The economic crisis has stifled real estate development and provided a respite to swamps, prairies, and other habitat for endangered species. In the long run, however, it's also hurt green entrepreneurs who are proactively preserving and restoring these habitats to earn offsets for wetland and biodiversity impacts. Ecosystem Marketplace examines the factors that will determine who wins, who loses, and why.

  – Go to Article

The US Department of Agriculture's new Office of Ecosystem Markets and Services (OEMS) is just getting off the ground, but once underway it should lead to better coordination not only among agencies charged with regulating various ecosystem service markets, but also among markets for water, biodiversity, and of course carbon.

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Veteran Chicago hydrologist Don Hey has been arguing for decades that his region could slash its water control costs by taking better care of swamps and floodplains. Local politicians are finally listening -- and supporting him on a massive market-based wetland restoration effort that could help ratchet up the scale of mitigation banking across the United States.

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When Ecosystem Marketplace launched in 2005, the idea of preserving nature by incorporating its value into our economic system was mostly an academic exercise. Today, it's the cornerstone of a fast-moving and innovative branch of finance, and the focus of the EKO-ECO blog .

  – Go to Article

July 29-31, Duke University, Durham, NC

This course will present the fundamentals of ecosystem service markets, updates on the state of the biggest ecosystem service markets, and practical information about how to engage in these markets.  The fundamentals will cover (1) the ecological underpinnings of the ecosystem services markets including how the service is quantified; (2) the use of economic valuation for prioritizing conservation opportunities and how markets are setting value for specific services; and (3) the legal and policy framework for these markets.  

This course will examine for ecosystem service markets within the United States: wetland and stream mitigation banking, conservation banking (also referred to as species banking), greenhouse gas mitigation markets for agriculture and forestry, water quality trading.

  – For More Information

BBOP Newsletter

The UNEP Finance Initiative and BBOP are commissioning a study to analyze more systematically current practice in the financial sector with respect to the mitigation hierarchy and biodiversity offsets. Deadline is 17 July 2009!

  – Request for Proposals

IUCN Press release

IUCN analyzes their Red List of Threatened Species every four years.  The latest report released earlier this month, Wildlife in a Changing World, concludes that the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity targets will not be met.

  – Read press release
  – Download report

Australian Government NRM Team Website, Press Release

Australia's Caring for Our Country program provides AUS$2 billion from July 1, 2008 -- June 2013 for natural resource management goals, including biodiversity conservation.  "Caring for our Country began on 1 July 2008 and integrates the delivery of the Australian Government's previous natural resource management programs. These include the Natural Heritage Trust, the National Landcare Program, the Environmental Stewardship Program and the Working on Country Indigenous land and environmental program."

The program is run with a business plan with short-term targets and a yearly "application for investment proposals" to achieve the 5-year goals.  This year's funding has been awarded and winners share AUS$403 million. The 2010 business plan will be released around September of this year with the application process in early 2010.

  – Press Release
  – FAQ webpage

BBOP Newsletter

The Business and Biodiversity Offsets Program announced the closure of Phase I of their program and the availability of all materials -- including biodiversity offset principles, interim guidance (handbooks on biodiversity offset design, cost-benefit analysis and implementation),and  resource papers and case studies -- on their website.

  – BBOP website

BirdLife press release

Birdlife announced a call for Letters of Inquiry (LoIs) for biodiversity conservation projects in Lao P.D.R., Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam (specifically in the Northern Highlands Limestone and Mekong River regions).  Funding is through the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) -- a joint initiative of l’Agence Française de Dévelopement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the World Bank. The goal of the CEPF is to ensure civil society is engaged in biodiversity conservation.  The deadline for LoIs is September 11, 2009.

  – Press release
  – More about the funding

Personal communication

Oregon’s state legislature passed a bill (SB 513) that establishes policy about ecosystem services, encourages the state to use ecosystem markets to fulfill mitigation obligations, and creates an ecosystem markets working group that will convene during the year to discuss issues relating to ecosystem credit methodology and accounting, and development of integrated ecosystem markets in Oregon.  The working group will conclude with a report to the Oregon Sustainability Board on January 1, 2011.

  – Read Text of Bill

PR-USA.net

The Zoological Society of London has launched an online resource that centralizes 40 nation and region’s National Red Lists, with information on over 50,000 species.  The website acts like a library of National Red List documents and CBD 2010 biodiversity goal documents, searchable by region, country, taxon, etc.  The site will allow tracking nations’ progress in meeting Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 2010 biodiversity goals.

  – Read press release
  – National Red List website

Caribbean Net News

The Organization of American States released a publication in Spanish: "Legal Institutional Frameworks for Payments for Ecosystem Services: Eight Country Analysis". The report analyzes the institutions and experiences of PES in the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Peru.

  – Press Release
  – Report

Telegraph - UK

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) recently released a commissioned study on the potential use of biodiversity offsets to halt the decline of wildlife habitat in Britain.  Defra is considering the report's proposal to conduct a series of pilot projects for biodiversity offsets.  The opposition party is conducting a similar but separate scoping study on 'conservation credits'.

  – Read Article Here
  – DEFRA report

SocialFunds.com

The "Biodiversity Theme Report" addresses business risks to sectors that impact biodiversity: agricultural, extractive, paper and forestry, real estate, infrastructure, and tourism industries.  Risks include reputational risks from damaging ecosystems, the risk of increased regulatory oversight, the risk of limitations on access to capital and insurance, and risks associated with species loss and decreased ecosystem functions. 

  – Read Article Here
  – Biodiversity Theme Report

US AID Press Release

Afghanistan has created their first list of 33 protected species, including the snow leopard, the goitered gazelle, and paghman salamander.  More species will be listed over the year. The protection means that the species can now no longer he hunted or traded.

  – Press Release

Liberation - FR

In May, CDC Biodiversité (a subsidiary of the French financial institution "Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations") launched the first biodiversity bank in France, intended to sell biodiversity credits in advance of impacts.  The site is comprised of 357 hectares of abandoned orchards near Saint Martin de Crau in the south of France.  The site will be restored to semi-arid steppe habitat using a reintroduction of traditional sheep grazing methods. The area is home to rare and threatened birds, insects, and plants (Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, Little Bustard, Lesser Kestrel, endemic grasshopper).  France has had a law on the books since 1976 which requires avoidance, minimization, and compensation of impacts to the environment.  The biodiversity bank will offset development in the semi-arid steppe.

  – Read article (in French)
  – CDC Biodiversité website

Ecoagriculture PES Newsletter

Hat tip to Ecoagriculture Partners for this program summary: "Until now there has been almost no explicit consideration of PES schemes for "payment for agrobiodiversity conservation services" (PACS) that monetize the public conservation values at the farmer level, thereby creating incentives for the conservation of crop genetic diversity. The objectives of this Bioversity International project are to promote better nutrition, incomes and empowerment of stakeholder groups through sites in Bolivia, Peru, India and Yemen. It will undertake a wide spectrum of interlinked activities within this topic such as assessment and maintenance of cultural and genetic diversity, selection of better varieties, improvement of processing and value-addition, enhancement of capacities of stakeholders and marketing as well as influencing policy makers and raise public awareness."

  – Biodiversity International Website

US-based Ecosystem Service Projects Community of Practice launch website
Ecoagriculture PES Newsletter

Hat tip to Ecoagriculture Parnters for this program summary: "The Ecosystem Service Projects: Community of Practice is a collaborative network of organizations and agencies that are actively involved in the development of  market-based strategies and tools aimed at the conservation and restoration of ecosystems in the US. These include payments for carbon, watershed services and biodiversity conservation. The goals of the group are to 1) Foster peer to peer information exchange, learning, and coordination;  2) Collaborate on the development of common terminology, approaches, metrics, and guidelines for market operation; 3)  Reduce duplication, increase partnerships, and accelerate implementation of market-based approaches; 4) Encourage new ideas and innovation. The newly created website has been built as a central place for project participants to store files, view documents, and post comments."

  – Community of Practice Website

New Alabama Wetland and Stream Mitigation Bank (6/21/09)
Tuscaloosa News - AL, USA

Big Sandy Mitigation Bank has been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers to sell wetland and stream credits in portions of the following counties: Tuscaloosa, Hale, Bibb, Greene, Pickens, Fayette, Marengo, Perry, Lamar, Sumter, Walker, Jefferson, Franklin, Lawrence, Marion, Winston, Cullman, Marshall and Blount.  The mitigation bank is comprised of 1,060 acres on both sides of Sandy Creek and South Sandy Creek in Tuscaloosa County in Western Alabama.

  – Read Article Here

Washington State Department of Transportation website

Washington State Department of Transportation, partnering with the City of Renton, have restored or enhanced 130 acres of wetlands in creating the Springbrook Creek Wetland and Habitat Mitigation Bank.

  – Bank Website
  – Read Article Here