Mainstreaming biodiversity offsetting into Swedish municipal planning through the lens of Ecosystem Services

Description

Biodiversity offsetting has been promoted as a way of ensuring that protected areas/species receives proper attention when threatened in relation to development projects. In Sweden, such legal structures and policies have been in place since the 1990s in relation to protected nature.
As urban areas grow and become more densified increased attention have been given on how to develop structures to balance the loss of green space in relation to urban development. However, in contrast biodiversity offsetting as practiced in relation to protected nature, municipal offsetting is often practiced in relation to ecosystem services (ES). This paper, aim to describe the uptake and use of the biodiversity offsetting idea in Swedish municipal planning and discuss the potential advantages as well as disadvantages of mainstreaming the idea though the lens of urban ES provision. The analysis is based on document analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 40 front-runner municipalities in relation to their offsetting work. The result shows a diverse picture of methodological approaches used to account for lost and gained ES. There is also a diversity of
organizational processes for the implementation of this policy, seem to be influenced by many factors; development pressure, type of nature, but also municipal employees’ interest and knowledge. Another important factor is the general lack of a proper follow-up mechanism for the offsetting. We conclude that many municipalities have implemented these types of policies aiming
to balance green space availability and development without having an underlying municipal strategy for ES management. This leads to a policy that is able to engage developers in a discussion about what is lost and what is gained in terms of ES provision, but fails to assess to which extent the offsetting is successful and to which extent it provides benefits for the municipality as a whole.

Period	2021 Jun 9
Event title	Ecosystem Service Partnership Conference (ESP)
Event type	Conference
Conference number	3rd
Location	Tartu, EstoniaShow on map