Economics of biodiversity

We have seen habitat banking in the US. However, little has been done in the EU, but the gap is being bridged.

The EFTEC, an environmental economics consultancy in the UK, is leading a research project for the European Commission looking at the potential use of habitat banking in the EU as an economic instrument for biodiversity protection. A workshop will be organized in Brussels as a part of this work.


Read more at
http://www.eurosite.org/en-UK/content/habitat-banking-eu

Two environmental associations, The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and the Society for Tropical Ecology (GTOE), published a "Marburg Declaration" in which is explained the issue of not exploiting the conservation potential of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) mechanisms.

Experts say that most critical ecosystems are the 'last surviving scraps of forests', not necessarily in the Amazon. And yet, the global overhead of establishing a REDD project keeps investors away from developing small scale projects, and therefore from these "final refuges for thousands of endangered plants and animals". One solution, proposed by Manfred Niekisch, president of the GTOE, would be to include an 'extra' to carbon funds to cover these imperilled habitats.

It is urgent for both public and private stakeholders to understand the possibilities of the REDD projects – not only as carbon sinks, but also as living ecosystems. Especially when the REDD standards are being prepared for the post-2012 Kyoto negotiations.


See the whole declaration:
http://burica.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/the-marburg-declaration-for-the-biodiversity-of-the-world/