Habitat banks

Habitat banks, are a form of environmental protection often associated with biodiversity offsetting, they may also referred to as biodiversity banking, conservation banking, biodiversity mitigation banks, biodiversity trading, compensatory habitat and so on.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature defines biodiversity offsets as being "designed to compensate for residual environmental damage caused by development after avoidance, minimisation, and mitigation of environmental impacts have been considered and implemented. The goal of offsets is to compensate for the loss of biodiversity at one location with conservation gains elsewhere."

Habitat banks specific parcels of land that set aside in order to allow for biodiversity improvement, referred to as banks because they aim to save and improve specific areas from the perspective of environmental diversity often in connection with biodiversity offsetting. In their simplest form they are areas of a community where biodiversity is protected thus banked or stored, but they can also have links to financial models through payments to compensate for areas of (urban) development where biodiversity improvement is not possible. There are now a number of financial institutions offering habitat bank investments or biodiversity offsetting as part of their service.

Such schemes exist in the US, Canada and Australia, as well as the UK, when it was formalised through the Environment Act in 2021, and the introduction of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) regulations from 2024. These legislative changes require infrastructure and development projects to deliver an uplift of 10% in BNG (calculation via a specific statutory biodiversity metric). Where such improvements cannot be achieved on site, proposals can be made for off-site improvements, with a final resort being financial compensation, payments to achieve credits from other schemes that improve biodiversity, such as specific habitat banks.

For further information visit Biodiversity net gain and related terminologies explained.

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