Rolling covenants to protect coastal ecosystems in the face of sea-level rise

This article considers how “rolling covenants” (i.e., covenants on land title that can operate in a “rolling” geographic area to keep pace with sea-level rise) can be used to permit productive use of land in the short term, while ensuring land use can shift over time to allow for coastal ecosystem migration in the medium to long term. We use Australia as a case study, and through analysis of legislation and a series of semistructured interviews, we demonstrate how land title-based covenants can be used to give legal effect to “rolling covenant” arrangements where land is subject to existing use and occupation. We then consider practical issues associated with drafting a rolling covenant arrangement, including an analysis of the types of events or scenarios that could be used as a basis for land use changing (e.g., projected sea-level rise, actual ecosystem migration), and the advantages and disadvantages of each. We conclude that rolling covenants are a viable option for land management in the coastal zone, especially in circumstances where funding sources are available to incentivize uptake. Rolling covenants may provide opportunities for coastal wetlands to be maintained and even enhanced in cover, thereby delivering important ecosystem services (e.g., blue carbon) into the future

A Global Mitigation Hierarchy for Nature Conservation

Efforts to conserve biodiversity comprise a patchwork of international goals, national-level plans, and local interventions that, overall, are failing. We discuss the potential utility of applying the mitigation hierarchy, widely used during economic development activities, to all negative human impacts on biodiversity. Evaluating all biodiversity losses and gains through the mitigation hierarchy could help prioritize consideration of conservation goals and drive the empirical evaluation of conservation investments through the explicit consideration of counterfactual trends and ecosystem dynamics across scales. We explore the challenges in using this framework to achieve global conservation goals, including operationalization and monitoring and compliance, and we discuss solutions and research priorities. The mitigation hierarchy's conceptual power and ability to clarify thinking could provide the step change needed to integrate the multiple elements of conservation goals and interventions in order to achieve successful biodiversity outcomes

Impact mitigation in marine and coastal environments: policy challenges and shortfalls

Marine environments are increasingly under threat from the direct impacts of human activity, such as resource extraction and over-exploitation, and indirect threats from land-based activities that lead to pollution, increased nutrients and sedimentation. The need for mitigation of these impacts alongside the continued drive for economic growth has led to policy responses that attempt to build the cost of biodiversity losses into the cost of development. One such policy mechanism is biodiversity offsetting, whereby impacts are sequentially avoided, minimized, restored, and finally offset through the use of the mitigation hierarchy. Biodiversity offsets are increasingly used to mitigate the residual impacts of development on threatened species and ecosystems, in theory allowing development without the associated loss of biodiversity. Most biodiversity offset policy and theory has concentrated on offsetting in the terrestrial environment, while offsets in the marine environment have received little focus.In this thesis, I investigate the extent to which marine and coastal biodiversity offset policies occur globally and examine the complexities and challenges associated with their application. I discuss opportunities for offsets to achieve better outcomes for marine biodiversity, and evaluate the risks involved. Using a mixed method approach, I first identify the most relevant differences between marine and terrestrial environments and the implications of those differences for biodiversity offsetting. I then review the literature on biodiversity offsets to develop a database of offset policies globally that could include marine environments and determine their stage of development (Chapter 2). I find that many countries have policies that could potentially include marine environments. I explore several important practical differences when offsetting in the marine environment, for example greater connectivity both within marine ecosystems and between marine and terrestrial systems, and limited finely-resolved marine data. While these differences have significant implications for offset feasibility and effectiveness, I also identify potential opportunities afforded by the nature of marine systems for offsets to mitigate impacts more effectively, such as allowing more spatial ‘flexibility’ in offset locations. Using the database developed in Chapter 1, I next evaluate the way in which marine environments are included in offset policies globally. I explore the extent to which policies are specifically focussed on or apply to marine environments and their stage of development (from Chapter 2), and identify correlations between these factors and marine biodiversity, as well as political and economic variables, to determine what might be driving this policy differentiation (Chapter 3). I find that while few countries had policies specifically tailored to marine environments, many explicitly state that their offset policy can apply to the marine environment. I find that wealthier countries with more stable governance, but a lower density of threatened marine birds and mammals, were more likely to have better-developed and more marine-specific offset policies.I then further explore the global distribution of pressures on the marine environment, specifically from metals and minerals mining, and identify how these relate to whether current offset policies account for impacts at the land-sea boundary. To do this, I summarise information on the types of mines that occur in coral reef catchments globally currently, and those likely to be developed in the future, and then develop a spatially explicit model of the potential for sediment impacts from terrestrial mining on adjacent coral reefs (Chapter 4). I simulate how existing environmental governance in countries with reef-draining catchments could mitigate risks to coral reefs and find that countries with the highest sediment risk also have relatively poor environmental governance, and less-developed offset policies.Spatial flexibility in offsetting means allowing offset actions to occur far from an impact site, and has been controversial because the requirement for ecological equivalence is often met partly through requiring close proximity between the biodiversity lost from development and the biodiversity gained by an offset. In Chapter 5, I discuss the circumstance where spatially flexible offsets could be more effective for marine biodiversity values than offsetting near to the site of impact, and attempt to model the relative benefits of more or less spatial flexibility in offset location for migratory shorebirds. I find that key data were missing to enable confident estimation of the relative benefits of locating offsets near to and far from the impact sites, even in this relatively well-known system. Further, the risks of allowing flexible offsets, such as reduced ecological equivalence and the challenges of working across geopolitical borders, must be weighed against the potential benefits of offshoring biodiversity.This thesis concludes that the development of offset policies in the marine environment has moved faster than the scientific evidence underpinning their application. It is therefore unlikely that offsets occurring in the marine environment can achieve no net loss without significant changes in the way they are applied. This includes a more rigorous application of the first three stages of the mitigation hierarchy, offset policies that account explicitly for the challenges posed by offsetting in the marine environment, strategic environmental assessments that incorporate indirect and cumulative impacts at a wider geographic scale, and the integration of land-sea planning with biodiversity offset policies to mitigate complex impacts more effectively

The use of Senate inquiries for threatened species conservation

Global biodiversity continues to decline at a steady rate, especially in Australia where 10% of the land mammal population has become extinct since European settlement. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) list of threatened species is Australia's version of the IUCN red-list; however, not all species fit easily within the EPBC guidelines and criteria for listing. Recently, a high-profile Senate inquiry was used to bring about the listing of the koala, Phascolarctos cinereus, although it had previously been deemed ineligible for threatened species status. We are concerned that the use of Senate Inquiries will become more frequent now that a precedent has been set. We suggest they are not an appropriate means of threatened species conservation because they are politically topical, not necessarily based on expert opinion and do not carry any need for legislative response. Successful species conservation should be based on sound ecological knowledge embedded within a transparent and logical decision framework

A mismatch of community attitudes and actions: a study of koalas

Many wildlife populations, particularly in urban areas, are in decline. This is in part due to a disconnection between the lives of urban residents and native wildlife. The reconnection of social and ecological systems by understanding the linkages between people's attitudes and conservation behavior will help improve conservation outcomes. This study investigated the attitudes of local communities toward koala populations and sustainable wildlife conservation in southeast Queensland, Australia. Data was collected using a questionnaire in face-to-face surveys (n = 102). Principal Component Analysis was used to quantify attitude and action statements into key components. Further analysis of demographics and knowledge of koalas was performed using analysis of variance and regression analysis. Results suggested that residents' attitude toward koala conservation was strongly correlated with their home's proximity to relatively intact habitat. Residents living in peri-urban areas were significantly more likely than suburban residents to have a positive attitude toward koala conservation, and be willing to participate in actions to conserve koalas, such as traffic calming measures, community conservation schemes and support for council-led conservation actions. These results highlight the importance of understanding variations in community behavior toward biodiversity conservation in urban and peri-urban neighborhoods and suggest that local governments and conservation groups use area of residence to target urban planning and conservation initiatives more effectively

The risks and opportunities of translating terrestrial biodiversity offsets to the marine realm

Biodiversity compensation policy programs such as offsetting are increasingly being expanded to the marine realm. We reviewed the literature on biodiversity offsets and related compensatory policy to determine where marine offset policies occur. We also identified the most important differences between marine and terrestrial systems that are likely to have implications for how offsetting is conducted. We found that 77 nations had compensatory policies that enabled the use of offsets in the marine environment. Two important differences between marine and terrestrial offsets emerged: (1) biophysical differences, such as greater marine connectivity, lower likelihood of restoration success, and data paucity, and (2) social or governance differences, such as a lack of private ownership and a greater probability of leakage. We conclude that without better evaluation and innovation, it is premature to conclude that marine offsets can be effective. The lessons learned from the development of terrestrial offsets provide an opportunity to improve their application to marine ecosystems