eligible for ESA Take under a draft “Midwest Wind Energy Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan Within Eight-State Planning Area” (MSHCP) currently open for public comment. The MSHCP involves several bat species, numerous birds and some really interesting approaches to permits — there is a ‘Programatic’ and a ‘Template’ design being considered. With the Programmatic option,

“Under the template approach, the Service would issue individual ITPs to applicants that agree to implement the MSHCP, whereas under the programmatic approach, each State agency would apply for and receive an ITP and would issue certificates of inclusion to wind energy companies that agreed to implement the MSHCP at their facility.”

Wind entities are just some of numerous partners: collectively they’re called WEBAT or Wind Energy Bat Action Team and they’re represented by American Wind Energy Association, the national trade trade industry. Along with the Fish and Wildlife and 8 state conservation agencies, the Conservation Fund looks to be setting themselves up to mitigate these wind impacts:

“The Conservation Fund would develop a regional framework of conservation lands to be used as a decision support tool for the selection of appropriate mitigation options required for offsetting incidental take of the ‘covered species’ “

Is there room for budding conservation banks as mitigation for this plan? I’m sure there are plenty of private landowners across the Midwest with one or more of these species, that might be interested in staying on their land and conserving species, and who might be interested in conservation banking. There is precedent for this idea:

• a 2009 Indiana bat habitat enhancement plan developed for surface mining impacts to habitat noted “buying credits from an approved Indiana bat conservation bank” as appropriate off-site mitigation.
• a 2009 American Wind and Wildlife Association-commissioned report discussed scenarios including conservation banking for wind energy mitigation
• There is a pilot habitat bank for Indiana bats in the Hudson Valley region (p.15).

Either way, those with permits under the MSHCP would be covered under Section 7 and NEPA, avoid further FWS consultations, and receive a ‘no surprises’ assurance as well. But none of this will go ahead without public comment and consideration – of both the draft and the EIS to follow. Make your comments on or before October 1, 2012.

Federal Register notice of the draft MSHCP

US FWS Draft Indiana Bat Recovery Plan

Texas Hold-Em

Remember the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill? Well BP wishes you didn’t. They’d rather you think, “BP = Olympics.” Warm fuzzies.

Over in the Gulf, BP’s big money was up for grabs for early restoration projects. $1 billion is on the table right now, and that’s just a down-payment of what could be $50+ billion. In April, $60 million of that got allocated to projects in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida (see projects on ES-8). But where was Texas? Officials wanted to take more time to evaluate the 172 project proposals submitted. Some of the proposed projects sound like great restoration projects (coastal/oyster/dune/reef restoration). The least-sexy award goes to a project that will buy a toilet in a state park (no kidding).

Why am I writing about this on a blog about the intersection of nature+economics? I’ve heard the New Zealand term ‘lolly scramble’ used to describe the tragedy of the commons. Meaning, when you’ve got a common pool resource (a bunch of candy, owned by no one) that’s up for grabs, the natural response is to grab as much as you can until it’s all gone.

There’s a similar thing happening with BP’s money. Call it a pinata scramble.

Get the booty! Photo source.

All the states went for the money (save Texas). Hopefully, the objectives of the money – to restore the Gulf – are not forgotten in the scramble.

FSC ForCES Pilot

See on Scoop.it – Nature + Economics

Whoa – FSC wants to certify ecosystem services. They’re looking at how to:

“evaluate and reward the provision of critical ecosystem services, such as biodiversity conservation, watershed protection and carbon storage/sequestration.”

See on www.fsc.org

“And that’s the deal with the chicken”

I’m here in Sacramento this week attending and blogging coverage of the National Mitigation and Ecosystem Banking Conference (NMBEC) in Sacramento, California. The run-down of sessions and keynotes can be found over at the www.Eko-Eco.com blog, but I’d like to take this space to talk about… chickens.

The Lesser Prairie Chicken is just one of a suite of Western species that has come up in conversation in the hallways and outside the formal space of the conference.

A Fish & Wildlife factsheet about the LPC states:

The FWS is now in the initial stages of the listing process for the lesser prairie-chicken… We anticipate that over the next 18 months, beginning in January 2011, we will be working to develop a proposed listing rule… [and critical habitat]

For this and other candidate species like the Sage Grouse, DOI counsel Michael Bean yesterday mentioned the opportunity to take action prior to listing that might get ‘credit’ should a species later become listed. The FWS are asking for help to vet this idea via public comment period – due May 14th, but I’ve heard that this deadline has been extended 60 or so days. A small sample of what they’re asking for is:

(1) How can the Service allow for the recognition of conservation credits for voluntary action taken in advance of listing in a manner that is efficient, readily understood, and faster? How can this be accomplished in an expeditious manner?
(2) Should credits recognized for voluntary conservation actions taken prior to listing be available for use solely by the person who created them or should they be transferable to third parties?
(3) If voluntary conservation actions undertaken prior to listing generate conservation credits that can be used to offset impacts of post-listing activities, should they be based solely on the beneficial actions of the person undertaking them, or should they be based on the net impacts of both beneficial and detrimental actions?

Get your two cents in!

Here’s what my son thinks of the prairie chicken. Should I register his comments?

UK Conservation Credits Prices

Hat tip to Ecosystem Marketplace’s Mitigation Mail…

“The Environment Bank and Mission Markets have partnered on a new biodiversity credit trading platform for the UK. The Conservation Credits Exchange already has five proposed projects listed. Trades are expected in as little as a few weeks, as soon as local regulatory authorities give offset credits the go-ahead. Credits representing a hectare of habitat restoration are expected to sell for somewhere in the range of £30,000-40,000 ($47,000-63,000).

– Read more at CSRWire.”

Shabbington Woods and Meadows is one of the ‘offerings‘ on the MissionMarkets trading platform. Photo by net_efekt.

Marine offsets ideas so crazy they just might work

Quick ideas from 2 journal articles:
1) Reduce whaling by selling individual trading quotas (ITQs):

 “…creating a market that would be economically, ecologically and socially viable for whalers and whales alike. Because conservationists could bid for quotas, whalers could profit from whales even without harvesting the animals. A market would therefore open the door to reducing mortality without needing to battle over whether whaling is honourable or shameful.”

Whale steak... ew. Photo by gromgull: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gromgull/974544996/

More about the concept:

“In such a system, ‘whale shares’ would be allocated in sustainable numbers to all member nations of the IWC, who would have the choice of exercising them, leaving them unused for a year or retiring them in perpetuity. The shares would be tradable in a carefully controlled global market, perhaps with the restriction that members could not trade whale products with non-members. The number of whales hunted would depend on who owned the shares. At one extreme (in which whalers purchase all the shares), whales would be harvested to the agreed sustainable level. At the other extreme (where conservationists purchase all the shares), all whales would be protected from harvest.”

Whale credit ownership is within your grasp!:

“Simple calculations based on current market prices, whale sizes and whaling costs, suggest that the per-whale profit for whalers is in the ballpark of $13,000 for a minke whale to $85,000 for a fin whale. Whale prices should therefore be within reach of conservation groups and even some individuals.”

Purchase of credits could even be more cost-effective than anti-whaling campaigns by non-profits. The authors estimate that non-profits are currently spending in the ballpark of $25 million/year on anti-whaling.

So crazy it just might work:

“Sea Shepherd, for example, estimates that its multimillion-dollar 2008 campaign saved about 350 minke whales in Antarctic waters. By our calculations, those whales could have been purchased for less than $4 million.”

Source: Costello C, Gaines S, Gerber LR, 2011. Conservation science: A market approach to saving the whales. Nature 481, p. 139-140. Published online 11 January 2012. Get it here.

2) Offset seabird by-catch mortality by reducing invasive predators (rodents) in nesting/breeding areas.The authors studied:

“[the] cost effectiveness of rodent control relative to fishery area closures for the conservation of a seabird population adversely affected by an Australian tuna fishery. We find that, in the example being examined, invasive rodent eradication is at least 10 times more cost effective than area closures. We conclude that, while this does not solve the actual bycatch problem, it may provide breathing space for both the seabird species and the industry to find longer term means of reducing bycatch.” [emphasis added]

Not everyone loves the idea:

“The potential for biodiversity offsets as a fisheries management option has received mixed, and mostly adverse, responses. Initial proposals [21,22] received severe criticism, with claims that it may do more harm than good if it diverts attention from the bycatch issue directly [23], that the model used in the analysis was flawed [24,25], or that it is limited in its application to only part of the bycatch problem [18].”

But that’s not what they meant:

“These criticisms were largely focused on the assumption that biodiversity offsets may replace the need for bycatch reduction. However, when a species is under threat and bycatch reduction technologies are not sufficient to address the problem, biodiversity offsets may be sufficient to ‘‘buy time’’ for the species while longer term solutions are sought [26]. If the only other feasible remedial measure is a fishery closure, then biodiversity offsets may be a viable option for fisheries management, even if only as a stop-gap measure while bycatch issues are addressed more fully.”

Fisheries closure to address the situation would be a big deal:

“a closure adequate to achieve the Environment Australia (1998) bycatch target would require an area closure of 785 km radius around Lord Howe Island, consistent with the observed foraging range [34]. This includes much of the area of high activity in the fishery, and may result in significant losses in total revenue.”

Give me the cost-benefit:

“Based on the location choice model results, the economic impact of the closure (estimated as reduction in fishery profits) is very specific to the underlying stock distribution, ranging from $0.6m (under 2004 stock conditions) to $2.2m (under 2007 stock conditions) in 2009–10 dollars. To place this in context, the total economic profits in the fishery in 2007–08 was estimated to be only $2m [28].

In contrast, the cost of eradicating ship rats and mice from the Island has been estimated to be only AU$0.92m (in 2009–10 dollars) [58]. These costs, while appearing relatively low, are consistent with rodent eradication costs experienced elsewhere [59]. This is a one-off cost, and assumes that re-infestation does not occur.”

Source:
Pascoe S, Wilcox C, Donlan CJ, 2011 Biodiversity Offsets: A Cost-Effective Interim Solution to Seabird Bycatch in Fisheries? PLoS ONE 6(10): e25762. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025762. Get it here.