A Global Mitigation Hierarchy for Nature Conservation

Abstract

Efforts to conserve biodiversity comprise a patchwork of international goals, national-level plans, and local interventions that, overall, are failing. We discuss the potential utility of applying the mitigation hierarchy, widely used during economic development activities, to all negative human impacts on biodiversity. Evaluating all biodiversity losses and gains through the mitigation hierarchy could help prioritize consideration of conservation goals and drive the empirical evaluation of conservation investments through the explicit consideration of counterfactual trends and ecosystem dynamics across scales. We explore the challenges in using this framework to achieve global conservation goals, including operationalization and monitoring and compliance, and we discuss solutions and research priorities. The mitigation hierarchy's conceptual power and ability to clarify thinking could provide the step change needed to integrate the multiple elements of conservation goals and interventions in order to achieve successful biodiversity outcomes.

Keywords: adequacy; biodiversity; development; no net loss; sustainability.

Figure 1.

An example of the mitigation hierarchy applied to the oil palm industry in order to achieve no net loss of biodiversity for the negative impact on biodiversity (deforesting rainforest) as a result of planting oil palm monocultures, in this case African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). The images marked with an (a) represent the types of negative impacts from planting oil palm monocultures, and the corresponding images marked (b) represent ways to address these impacts by undertaking the four steps of the mitigation hierarchy. Steps 1 to 3 occur at the site of negative impact on biodiversity, whereas step 4 occurs away from the impact site, addressing residual adverse impacts.

Figure 2.

The key steps required to implement a global no net loss of biodiversity target through the mitigation hierarchy, with associated goals and targets. The left column shows the basic framework for setting a global no net loss target. The right column gives a specific example focusing on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List. This example shows one particular set of approaches among many that would be needed to achieve global no net loss human impact on biodiversity.