Le recours au principe de compensation écologique dans les politiques publiques en faveur de la biodiversité : enjeux organisationnels et institutionnels : cas des écosystèmes aquatiques marins et continentaux

Biodiversity offset, as the last step of the mitigation hierarchy (avoid/reduce/offset), aims to address the current biodiversity loss crisis. The main goal of this PhD, which relies on the new institutional economics approach as a theoretical framework, is to understand the organizational and institutional issues of implementing biodiversity offsets policies for impacts on continental and offshore wetlands in Europe and the United-States. Hierarchical organizations (i.e. permittee responsible mitigation) often lead to little to no implementation of biodiversity offsets because the ecological effectiveness of case-by-case compensatory measures is unproven and the monitoring and control of numerous measures are difficult. In the United-States, the mitigation banking system aims to compensate for multiple small impacts on wetlands by carrying out restoration projects on fewer but larger wetland areas in order to reach the goal of no net loss of biodiversity. This hybrid organizational form is highly regulated and therefore stands halfway between hierarchical and market organizations. However, actors have individual and collective strategies that generate negotiations with consequences on economic development and biodiversity conservation stakes. The mitigation banking system leads to a decrease of transaction costs and a change of the actors bearing them. It seems that the evolution of the whole framework of biodiversity offsets policy implementation in the United-States leans toward an institutional complementarity between these two organizational forms rather than a disappearance of hierarchical organizations.La compensation écologique, envisagée dans le respect de la séquence éviter-réduire-compenser les impacts, cherche à apporter des réponses à la crise actuelle d’érosion de la biodiversité. L’objectif de la thèse est de comprendre quels sont les enjeux organisationnels et institutionnels de la mise en œuvre du principe de compensation écologique pour les impacts sur les écosystèmes aquatiques marins et continentaux en Europe et aux Etats-Unis. La thèse mobilise le cadre théorique de l’économie néo-institutionnelle. Les organisations de type hiérarchique (compensation au cas par cas) ont pour principales limites d’avoir une efficacité écologique discutable et de ne pas permettre le suivi et le contrôle des mesures compensatoires ce qui conduit souvent à ce que la compensation ne soit pas ou peu mise en œuvre. Aux Etats-Unis, les banques de compensation consistent en une réponse anticipée et mutualisée aux dommages à l’environnement. Il s’agit d’une forme organisationnelle alternative hybride fortement régulée à mi-chemin entre la hiérarchie et le marché. Cependant, les acteurs ont des stratégies collectives et individuelles qui engendrent des négociations ayant des conséquences sur les enjeux de développement économique et de maintien des objectifs de conservation de la biodiversité. Le système des banques de compensation crée un double phénomène de redistribution des coûts de transaction et de diminution de ceux-ci mais il semble que l’évolution de l’ensemble du cadre d’application de la compensation écologique américain permet aujourd’hui une complémentarité institutionnelle entre ces deux formes organisationnelles plutôt qu’une disparition des formes hiérarchiques

Organizational and institutional issues of implementing biodiversity offsets policies : a case study of continental and offshore wetlands

La compensation écologique, envisagée dans le respect de la séquence éviter-réduire-compenser les impacts, cherche à apporter des réponses à la crise actuelle d’érosion de la biodiversité. L’objectif de la thèse est de comprendre quels sont les enjeux organisationnels et institutionnels de la mise en œuvre du principe de compensation écologique pour les impacts sur les écosystèmes aquatiques marins et continentaux en Europe et aux Etats-Unis. La thèse mobilise le cadre théorique de l’économie néo-institutionnelle. Les organisations de type hiérarchique (compensation au cas par cas) ont pour principales limites d’avoir une efficacité écologique discutable et de ne pas permettre le suivi et le contrôle des mesures compensatoires ce qui conduit souvent à ce que la compensation ne soit pas ou peu mise en œuvre. Aux Etats-Unis, les banques de compensation consistent en une réponse anticipée et mutualisée aux dommages à l’environnement. Il s’agit d’une forme organisationnelle alternative hybride fortement régulée à mi-chemin entre la hiérarchie et le marché. Cependant, les acteurs ont des stratégies collectives et individuelles qui engendrent des négociations ayant des conséquences sur les enjeux de développement économique et de maintien des objectifs de conservation de la biodiversité. Le système des banques de compensation crée un double phénomène de redistribution des coûts de transaction et de diminution de ceux-ci mais il semble que l’évolution de l’ensemble du cadre d’application de la compensation écologique américain permet aujourd’hui une complémentarité institutionnelle entre ces deux formes organisationnelles plutôt qu’une disparition des formes hiérarchiques.Biodiversity offset, as the last step of the mitigation hierarchy (avoid/reduce/offset), aims to address the current biodiversity loss crisis. The main goal of this PhD, which relies on the new institutional economics approach as a theoretical framework, is to understand the organizational and institutional issues of implementing biodiversity offsets policies for impacts on continental and offshore wetlands in Europe and the United-States. Hierarchical organizations (i.e. permittee responsible mitigation) often lead to little to no implementation of biodiversity offsets because the ecological effectiveness of case-by-case compensatory measures is unproven and the monitoring and control of numerous measures are difficult. In the United-States, the mitigation banking system aims to compensate for multiple small impacts on wetlands by carrying out restoration projects on fewer but larger wetland areas in order to reach the goal of no net loss of biodiversity. This hybrid organizational form is highly regulated and therefore stands halfway between hierarchical and market organizations. However, actors have individual and collective strategies that generate negotiations with consequences on economic development and biodiversity conservation stakes. The mitigation banking system leads to a decrease of transaction costs and a change of the actors bearing them. It seems that the evolution of the whole framework of biodiversity offsets policy implementation in the United-States leans toward an institutional complementarity between these two organizational forms rather than a disappearance of hierarchical organizations

Corrigendum to "Biodiversity offset markets: What are they really? An empirical approach to wetland mitigation banking" [ECOLEC 110 (2015) 81-88]

International audienceThe publisher regrets the below corrections in the article:The abstract of the article was missing.AbstractIn the United States, the most recent regulatory tool for carrying out biodiversity offsets for wetlands is the mitigation banking system. This system aims to compensate for many small impacts on wetlands by carrying out restoration projects on fewer but larger wetland areas in order to reach the goal of no net loss of biodiversity. Mitigation banking has been criticized based on its categorization as an environmental “market”. This paper discusses the real nature of biodiversity offset markets, using three complementary approaches: a conventional economic approach, an empirical sociological approach, and a new institutional economics theory approach. To accomplish this, we carried out a field research study in Florida. The results show that the mitigation banking system is a hybrid organizational form halfway between a market and a hierarchy. Compared to permittee responsible mitigation, it has interesting specific features resulting from political tradeoffs, which seem adapted to implement public policy dealing with the complex and poorly predictable issue of biodiversity. Thus, it may be a useful organizational innovation to implement ecological compensation more efficiently, provided it is properly regulated

Pratique des translocations végétales conservatoires en France : dimensions réglementaires, organisationnelles et économiques

While the literature in ecology on conservative plant translocations has developed significantly in recent years, very few studies on the practical conditions for their implementation, including the economic aspects, have been conducted. However, these non-strictly biological factors are important to consider because they can influence the feasibility and efficiency of translocation operations. Through a series of interviews with national botanical conservatories (CBN), one of the major actors in plant translocations, as well as a few complementary actors, we review the regulatory, organizational and economic dimensions of the practice of conservative plant translocations in France. In particular, we collected the economic costs of the involvement of six CBN in 34 translocation operations, associated with three stages that we feel it is interesting to differentiate in a translocation: preparation, the translocation itself, and the post-translocation phase. It is the two phases upstream and downstream of the translocation operation per se that involve the largest share of costs. We also showed that the motivation underlying a translocation operation, that is within or outside the mitigation hierarchy of development projects, did not significantly influence its cost, which suggests an equivalent implication of the actors interviewed (at least economically) in the two cases identified. The analysis of the economic costs of plant translocations, limited to the involvement of the CBN in this article, should now be completed for the other actors involved. The detailed network of the actors involved in translocations as well as the description of the different stages they encounter and that we propose in this article constitute an essential starting point

Compensation écologique et agriculture : Est-ce compatible ?

International audienceBiodiversity Offsets (BO) are activities that provide measurable ecological gains that are equivalent to the ecological losses induced by development projects. The Law on Biodiversity voted in August 2016 introduces a more coercive framework of BO. Provided that 60% of the French territory is dedicated to agricultural activities, farmers should become major players to implement BO. We investigate farmers' preferences for becoming BO operators through a choice experiment. We show that the BO contracts requirements will not lead to a systematic compliance of farmers. This allows us to suggest direction for BO contracts with regards to farmers' profile and to the type of impacts they have to offset.Les Mesures Compensatoires des atteintes à la biodiversité (MC) sont des actions assurant des gains écologiques au moins équivalents aux pertes subies suite à un projet d'aménagement. La Loi Biodiversité d'Août 2016 rend plus coercitif le cadre des MC. Alors que 60% du territoire français est dédié aux pratiques agricoles, les agriculteurs devraient devenir des acteurs majeurs de la compensation écologique. Nous analysons par le biais d'une expérience de choix les préférences des agriculteurs pour devenir opérateurs de MC. Nous montrons que les exigences des contrats de MC ne conduiront pas à une adhésion systématique des agriculteurs. Nous suggérons des orientations de contrats par profil d'agriculteurs et par type d'impacts à compenser

Scenario-based modelling of local land-use policy choices to achieve No Net Loss of wetland functions in the face of cumulative impacts

Going beyond project by project approaches to biodiversity offsetting is challenging and local governments are struggling to find ways to achieve the no net loss (NNL) goal at the landscape level. In the Grenoble area (French Alps), land-use change was modelled, up to 2040, based on recent dynamics of urban expansion. We added offsetting of the impacts of urbanization on wetlands to the model, to investigate the consequences of various types of offsetting. In particular, we studied the effects of a recent shift towards "functional" loss-gain metrics to demonstrate ecological equivalence and NNL, rather than area-based calculations, and towards offsetting within the sub-catchments where impacts occur. Simulations were based on spatially-explicit modelling and take into account existing planning rules and recommendations to guide the location of offsets. Two mechanisms were tested for offset implementation: (a) case-by-case compensation where each developer compensates its impacts, resulting in many restored wetlands of various sizes distributed across available land, and (b) an aggregated approach where larger sets of adjacent parcels of land are used to compensate for several projects at once, generating larger wetland units. In addition, two different methods for sizing offsets were compared: (i) an area based method whereby a coefficient is applied to the impacted area to determine offset size, and (ii) a method where losses and gains of ecological function are calculated and offsets sized so as to generate enough gains to achieve functional NNL. Wetland function was assessed using detailed information on agricultural practices (rotations) and expert opinion from agronomists and ecologists. Mechanisms and methods were combined into four biodiversity offsetting scenarios, and 5000 simulations were run for each. A sensitivity analysis of several methodological choices was carried out. Results show that a focus on wetland area leads to net losses of wetland function from development. Current regulations for wetlands, mixing a focus on area and functions, lead to better results than the area-based approach with a net gain of ecological function. With a function based approach the NNL goal can be met on a smaller offset area. Finally, aggregated offsets also achieve NNL but need more area, given the constraints of restoring neighboring parcels. Aggregated offsets are increasingly recommended and used worldwide to ensure longer-lasting biodiversity gains from more ambitious and larger-scale restoration projects, and to enable stronger governance to be put in place, as monitoring and enforcement is easier on a single offset site. Striking the right balance between case-by-case and aggregated function-based biodiversity offsets should lead to improved outcomes for maintaining or restoring wetland functions within watersheds, so as to enable them to provide necessary ecosystem services.peerReviewe

Wetland mitigation banking: Negotiations with stakeholders in a zone of ecological-economic viability

International audienceWetland mitigation banking (WMB) is an organizational form that attempts to balance the ecological goals of wetland conservation and the economic goals of development with the aim of improving the implementation of wetland offsetting. Given the resulting tension, it is important to understand how the way stakeholders employ the WMB regulatory framework affects the goal of No Net Loss of wetlands. In this study, we interviewed WMB stakeholders in Florida in the United States to identify their strategies during negotiations around different aspects of defining wetland mitigation credits (e.g. service areas, types of credit and credit release schedules). Using the approach of New Institutional Economics, we found that within a framework of well-defined rules that nonetheless allow flexibility, WMB enables a field of action for negotiating within a zone of ecological-economic viability – in part due to the stakeholders’ interest in maintaining a good reputation in this field. Outside of this zone of viability a wetland mitigation bank proposal collapses for economic or ecological reasons

Mieux compenser les impacts sur les zones humides : modélisation de différentes approches dans la région de Grenoble

Limiter autant que possible les impacts sur les milieux humides est une obligation pour tout projet d’aménagement devant faire l’objet d’une autorisation. En cas d’impacts résiduels négatifs significatifs, des mesures compensatoires permettant de rétablir la qualité environnementale de la zone impactée à un niveau au moins équivalent à son état initial doivent être menées sur d’autres zones dégradées. À travers l'exemple de la région de Grenoble, en pleine expansion urbaine, cet article propose d'analyser plusieurs méthodes innovantes de mise en œuvre de politiques de compensation écologique en utilisant une approche plus intégrée et adaptée aux besoins du territoire