Capacity Building in Biodiversity and Impact Assessment- CBBIA

Principles for best practice in biodiversity and impact assessment

Principles for Assessing Biodiversity Impacts of Trade

IAIA- activities

IAIA Guiding Principles for Biodiversity and Impact Assessment

Precautionary principle presumption in favour of biodiversity protection where risks and uncertainty are high, where knowledge is lacking to ensure effective mitigation or where it is impossible to confirm ‘no significant impact’.

‘No net loss’ principle requires status quo to be maintained or enhanced in terms of quantitative and qualitative aspects of biodiversity in line with international agreements and obligations.

‘Ecosystem approach’, advocated by CBD and Ramsar Convention to ensure sustainable use. Biodiversity depends on healthily functioning ecosystems and processes that have to be assessed and managed in an integrated way.

IAIA Principles for Assessing Biodiversity Impacts of Trade

IA of trade policies and agreements can help to ensure that the potential benefits of trade are accompanied by effective conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

IAIA Principles for Assessing Biodiversity Impacts of Trade

Use IA to protect and promote sustainable use of biodiversity, so that yields/harvests can be maintained over time. Recognise the benefits of biodiversity in providing essential life support systems and ecosystem services such as water yield, water purification, flood control, soil conservation….. And also the costs of replacing these services.

CBBIA-IAIAAim

To develop and promote Impact Assessment as an effective instrument for addressing biodiversity considerations in decision making and the execution of projects, programmes, plans and policies.

CBBIA-IAIAOutputs

– A network of trained professionals– Capacity-building activities eg workshops and

training, based on needs assessment and review of current practice in participating regions and countries

– Guidance on biodiversity-inclusive EIA and SEA– Tested training materials– Case study material based on country-experience for

the further development of existing international guidelines on the integration of biodiversity considerations in EIA and SEA

Capacity Building in Biodiversity and Impact AssessmentCapacity Building in Biodiversity and Impact Assessment

PARTNERSHIPS PARTNERSHIPS

Working with:Governments, organisations, and individuals - to build capacity

Professionals - to build expertise and knowledgeGovernments - to strengthen laws and institutions

Biodiversity-related Conventions (CBD, Ramsar, CMS) - to promote ‘biodiversity-inclusive impact assessment

Partner Organisations - to implement regional workplans in Southern Africa, S/SE Asia, Central America and Small Island States, including IUCN, SAIEA

Individuals - to help their professional development

For Further Information, contact:

Jo Treweek, Technical Program Manager

jo@treweek.fsnet.co.uk

Biodiversity resourcesPeople need biodiversity.

It is the basis for food security and for a variety of ecosystem services on which people depend for their livelihoods.

It is an insurance policy on which many lives and futures depend.

It is increasingly threatened.

Use of biological resources for human livelihoods is often unsustainable, and many human activities totally ignore (externalize) any consideration of biodiversity, at a high cost to human development.

The objective of mainstreaming biodiversity is to internalize the goals of biodiversity conservation and the sustainable use of biological resources into economic sectors and

development models, policies and programmes, and therefore into all human behaviour.

“The most important lesson of the last ten years is that the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity will be impossible to meet until consideration of biodiversity is fully integrated into other sectors. The need to mainstream the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources across all sectors of the national economy, the society and the policy-making framework is a complex challenge at the heart of the Convention.”(Hague Ministerial Declaration from COP VI to WSSD, 2002)

Less than 10% of the world’s area is ‘protected’

“Impact Assessment is an important mainstreaming tool, ensuring that biodiversity values are built into decision-making, from the strategic to the local level”

Most biodiversity struggles to co-exist with human development. This frog is only found on Cape Town’s city race course

Agriculture can promote or destroy biodiversity, depending on how it is managed.

Photo Roel Slootweg

Invasion by non-native species, conversion of forests and other habitats, pollution, nitrogen enrichment, soil erosion and damage, over-exploitation of water resources

Agricultural biodiversity: food, wealth, livelihood, culture and tradition, diversity of crops and livestock, rich agro-biodiversity

Many damaging activities do not require consent and are not subject to IA

Many of these are influenced by trade-related policies

Level:

Bioregion

Landscape

Ecosystem

Habitat

Community

Species

Population

Individual

Gene

• Composition: what, how abundant

• Structure: how units are organised in time and space

• Function: role of units in maintaining natural processes

The science-part…

Does the intended activity cause an imbalance in any biological, physical or chemical components of the ecosystem, or in their interactions, which maintain the ecosystem and its products, functions and attributes?

What are the key drivers for the sector?

Values, needs and uses

• The variety of ways in which people need and use biodiversity

• Key dependencies• Implications for MDGs, poverty alleviation• Ecosystem services and the costs of fixing

or substituting them..• Opportunities associated with biodiversity,

now and for future generations

Biodiversity benefits: ecosystem goods and services

Restored vegetation stabilises soils and reduces expenditure on soil erosion management

Piping water from a forest reserve in Kenya reduces grazing pressure and makes cattle more productive

Work on Indicators

•Sustainable trade needs sustainable production•Sustainable production needs sustainable biodiversity.. It depends fundamentally on functioning ecosystems•Policy (and indicators) must be science-based, value-driven •what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed

The Indicator is….Biodiversity

• Biodiversity is.. Protected areas.. Or it is very complicated

• Pressure/ State/ Response [threats associated with agriculture…current

condition of biodiversity… outcomes for biodiversity and people who use it

• Risk-based approaches• Critical indicators of change, thresholds• Early warnings

Listings and designation procedures lag behind rates of loss

Biodiversity State or condition..

• Extinction risk, endangerment

• Endemism

• Centres of agricultural endemism

• Biodiversity hotspots

• Areas of high species richness

• Ecosystem health

Pressure/ threats

• Forest conversion

• Increased area under intensive use

• Population growth

• Alien invasives…

Responses

• Outcomes for biodiversity: degree of threat, vulnerability

• Outcomes for people who need and use biodiversity: who is affected, what impacts on household income, employment and economic opportunity?

• Changes in productivity of ecosystems, their viability…

• Changes in value from ecosystems, services provide

All plant species

~24 000

Endemic spp ~12000

Threatened species ~ 2000

HabitatLoss

¬ 100% of ecosystem intact

80% If habitat loss continues, ecosystem functioning will be compromised

¬

¬ 60% Threshold forconserving ecosystemfunctioning

¬ 12-32% Point beyond which most species may be lost

No natural habitat left; ecosystem ceases to exist¬

• Least threatened

• Vulnerable

• Endangered

• Criticallyendangered

Threatened ecosystem

s