Side Event

Balancing Biodiversity: towards a global incentive instrument for biodiversity preservation

Organizer
Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment

Date and Time
20 May 2008 13:15 - 14:45

Meeting
Ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 9)

The commitment of the Convention to significantly reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 seems difficult to achieve. One solution might lay in the design of global instruments that draw in substantial larger commitment from the private sector. Private activities can have harmful or beneficial effects on biodiversity that are not or not fully captured either in the price or in the returns for these activities. Consequently, many organizations feel that there is no incentive for those that have the ability to conserve or sustainably use biodiversity to actually do so. Creating incentives to influence an actor's decision by forcing him to take ecosystem functions and biodiversity value into account could significantly contribute to the 2010 goal. Using a global system of biodiversity compensation, this event proposes an incentive mechanism based on land-use (change), biodiversity quality and compensation. Moreover, it will disseminate first insights in the Balancing Biodiversity concept following a project currently undertaken in this respect. This project intends to deliver concrete compensation plans for participating companies (including preconditions and incentives), as well as guidance for other pro-active companies in order to familiarize them with the compensation mechanism. The focus will be on compensating indirect impacts on biodiversity, basing the methodology on land use, and taking the whole supply chain into consideration. Any insights gained in the practicalities of applying compensation for biodiversity through the production chain will be made publicly available in time to add to the discussion on indirect compensation.