By Keith Bowers, President, Biohabitats

Opening Plenary of the COP.

Can biodiversity offsets help fund conservation and restoration around the word? The Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program thinks so. The BBOP, a committee to the Convention on Biological Diversity, (http://www.cbd.int/) is preparing guidelines by which companies, on a voluntary basis, would compensate for biodiversity lost through development by investing in the protection and restoration of different areas. Not too unlike mitigation programs in the US.

Japan’s Minister of the Environment discusses the role of RAMSAR.

The question is: will businesses go for it? Many international industries are on the committee, which can be both good and bad. While these companies can help set an example for the rest of the worlds’ industries to follow, you also have to wonder if the emerging guidelines have been compromised to a great degree. Granted, you need all of the stakeholders at the table, but time is running out for many species across our planet. What do you think?

Scene of the Working Group 1
Session Progress toward the 2010
biodiversity target.
My Seat at COP10

Photos by Sasha Alexander, SER International.

Further Reading

Pandemic Pause
E+D Podcast with Keith Bowers: The state of ecology and design in landscape architecture
Living Infrastructure: Green is great, but alive is even better
Water, Equity, and Ecology in Urban Planning
Composting Toilets: When Nature Calls

More From This Author

Thoughts on the Ohio River Bioregion
What if the People’s Climate March had Included Plants & Animals?
An Oasis in the Most Unlikely Place
Learning from Hurricane Sandy
Thoughts on Threatened Species