Hello!!
This month in ProLandscaper we have written an article on Biodiversity Offsetting. It's been an interesting one to research and write about having been to a couple of seminars on it recently and I have to say that whilst we started out with a fairly negative view on how it was going to effect landscapers and landscaping we have come full circle and decided that there is plenty to be positive about.
If you get the time to read the article this month (P39), it would be great to get your opinions and understand how you as landscapers feel you might be affected by biodiversity offsetting, if at all. Should we be pushing as an industry to use the opportunity that biodiversity offsetting might bring about, to create new biodiverse landscapes on urban brownfield sites rather than on rural farms and landowners estates.
Would be great to hear your thoughts.
James Hewetson Brown
Wildflower Turf
Views: 126
Replies
Is it possible to post a copy of your article into the thread?
I have to disagree completely - having also been looking at depth into BO for some time. The optimism and 'potential' that BO could bring if better designed could have worked to landscapers benefit. But I fear this isn't the case as evident with those rushed schemes already going through and certainly we have to accept the realism that a large developer who has paid out several thousand pounds to a conservation NGO is going to be less prepared to also pay extra cost for sustainable landscaping.
The other reality is the status of the receptor site in strengthening the land management industry as a whole. We already see massive problems as a result of so many 'protected' areas and those in NGO ownership becoming subject to heavy volunteer reliance and reduced salary to land management professionals - having the knock on effect of reducing our potential salaries everywhere. An influx of much more land under such control cannot in anyway be a good thing for the landscaping industry and its peers in land management.
Why forsake sustainable development - which if allowed to continue the landscaping industry should be at the forefront of. Many incumbent accreditation organisations and others have made a pathetic case at best, usually silent, in pushing for this recognition of the benefits and multiple values that good landscaping can bring. BO is clearly at odds with sustainable development, indeed purpose designed to avoid it, and thus able to ignore those stuck inbetween the larger environmental NGO's (set to profit from BO) and the developers who will pay for it - and the landscaping industry is very much in the middle! This is the 'win - win' situation Owen Paterson talks of, when it should be 'win - win - win'.
Lets be honest BO as designed in the UK is a method to usurp planning and allow HS2 and other vastly expensive schemes to get through with as little red tape as possible. In some regards you can admire this, but it needs more work and certainly needs the landscape industry at the top table from the beginning. This beginning was 4 years ago - we are not going to profit from this at all therefore, in fact we are more likely to lose considerably from it.
Lastly it is complete nonsense. You simply cannot 'offset' biodiversity, it's impossible. The billions of organisms in a Ancient woodland, cannot be replaced by a newly planted woodland - we dont even know what half of the beneficial organisms even are!!! But that is the argument of ecologists, the vast majority of whom are deeply opposed to BO - as are most of the luminaries in the landscape arena, who helped define the study which formed the background to the qualifications we have gained in order to become 'landscape' professionals.
A few more links and articles on biodiversity offsetting:
BO - A Massive Threat to the Landscaping Industry
MPs critical of biodiversity offsetting proposals
Biodiversity offsetting will unleash a new spirit of destruction on...
Biodiversity Offsets, George Monbiot, and the Nightingales of Lodge...
I think that landscape professionals still have a chance to influence the way Biodiversity Offsetting is implemented. I understand that the scheme is still quite far from being finalised and my point is that BO ought to offer opportunities that will benefit biodiversity as well as the industry that has to deliver it.
Volunteers should be a useful resource and could benefit from being involved with landscaping and biodiversity but the professionals need to co-ordinate and oversee the work, and any scheme must have their input. In the news today there is talk of garden cities and these can't happen without people who know about the landscape, the environment and growing things.
"Offsetting" biodiversity at a specific site isn't easy but one thing that is certain is development will continue. The ecologists that I have spoken to want to make sure that any development is held to account to ensure it maintains or enhances biodiversity. Some ecologists are anti BO but others are positive seeing it as a step in the right direction towards delivering biodiversity. Although I think all are still unsure of how it will be finally implemented and are very aware of Pips comments with regard to ancient woodland. These along with SSSI's and other unique landscapes must be protected.
Current schemes such as BREEAM and the Code for Sustainable Housing have been delivering biodiversity and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and East Village are good examples of this. But they are still voluntary codes and I would like to think that with BO, and its exchange of money for offsetting, these areas will provide additional biodiversity that will be properly audited and maintained for years to come - and who better to do this than landscape professionals. I totally agree that these areas must be on or near the development and urban areas must be considered for this rather than relying on rural sites where any "additionality" will be very hard to achieve.